Fair Labor Standards Act - FLSA

See: Unions.

What is "fair"? Is it fair for labor to negotiate collectively against business? In America, it is. In China, not so much. Is it fair for laborers to not, in fact, be locked into a burning shirtwaist factory building, and die of smoke inhalation burns, and other horrid ways to go? It happened. Is it fair that every race, color, creed, and gender be treated with equal opportunity to win the job? Of course it is.

These questions are what the FLSA is all about. After centuries of abuse, the working man (and woman) became, finally, the people, and employers...heard the people sing. Under the guise of unfair labor practices, unions prospered in the middle part of the 20th century, and today we exist in a different paradigm, where computer processing power and robot perspecuity has become so powerful that the lower third of human talent, drive, intelligence, and effort is fast being economically replaced by technology.

So...what's fair now?

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: Who benefits from unions?11 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop who benefits from unions And while union

00:07

workers duh Maybe a better question is who doesn't benefit

00:11

from unions Well okay okay Union workers exist because workers

00:16

were abused at different points in our country's history Ever

00:20

read the grapes of wrath Yeah Joad family Peach picking

00:23

for like five bucks a day or less And then

00:26

there's norma rae great film should see it won the

00:28

academy award and remember the speech You love me You

00:31

love me That union in a cotton fabric mill lots

00:36

of abuse there So yes unions exist in reaction to

00:39

bad acting on the part of the man and they

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collectively bargain against the man on behalf of the workers

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who belong And they made the country a whole lot

00:50

more fair and square So thankyou unions for that Historically

00:53

well guess what time moved forward and corporations today frequently

00:58

don't want to deal with unions They dictated salaries and

01:01

benefits as they saw fit and well the workers pushed

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back Union's got uppity and then corporations got down ity

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all right And the result was that all whole bunch

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of unionized shops were forced to hire a lot more

01:15

Workers than they really needed That is that the man

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was required to hire thirty seven people instead of the

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twenty three he actually needed And the work rules that

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originally were intended to protect made it hard to train

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and to fire like really talented people did not want

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to be paid like the average joe with the same

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career path But really untalented people loved the fact that

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it was hard to get fired inside of a union

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So you got all kinds conflict inside of the union

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as well Got it And you know the firing thing

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ever been to a d m v car place that

01:47

we get your license Wake up They're still all right

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Well let's Talk to a now bankrupt newspaper company who

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couldn't downsized fast enough to accommodate the assault of the

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lower margin internet delivered competitors Local newspapers were highly unionized

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at the time in the nineties and union rules would

02:04

not let them fire workers fast enough And then the

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industry revenue model changed really fast Newspapers could not absorb

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the cost changes fast enough They couldn't fire people So

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they all went bankrupt And then all the workers were

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out of jobs and everyone ended up being out of

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work Yeah well that was a fail on the unions

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part They didn't move quick enough So who doesn't benefit

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from unions Well the largest union in the country the

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u s government Our own g men have the largest

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set of union workers in the country and they cost

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taxpayers of fortune They can almost never be fired They

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have spectacularly expensive benefits and the real salaries If you

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do fair math are actually very high Taxpayers pay for

02:48

government unions Often the union worker has a way better

02:52

deal than the taxpayer him or herself who supports that

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union worker Yet taxpayers keep voting in raises and benefits

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and all kinds of rules that let the government higher

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Thirty seven people for jobs that really only need fourteen

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We can't figure out the rationale there either maybe the

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taxpayer someday you'll wise up Police officer works thirty years

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on the force from age twenty two Two fifty two

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not darth vader Kind different force She can then retire

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and make eighty five percent of what her average pay

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wass for her last three years And of course in

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those last three years she does massive overtime and extra

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work toe goose up her eventual hundred seventy five grand

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a year Pay Ask your folks how they feel about

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a cop making one hundred seventy five grand in a

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year All right well she then retires but for the

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remaining thirty years that she'll live she'll get one hundred

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seventy five grand a year That's her pension that's what

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cops get in california Welcome to the left state here

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So she might claim that she quote on ly unquote

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made one hundred seventy five grand We think that's a

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lot for cops getting cats out of trees But in

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fact for the thirty years she worked she actually cost

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the taxpayers something like double that amount plus benefits So

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it isn't that joe taxpayer doesn't believe the officer has

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worked really hard The question remains Does that person deserve

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so much better pay And retirement and benefits and all

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the other stuff then joe taxpayer who's funding her well

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Police have a great union and jury's still out on

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a lot of these questions But you know what they

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say It's the government office who writes all the checks

04:31

Unions can't live with them Yeah that's it We're done 00:04:34.238 --> [endTime] that that's where they stopped the conversation

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