For nonagricultural operations restricts the hours that children under age of 16 can org and forbids the employment of children under age of 18 in certain Jobs deems too dangerous. For agricultural operations, it prohibits the employment of children under age 16 during school hours. Child Labor provisions under FALLS are designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment In Jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety (United States Department of Labor). The function of the Labor Act is to protect children under the age of 1 6 from working more than three hours a day.
The child labor laws are beneficial to the children because they protect them from being abused. The laws also ensure that the work will not interfere with the child’s education. Some families live in poverty and in order to make ends meet, children under 14 of age are working. This is one reason contribute to the increase of drop out in school. About half of that 250 million work full time and all year. Around 61 % are in Asia, 32% in Africa and 7% in Latin America. 70% of them work in risky environments and 70% work in agriculture.
Although child abort is most common in undeveloped countries, it persists in advanced countries as well. For instance in the united States over 230, 000 children work in agriculture and more than 13, 000 kids work in sweatshops. An example of unfair child labor of one of these children Is Cabal. He was sold by his family to pay off debt. He was Just four when he was sold. He was forced to work a carpet factory for twelve hours each day. He was beaten repetitively, abused verbally, and chained to his loom for SIX years. Severe undernourishment and many years of immobility in front of a loom stunted is growth.
In 1992 Cabal and his friends from the carpet factory secretly attended a freedom day celebration to end bonded labor. Cabal was free and he became a well- known opponent of child labor. His movement frightened many of the people who used kids as bonded labor. After he received a human rights award later he was killed by gunmen hired by factory owners (Child Labor, peg. 5). Minimum Wages is the lowest hourly wage by employer is required to pay an employee. The federal Minimum Wage is $7. 25 an hour for covered non-exempt employees effective July 24, 2009.
Some states required employers to pay a higher minimum wage than the federal hourly rate. There are some employees who are not required to be paid Mullen wage Including workers under 20 and workers who earn tips-The FALLS does not provide wage payment collection procedures for an the ELSE. President Obama proposed to Congress to increasing the minimum wage from $7. 25 to $9, and then indexing it to inflation. Nine months later, President Barack Obama is throwing his support behind congressional Democrats’ proposal to ease the minimum wage to $10. 0 and peg it to inflation, more than a dollar higher than the $9 proposal he made in his State of the Union address in February. Some Congressman like Harkin and Miller think the minimum wage hike to $9 would be insufficient. The President has long supported raising the minimum wage so hardworking Americans can have a decent wage for a days works to support their families and make ends meet (Huff Post, Novo. 3, 2013). Minimum wage still remains $7. 25 per hour since 2009 when President George W. Bush signed into law.
The federal overtime provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (ELSE). Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a work week at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay. There is no limit in the Act on the number of hours employees aged 16 and older may work in any work week. The Act does not require overtime pay for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, or regular days of rest, unless overtime is worked on such days. The Act applies on work week basis.
An employee’s work week s a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours in seven consecutive 24 hour periods. Normally, overtime pay earned in a particular work week must be paid on regular pay day for pay period in which the wages were earned. There are cases prior to Labor Law Standards Act (ELSE) lawsuit brought against the City of Houston by Fire Department personnel in 1999. The EMUS workers contended that the City inappropriately claimed they were covered by Section 7(k) exemption under the FALLS. The City of Houston was not paying the EMUS workers overtime unless they worked more or equivalent to 53 hours.
The EMUS workers claimed they should pay their overtime after working more than 40 hours a week. The City of Houston awarded $10 million in ELSE damages to Fire department employees. The ELSE is a federal law that protects the employee rights. This labor law only applies to nonexempt employees and to employers who meet certain definitions of the Act. Its main protections require employers to pay time and one half of an employee’s regular rate of pay for time worked over a 40 hour work week, requires equal pay for equal work, and provides for a federal minimum wage.
