Articles Posted in Wage and Hour

The eight-hour workday was developed during the Industrial Revolution so that workers doing manual labor in a factory would not have to work as many hours. Prior to that, in the late 18th century, factory workers worked 10-16 hours days to keep factories running 24/7. A campaign was started to have people work no more than eight hours in a day so that they would have eight hours of work, eight hours of recreation, and eight hours of rest. The campaign was successful.

The goal was humane, but it doesn’t take into account our modern situation in which employees who work steadily for hours on end, sometimes for 10 to 12 hours in a day, are assumed to be more productive than employees who take breaks. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American actually works 8.8 hours in a day. This is more time than the average worker spends doing anything else.

However, one study shows that workers who take brief breaks are more productive than those who keep working continuously for more hours, regardless of the number of hours they were working overall. Ideally, according to that study, there is an hour of uninterrupted work and then a break of about 15-20 minutes.

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The Texas Minimum Wage Act establishes minimum wage for nonexempt employees in Texas. It has adopted the federal minimum wage, and currently minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. This is too low for anybody to live on, and it is shocking when you consider how much exempt employees such as CEOs of corporations and professionals can make. Since the federal minimum wage hasn’t been changed since 2009, it has not kept pace with inflation, and what that $7.25 minimum wage represents is much less than what it previously meant.

The Texas Minimum Wage Act also provides for agricultural piece rate workers, exempts certain employers, allows employers to count trips and the value of meals and lodging toward their employees’ minimum wage, and specifies civil remedies for violations.

With specified restrictions, employers may use an employee’s tips and the value of meals and lodging toward the minimum wage that must be paid. The law also specifies that those who live at the job site for on-call time do not need to be paid in addition to their assigned working time. Certain other employees who have productivity impairments, have mental health or development problems, or are of a certain age may also be paid sub-minimum wage.

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Before minimum wage and overtime were instituted, the average American worker worked brutal hours. Workers were easily exploited by their wealthier employers, which forced them to work around the clock just to be able to survive, living paycheck to paycheck and not making much more than what it took to feed their families.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a number of bills, one of which was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). The FLSA applied to industries that together held about one-fifth of the labor force, and, among other things, it set a minimum wage at 25 cents for those industries.

Importantly, it also introduced overtime regulations that guaranteed all nonexempt workers be paid time and a half for hours worked over 40 hours a week. These rules were intended to address the exploitation of workers and the lack of jobs.

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