What laws protect workers in the US?

With cases like workplace discrimination and retaliation increasing, it is more important than ever to learn and understand the laws that safeguard you in the workplace.

Every country has various comprehensive labor laws designed to support and protect employees. From the right to fair compensation, minimum wage to 40-hour workweek, as a worker, it is important that you are aware of this legislation and understand the responsibilities.

Specifically, it is essential you understand and know about the most important federal laws, including the eight listed below.

Workplace Safety

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) was passed in 1970 with the main objective of creating safer and healthier workplaces. Designed to minimize the dangers in the American workplace, the OSH Act protects the employees from chemical and mechanical hazards.

The act makes sure that the workers are maintaining a safe working environment, provided with appropriate protective gear and following all safety standards.

The Minimum Wage

Established in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ensures that American workers receive a minimum wage for their work. This law also sets minimum age requirements along with minimum wage and overtime.

The act even ensures that non-exempt workers get time-and-a-half for any overtime they perform. The act additionally established a tipping exemption to the law, in which employees who earn more than $30 in tips can get as little as $2.13 per hour. But if a worker’s tips and regular wages do not make up to the current federal minimum wage, the employer is lawfully bound to make up the difference.

Health Coverage

The Affordable Care Act (2010) promises to make health insurance coverage a right for workers of most medium to large-sized businesses. For this, the ACA established the “Established Shared Responsibility Payment,” a provision that requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer the workers a minimal level of health insurance coverage.

If the businesses fail to do so, they could face a substantial penalty under the ACA. Besides, to qualify as a “full-time employee,” employees must work a minimum of 30 hours a week.

Unemployment Benefits

Benefiting the unemployed workers, the 1939 Federal Unemployment Tax Act provides funding for federal-state joint programs intended to disburse unemployment insurance to employees who are fired or laid off.

To pass for unemployment benefits, you must have been unemployed due to circumstances outside of your control. Fired and Laid-off workers must also meet any state-specific guidelines to qualify for payments. Qualified workers can receive unemployment compensation for up to 26 weeks, even though the payment can be extended during periods of recession.

Social Security

The Social Security Act of 1935 provides disabled and retired employees with a financial safety net, bringing many seniors out of poverty in the process. Full benefits are paid out monthly based on the workers’ year of birth and previous monthly earnings.

These advantages are financed by a payroll tax, with employees and employers contributing an equal amount to the fund.

Family and Medical Leave Act

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was approved into law by Bill Clinton in 1993. Under FMLA, qualified employees can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year if they choose to stay home after the birth or adoption of a child. The act also provides protection and time-off workers who need time off to deal with the critical illness of a family member.

Millions of young people attend college every year, most with the hope of gaining more job opportunities as a result. Nearly 16 million people were enrolled in undergraduate programs in the fall of 2020, according to EducationData.org, and with 20% set to graduate annually, millions have already begun flocking the job market this year.

If you're one of these recent graduates, it helps to have some sense of the landscape you're about to enter. In part, that job market's governed by laws put in place to protect you, the worker, from various types of predatory or abusive behaviors you might encounter. They also set in stone what you're entitled to.

"Workers have fewer rights in the United States than in many other countries," says Kimberly Phillips-Fein, professor of history at New York University. "But the ones that they have are important."

Depending on where you are in the country, different states and cities enforce different mandates on employers. But, on a federal level, there are laws most employers must abide by. Policy is nuanced and complex in terms of who it applies to ― some employers of full-time students or people with disabilities can be exempt from paying them the full minimum wage, for example― so it's important to look at the fine print to see if these apply to you.

Here's an overview of a few federal labor and employment laws new grads should know about.

The Fair Labor Standards Act sets a minimum wage

One of the biggest national employment policies is the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. It has since been changed and updated multiple times. More than 143 million American workers are protected by the FLSA, according to the Department of Labor.

First, the law sets a national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour as of 2009. States and cities throughout the country set their own minimum wages as well. The minimum wage in Delaware is $10.50 per hour, for example, while the minimum wage in Washington state is $14.49 per hour. But, nationally, most employers are not allowed to pay you less than $7.25 per hour.

Tipped workers are exempt from this, as an example, like many waiters and bartenders, and instead are subject to a federal minimum wage of $2.13 per hour.

The law also stipulates that some workers who put in more than 40 hours in a seven-day period must be provided overtime pay equal to time and a half their regular rate for any additional hours. "This really applies to hourly workers" as opposed to salaried workers, says Phillips-Fein. "For some recent grads who are not hourly workers, you don't actually have that protection."

Hourly workers get paid according to the hours they work, while salaried workers get paid a consistent sum as full-time employees.

Under the FLSA, employers must also keep a record of both employee time and pay as "a way of making sure that your rights are respected," says Phillips-Fein. It also sets regulations around child labor for any workers under the age of 18.

Though the FLSA covers many workers, whether they work in the private or public sector, it still doesn't cover everyone. Independent contractors are not covered by the law, for example.

Laws cover safety, unionizing, leave and discrimination

Federal policy also covers health and safety on the job, medical leave and discrimination. Here are a few other important laws to know about:

• The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to "provide their employees with working conditions that are free of known dangers," according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Workers' rights under the law include receiving training about hazards in their workplace and OSHA standards that apply to it. 

• The National Labor Relations Act "gives people the right to organize unions" in the private sector, says Phillips-Fein. It also gives you "the right to talk about problems at your job," she says, as well as share your salary with colleagues at work.

• The Family and Medical Leave Act gives certain employees ― of private sector companies with 50 or more employees or of state or local governments, for example ― 12 weeks of "unpaid, job-protected leave" for reasons such as the birth of a child, the care of a spouse with a serious health condition or the employee's own serious health condition.

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 "covers discrimination in your job based on race, sex, orientation, gender," says Najah Farley, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project, as well as your religion and national origin.

These laws "help balance that inevitably unequal relationship"

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