On its face, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is an exceptional piece of legislation. By setting basic minimum wage and overtime pay standards, the FLSA gives bargaining power to workers, an anomaly in our profit-driven market.
Still, this celebrated accomplishment of effective advocacy by living wage proponents — enacted 80 years ago — has its loopholes and shortcomings. Certain jobs, in the domestic or agricultural sectors, for example, are excluded from FLSA coverage. It is no accident that these jobs are often performed by white women and people of color; politicians interested in maintaining male domination of family economic life, as well as Southern politicians invested in preserving white supremacy, pushed for these exclusions to be put in place in the law.
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