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Regulation of Wages, Benefits And
Working Conditions
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 as amended in
1974 created minimum wage and overtime right for
private sector and governmental employees with a few
exceptions. States may pass similar
legislation providing workers with better minimum
wage and overtime rules.
The Family and Medical Leave Act
of 1933 provides workers with twelve weeks of unpaid
medical leave and continues medical coverage when an
employee is attending to certain medical conditions
of a close relative. Some states also provide
greater protections with this regard.
Employer pension and health care
plans are regulated by the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act of 1974. The legislation
federal legislation overrides state law regarding
plan coverage and plan administration. It also
overrides state law with regard to discrimination
against employees preventing them from participating
in or obtaining benefits from these plans.
Congress passed the Occupational
Safety and Health Act in 1970 creating safety
standards in the workplace. The law also
protects employee whistleblowers who report unsafe
working conditions and gives workers the right to
refuse to work in certain unsafe conditions.
Some of the standards created by the Act have been
challenged in court by some industry groups.
Some states have passed similar legislation
providing wider reaching safeguards for workers.
Employment Discrimination And Whistleblowers
Although the U.S. Congress passed
legislation barring racial employment discrimination
as long ago as 1867, Supreme Court decisions in
civil rights cases made the law ineffective.
During the Second World War legislation was passed
prohibiting defense contractors from practicing
racial employment discrimination. Then, in
1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed barring
private employers from discriminating against
employees on the basis of race, religion, gender and
national origin. The Act was further amended
in 1972 to include governmental employees and
amended again in 1981 to include discrimination on
the basis of pregnancy. The Act was amended
one more time in 1991 to reverse a number of Supreme
Court decisions that had weakened the law.
With the Age Discrimination in
Employment at of 1967 and the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990, Congress gave protection
against discrimination to employees over the age of
forty. Certain protections against
discrimination based on an employee's immigration
status was also provided by the Immigration Reform
and Control Act of 1986.
States are encouraged by the Civil
Rights Act to enact state legislation against worker
discrimination. Some states have passed
legislation offering greater protections against
employee discrimination than that offered by the
federal statutes. Some states are leading the
way in providing protections against sexual
orientation or marital status worker discrimination.
Job Security
Employees working without a
written employment agreement are considered "at
will" employees who can have their employment
terminated without notice and without reason at the
discretion of their employer. These employees
are extended the rights provided by federal and
state laws prohibiting certain employer actions such
as racial discrimination, retaliation against
whistleblower or such action would otherwise be
prohibited by law. Some states have taken the
position that "at will" employees also have implied
contract rights to fair treatment by employers under
the state's common law.
The Worker Adjustment and
Retraining Notification Act of 1988, known as the
WARN Act, requires that private sector employers
provide sixty days notice to employees of large
scale layoffs and plant closures in most cases.
Some states have passed similar legislation
requiring more stringent notification requirements.
State and federal government
employees are provided job protections under civil
service systems. In some instances, government
employees have acquired "property rights" in their
job entitling them to additional job protection
under the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
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