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Prohibiting Discrimination

Subsequent legislation has also banned forms of disparate treatment which were previously used to skirt this stipulation. For instance, women must be afforded the same hiring, job training, promotion opportunities and retirement plans as men. Despite the law, it is reported that the disparity in pay and in promotion between men and women is one of the highest of the so-called advanced countries.

Article 3 of the Labor Standards Act prohibits ethnic, national and religious discrimination by employers in regards to work conditions: "An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions by reason of the nationality, creed or social status of any worker..."

United States labor law

Members of the Writers' Guild of America on strike against deteriorating terms and conditions in their employment agreements in 2007

The pattern is even more mixed in the area of wages and working conditions. Federal law establishes minimum wages and overtime rights for most workers in the private and public sectors; state and local laws may provide more expansive rights. Similarly, federal law provides minimum workplace safety standards, but allows the states to take over those responsibilities and to provide more stringent standards.

Finally, both federal and state laws protect workers from employment discrimination. In most areas these two bodies of law overlap; as an example, federal law permits states to enact their own statutes barring discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, national origin and age, so long as the state law does not provide less protections than federal law would. Federal law, on the other hand, pre-empts most state statutes that would bar employers from discriminating against employees to prevent them from obtaining pensions or other benefits or retaliating against them for asserting those rights.

The United States Congress has not ratified the International Labour Organization Convention on the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 or the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949.

Regulation of wages, benefits and working conditions

A graph of the changes in the federal minimum wage rate. Light blue is the real wage and dark blue the nominal wage

The Fair Labor Standards Act^[5] of 1938 (FLSA) establishes minimum wage and overtime rights for most private sector workers, with a number of exemptions and exceptions. Congress amended the Act in 1974 to cover governmental employees, leading to a series of United States Supreme Court decisions in which the Court first held that the law was unconstitutional, and then reversed itself to permit the FLSA to cover governmental employees.

The FLSA does not pre-empt state and local governments from providing greater protections under their own laws. A number of states have enacted higher minimum wages and extended their laws to cover workers who are excluded under the FLSA or to provide rights that federal law ignores. Local governments have also adopted a number of "living wage" laws that require those employers that contract with them to pay higher minimum wages and benefits to their employees. The federal government, along with many state governments, likewise requires employers to pay the prevailing wage, which typically reflects the standards established by unions' collective bargaining agreements in the area, to workers on public works projects.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act ^[6] establishes standards for the funding and operation of pension and health care plans provided by employers to their employees. The ERISA pre-empts most state legislation that attempts to regulate how such plans are administered and, to a great extent, what types of health care coverage they provide. ERISA also pre-empts state law claims that an employer discriminated against employees in order to prevent them from obtaining the benefits they would have earned otherwise or to retaliate against them for asserting their rights.

The Family and Medical Leave Act,^[7] passed in 1993, requires employers to provide workers with twelve weeks of unpaid medical leave and continuing medical benefit coverage in order to attend to certain medical conditions of close relatives or themselves. Many states have comparable statutory provisions; some states have offered greater protections.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act,^[8] signed into law in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, creates specific standards for workplace safety. The Act has spawned years of litigation by industry groups that have challenged the standards limiting the amount of permitted exposure to chemicals such as benzene. The Act also provides for protection for "whistleblowers" who complain to governmental authorities about unsafe conditions while allowing workers the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions in certain circumstances. The Act allows states to take over the administration of OSHA in their jurisdictions, so long as they adopt state laws at least as protective of workers' rights as under federal law. More than half of the states have done so.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

The preamble of the Charter

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union enshrines certain political, social, and economic rights for European Union (EU) citizens and residents, into EU law. It was drafted by the European Convention and solemnly proclaimed on 7 December 2000 by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission. However its then legal status was uncertain and it did not have full legal effect ^[1] until the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009.

Under the Charter, the European Union (EU) must act and legislate consistently with the Charter and the EU's courts will strike down EU legislation which contravenes it. The Charter only applies to EU member states when they are implementing EU law and does not extend the competences of the EU beyond the competences given to it in the treaties.

The text

The Charter contains some 54 articles divided into seven titles. The first six titles deal with substantive rights under the headings: dignity, freedoms, equality, solidarity, citizens' rights and justice, while the last title deals with the interpretation and application of the Charter. Much of Charter is based on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), European Social Charter, the case-law of the European Court of Justice and pre-existing provisions of European Union law.

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  The first title, dignity, guarantees the right to life and prohibits torture, slavery and the death penalty. Its provisions are mostly based on the ECHR, although Article 1 closely reflects Article 1 of the German Basic Law.
  

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  The second title covers liberty, privacy, marriage, thought, expression, assembly, education, work, property and asylum.
  

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  The third title covers equality, the rights of children and the elderly.
  

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  The fourth title covers social and workers' rights including the right to fair working conditions, protection against unjustified dismissal, and access to health care.
  

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  The fifth title covers the rights of the EU citizens such as the right to vote in election to the European Parliament and to move freely within the EU. It also includes several administrative rights such as a right to good administration, to access documents and to petition the European Parliament.
  

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  The sixth title covers justice issues such as the right to an effective remedy, a fair trial, to the presumption of innocence, the principle of legality, non-retrospectivity and double jeopardy.
  

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  The seventh title concerns the interpretation and application of the Charter. These issues are dealt with above.