After decades of lobbying and strikes by various labor unions and organizations, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938 as part of the New Deal, a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at reforming the financial industry and pulling the U.S. out of the Great Depression. Among other labor standards, the FLSA established a 44-hour work week, which was amended to 40 hours two years later.
Under the FLSA, employers were required to pay overtime at a rate…
