Democrats seek to undo institutional racism embedded in pivotal New Deal law

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

House Democrats are pushing legislation designed to overturn the lasting legacies of institutional racism that were embedded in a key New Deal law.

Days after he signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt praised it for being as important as Social Security, which had taken effect three years earlier. The FLSA set minimum wage, overtime pay and youth employment standards, and was a major step toward improving the lives of American workers.

But the law is now seen in a broader context — one that does not diminish its accomplishments, but addresses its exclusions. To secure the votes needed to pass the bill, Roosevelt agreed to certain exemptions for farmworkers, domestic workers and others that led to generational financial injury for Black and brown people.

“By excluding jobs held by Black and brown workers from basic worker protections, the FLSA inserted institutional racism into federal wage and hour law,” Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), chairwoman of the House, Education and Labor subcommittee on workforce protections, said at a hearing last month. “Today, farmworkers still do not have overtime protections. Live-in domestic workers still do not have overtime protections. And tipped workers are still not guaranteed the full federal minimum wage.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-seek-to-undo-institutional-racism-embedded-in-pivotal-new-deal-law/ar-AAKYj8S

[malaise]

1. Get thee to the greatest page

for visibility - this needs to be seen

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R...nt

[Politicub]

3. K&r

[BobTheSubgenius]

4. This province used to be a leader in worker's rights, but a RW, pro-corporate govt. was elected,

Expo came along, and that was used as an excuse to batter those rights into submission. The government put a billionaire in charge of it, and a strong mandate to "git 'er done" turned into carte blanche to enact employment laws and gut existing ones in a way that business had only salivated over before.

Expo got built, it was a big success, as those things go, but the labour movement never recovered. At one time - when BC ruled the roost in the pulp and paper industry - Port Alberni, where there are a couple of huge mills and a lot of access for raw materials in, and finished goods out, had the highest per capita hourly wages of any city in North America.

Even among high school kids who had part time jobs at Mac Blo (MacMillan Blodell) on Saturdays, or summer jobs for the school break, new cars weren't rare. Imagine a high school kid being able to afford a NEW car on a part time job. A late friend of mine told me he made $8 an hour pushing a broom on Saturdays...and he graduated in 1972!

It sure ain't that way now. In 2018, the median household income in PA was under $50K, after tax. I live in Saanich, which is one of the 5 core munis that make up Greater Victoria, and that figure is a little over $77K, under 3 hours of driving time away.

Resource-based employment ain't what it useta was.