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Plenty of laws regulating labor in this country, the Fair Labor Standards Act being chief among them.

Here's another resource with more information on the differences between employees and contractors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/technology/foxconn-said-to-use-forced-student-labor-to-make-iphones.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

According to the department of labor, slave labor is

"Forced labor" under international standards means all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for its nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily, and includes indentured labor. "Forced labor" includes work provided or obtained by force, fraud, or coercion ...

Threats of university punishment if the internships is not taken is a kind of coercion, therefore making this sort of behavior slave labor.

Do note that I said allegations in my previous post, which are quite legitimate claims. These aren't just being made up to try to trash Apple.

We'll just start here...

(OTOH, I find it hilarious that I get more calls when I declare my race as "Other" (as though the HR machinery seems to completely ignore the fact that I put "Human" in the descriptor field. Go figure.)

I changed mine to Asian since I was born in the Philippines (albeit to white parents stationed there). I did it because I overheard an executive director at my firm tell managers that minorities and women were off limits when selecting folks for an impending layoff.

We'll just start here...

(OTOH, I find it hilarious that I get more calls when I declare my race as "Other" (as though the HR machinery seems to completely ignore the fact that I put "Human" in the descriptor field. Go figure.)

Statute, not just case law, says that computer programmers are (almost always) exempt employees. Because laws are not required to be sensible, you may note that the pay requirements to qualify for exemption are vastly different depending whether the programmer is paid hourly or salary. Hourly, the minimum pay for exemption is $27.63 per hour. For salary, the minimum pay is far less, specifically $455 per week ($11.38/hour assuming a forty-hour workweek).

This is, of course, federal statute in the United States, and individual states may have different laws.

Source: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm

The Test For Unpaid Interns

There are some circumstances under which individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs may do so without compensation. The Supreme Court has held that the term "suffer or permit to work" cannot be interpreted so as to make a person whose work serves only his or her own interest an employee of another who provides aid or instruction. This may apply to interns who receive training for their own educational benefit if the training meets certain criteria. The determination of whether an internship or training program meets this exclusion depends upon all of the facts and circumstances of each such program.

The following six criteria must be applied when making this determination:

        The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
        The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
        The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
        The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
        The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
        The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

If all of the factors listed above are met, an employment relationship does not exist under the FLSA, and the Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions do not apply to the intern. This exclusion from the definition of employment is necessarily quite narrow because the FLSA’s definition of “employ” is very broad. Some of the most commonly discussed factors for “for-profit” private sector internship programs are considered below.

If M$ has any US govt. contracts (and they surely do), they fall under the Drug-Free Workplace Act.

http://www.dol.gov/elaws/asp/drugfree/screen4.htm

Thank Ronnie Raygun for that one.

If you are in the US and got fired because you used up your sick leave and hit some arbitrary cutoff set by HR for unpaid leave that was less than the statutory amounts your former employer is opening themselves up for a lawsuit and Federal fines. The Family and Medical Leave Act entitles you to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year for illness or medical conditions that leave you unable to perform your duties: http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/#.UMIqn7SmClI

No. It is HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Here's a reference from a U.S. government website:

Hourly workers face more scrutiny when it comes to meal and break times because they automatically qualify for overtime after 40 hours a week (and 8 hrs/day in some states). Certain employees, most notably executives and administrative workers, are exempt from these overtime requirements, so they don't get paid extra for working beyond 40 hours/week. So it's not really that management has it better. There is just less legal need to monitor management's work hours as closely.

Federal law does not require time off for meals and breaks, but many states do. e.g. California labor law when I ran a business a few years ago was that employees were entitled to a 30 min unpaid meal break for every 8 hours worked, as well as a 15 minute paid break every 4 hours. This cuts both ways. The employee can get in trouble with the company if they exceed their break allowance. But likewise the company can get in trouble with the state if they're not giving you your full break time every day. In California's case, if you refused to take your breaks, I was forced to send you home after 7.5 hours (excluding lunch) but still pay you for 8. The reason being I'd have to pay overtime if you exceeded 8 hours of work in a day (7.5 hours work, 0.5 hours breaks). (There's all sorts of other fun things too like split shifts. I did my best to educate my employees on the legal requirements, so they could notify us if the way we scheduled them was illegal. The requirements are specific and complex enough that it's inevitable that managers will make scheduling mistakes.)

I highly recommend reading up on the labor laws for your state, and discussing any concerns you may have with your coworkers (so you're not fired on the spot as a "troublemaker") and bringing it up with management. They're not monitoring bathroom break time just for the hell of it, they're being very literal in their interpretation of labor laws. But two can play at that game.

They probably just call it an "internship."

Captcha: Pretend.

There are federal labor laws for internships too. http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm

This would not meet the qualifications for being an unpaid internship ... and both DOL and IRS can separately nail a company for that. Likely their lawyers set it up so the beachfront property rental is denoted to be the agreed compensation.

In which case these interviewees will get a 1099 at the end of the year and pay taxes for having gone to the interview.

How exactly is this volunteer work? Also, this is nothing akin to working for a non-profit charity. And if you don't want to belive me just check out what the Department of Labor says:

Under the FLSA, employees may not volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers.

Their emphasis not mine.

It's not about if someone making $149k, $150k or $151k can be considered rich.

Try instead to figure out who's standard of living is poor and how much are they making. Keep in mind that there are many levels below simply "poor".
Then you look above that until you get to an acceptable standard of living.
Then above that you'll find the "Doing OK" crowd.
Then the "Well off" ones.
Then the rich.
Then the very rich.
Then the super rich.

Or... you can take a shortcut and just look at the minimum wage.
I'm guessing that we can agree that it is a decent enough economic indicator for an online discussion between laymen.

You're making one minimum wage? You can barely afford the cost of living for one person. Yourself.
1-2 MinWage? You could support another person and still live poorly, or live at some more acceptable level alone.
5 times minimum wage allows you alone to support an entire family of four and then some.
Incidentally, that is apparently also the point where one earns enough to be happy.

It's pretty easy to see where those $150k guys, making 10+ minimum wages, fall on such a scale.

As for a "why a specific number"...
Well, try it like this.
If you are making enough money to provide a family of 4.1 (Mom, dad and the statistical number of children needed to continue the growth of population.) with their own 2*MinWage - you are the golden standard of upper middle class.
Each member of a such family can afford a middle class life on their own, and together they are a happy, economically functional, upper middle class family.
The fucking ***American DreamTM***. America The Beautiful starts playing in the background, a bald eagle flies through the frame.

Add those numbers up for the highest US MinWage (Washington) and you get:
$9.04 * 8 hours * 5 day * 50 weeks * 4.1 people * 2 = $148256

That is the PEAK of upper middle class in the USA. Above that starts the upper class - the rich.

Retail employees start at $11.91 on average. Minimum wage is anywhere from $5.15 to $8.25. So Apple starts their retail sales people between 100+% to 40% above minimum wage. Please clarify what you mean by "barely". Geniuses get larger wages as they have more skills. Now I don't know if you've ever worked in retail sales where most people are part-time and sometimes temporary and get no benefits but starting at much higher than minimum and getting benefits seems to be a good deal to me.

Actually Washington is the highest at $9.04 per hour.

The tax should be even at all levels of income, period end of statement. That is the Constitutional answer, as well as the most logical and "Fair". If I pay 13%, then some person making a bazillion dollars a year should pay 13%. If that person pays 10%, I pay 10%.

No, because that shifts a greater proportion of the burden on those at the lower echelons. It needs to average out, which would mean that they'd need to set a higher base rate than they could if they were to exempt lower income tiers and gradually introduce the full tax rate as your income rises.

There's a reason that there's a poverty line, and a tax exempt income level... it's because you need a certain minimum amount of money to be able to survive. If the person who's barely making that money has to pay income tax, then they will not be able to eke out a living. It may interest you to know that working full time, 40hr/week, at minimum wage is below the poverty line in much of the US.

Oregon has the highest minimum wage in the US, at $8.80/hr (surprised the hell out of me, I would have thought it was New York). Assuming you work 40hr/week, and don't take any time off, working the full 52 weeks, it's $18,304/year before taxes. Compare that to Minnesota where the minimum is $5.25/hr, and it's only $10,920/year before taxes. The national poverty line in the US is $11,170/year, and it tends to be more in northern states because of the colder weather (you eat more calories in the winter, and you spend more on heating, while not getting a reprieve from cooling in the summer). Try Oklahoma, where they can legally pay you $2/hr if the employer makes less than $100,000/year, let alone the states which have no minimum wage at all. Even the federal minimum of $7.25/hr is only $15k/year before taxes.

Why should somebody who's not even making enough to stay above the poverty line (Minnesota) pay the same tax rate as I do, when I make more than 6x as much? While I appreciate your desire for equality, 10% of $11,000 is $1,100, leaving him with less than $10,000 to spend on rent, food, transit, clothes, etc., where I'd still have $60,000 left over after taxes. Given that the average rent in Minneapolis is over $1,000/mo for a 1br, that's hardly fair. And that's assuming that the government could even make ends meet with only a 10% income tax... I doubt that would even cover the military budget, let alone the rest of the stuff the government is responsible for.

The tax should be even at all levels of income, period end of statement. That is the Constitutional answer, as well as the most logical and "Fair". If I pay 13%, then some person making a bazillion dollars a year should pay 13%. If that person pays 10%, I pay 10%.

No, because that shifts a greater proportion of the burden on those at the lower echelons. It needs to average out, which would mean that they'd need to set a higher base rate than they could if they were to exempt lower income tiers and gradually introduce the full tax rate as your income rises.

There's a reason that there's a poverty line, and a tax exempt income level... it's because you need a certain minimum amount of money to be able to survive. If the person who's barely making that money has to pay income tax, then they will not be able to eke out a living. It may interest you to know that working full time, 40hr/week, at minimum wage is below the poverty line in much of the US.

Oregon has the highest minimum wage in the US, at $8.80/hr (surprised the hell out of me, I would have thought it was New York). Assuming you work 40hr/week, and don't take any time off, working the full 52 weeks, it's $18,304/year before taxes. Compare that to Minnesota where the minimum is $5.25/hr, and it's only $10,920/year before taxes. The national poverty line in the US is $11,170/year, and it tends to be more in northern states because of the colder weather (you eat more calories in the winter, and you spend more on heating, while not getting a reprieve from cooling in the summer). Try Oklahoma, where they can legally pay you $2/hr if the employer makes less than $100,000/year, let alone the states which have no minimum wage at all. Even the federal minimum of $7.25/hr is only $15k/year before taxes.

Why should somebody who's not even making enough to stay above the poverty line (Minnesota) pay the same tax rate as I do, when I make more than 6x as much? While I appreciate your desire for equality, 10% of $11,000 is $1,100, leaving him with less than $10,000 to spend on rent, food, transit, clothes, etc., where I'd still have $60,000 left over after taxes. Given that the average rent in Minneapolis is over $1,000/mo for a 1br, that's hardly fair. And that's assuming that the government could even make ends meet with only a 10% income tax... I doubt that would even cover the military budget, let alone the rest of the stuff the government is responsible for.

32 hours x 50 weeks = 1600 which puts you just under the poverty line (by about $100). GGP included the caveat about " those who do not maintain full time employment, and while the term "full time" is not strictly define by the FLSA, 32 hours is at the very low end of what is generally considered full time. I think most people consider anything less than 40 hours to not be full time (I know I do).

Most people who earn minimum wage do not live below the poverty line in the united states.

Common misconception among opponents of the minimum wage. Can you back your assertions with data?

Federal poverty line for a single person is $11,710
Federal minimum wage is $7.25 which equates to roughly $14,500 (assuming you only work 50 weeks).

If you work 1615 (about 9.3 months @ 40 hrs/wk) hours at minimum wage, you exceed the poverty line.

Salary jobs are well above minimum wage. Minimum wage is exactly how it sounds, the minimum an employer is allowed to pay you. Overtime laws vary with each state, but the federal minimum is to pay 1.5 the hourly rate for hours above 40.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/overtimepay.htm

Are you actually claiming that a little town in Idaho that has 100 skilled jobs will generate 110 new skilled jobs in a reasonable time frame if 100 new skilled immigrant workers move into the town? You should immediately apply at the DOL. You could obviously turn our nation's current unemployment problems around within the month.

Non-paid internships that do work that would normally be done by a paid employee, or that the employer derives a benefit from, are illegal under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act See in particular item #4.

No, I am able to read scientific studies, rather than worry about how I suddenly have to compete on an even playing field.

#1 [Citation needed]. Specifically, citation from feminists, rather than from people who build up strawmen about who is a feminist and what they're saying.
#2 No, the glass ceiling and the monetary compensation numbers refer to identical job descriptions. For example, just the first study on this: http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/reich/reports/ceiling1.pdf

raging ivy league feminazis

Oh..... I thought you were actually interested in a real conversation. instead, you're just a bitter man who is pissed that he now has to compete with creatures with vaginas for his job. I missed this gem in my first read through.
#3 Depends on how you define consensus. Consensus at all cost? Definitely bad. Consensus by weighting opinions and listening to people outside your trusted circle? Definitely good.

this mentality in high places is what destroys businesses, and even whole societies.

Oh, we have a culture warrior here. I should have guessed by the feminazi comment.

Two very good examples:

www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.pdf

http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml

An employer can ask to pull your credit, interview your friends and family, interview neighbors, give you a polygraph, administer a drug test, to make sure you are not at risk to be put in a compromising position

Hmm. http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/eppa.htm disagrees.

I think we'll eventually see restrictions on pulling credit reports and asking for service credentials for most employers. It will become a fairly big issue in the future, as credit scores plummet due to the mismanagement of the economy (for the credit reports) and as social media becomes even more commonplace.

So I'll check some e-mail just to keep me informed, and if I'm within reach and able to do so.

I wanted to mention that if you are a salary-exempt employee in the US then any amount of work in a day requires that you get paid for the full day.

From: FLSA Overtime Security Advisor

As a general rule, if the exempt employee performs any work during the workweek, he or she must be paid the full salary amount.

...
Deductions for partial day absences generally violate the salary basis rule,

--
JimFive

The docs.
Can I get Medicare if I am under age 65?
If you are under age 65 and disabled, and have been entitled to disability benefits under Social Security or the Railroad Retirement Board for 24 months, you will be automatically entitled to Medicare Part A and Part B beginning the 25th month of disability benefit entitlement. You do not need to do anything to enroll in Medicare. Your Medicare card will be mailed to you about 3 months before your Medicare entitlement date.

What We Mean By Disability
The definition of disability under Social Security is different than other programs. Social Security pays only for total disability. No benefits are payable for partial disability or for short-term disability.

"Disability" under Social Security is based on your inability to work. We consider you disabled under Social Security rules if:
You cannot do work that you did before;
We decide that you cannot adjust to other work because of your medical condition(s); and
Your disability has lasted or is expected to last for at least one year or to result in death.

Question: How does the federal government define "disability"?
The definition of "disability" varies depending on the purpose for which it is being used. Federal and state agencies generally use a definition that is specific to a particular program or service. For example:

For purposes of nondiscrimination laws (e.g., the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Section 188 of the Workforce Investment Act), a person with a disability is generally defined as someone who (1) has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more "major life activities," (2) has a record of such an impairment, or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment.
To be found disabled for purposes of Social Security disability benefits, individuals must have a severe disability (or combination of disabilities) that has lasted, or is expected to last, at least 12 months or result in death, and which prevents working at a "substantial gainful activity" level.
State vocational rehabilitation (VR) offices will find a person with a disability to be eligible for VR services if he or she has a physical or mental impairment that constitutes or results in a "substantial impediment" to employment for the applicant.

Who is eligible for Medicare?

Generally, Medicare is available for people age 65 or older, younger people with disabilities and people with End Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or transplant). Medicare has two parts, Part A (Hospital Insurance) and Part B (Medical Insurance). You are eligible for premium-free Part A if you are age 65 or older and you or your spouse worked and paid Medicare taxes for at least 10 years. You can get Part A at age 65 without having to pay premiums if:

You are receiving retirement benefits from Social Security or the Railroad Retirement Board.
You are eligible to receive Social Security or Railroad benefits but you have not yet filed for them.
You or your spouse had Medicare-covered government employment.

While most people do not have to pay a premium for Part A, everyone must pay for Part B if they want it. This monthly premium is deducted from your Social Security, Railroad Retirement, or Civil Service Retirement check. If you do not get any of these payments, Medicare sends you a bill for your Part B premium every 3 months.

The exemption is from overtime PAY, not overtime HOURS... You (the IT staff) will still be working 50-60 hours in a week, you just won't be getting paid time-and-a-half for it. You will be paid your normal hourly wage... They (management) can't make you work for free because you are not salaried.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf...

Unless specifically exempted, employees covered by the [Fair Labor Standards] Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay. There is no limit in the Act on the number of hours employees aged 16 and older may work in any workweek.

You will not be going home at 5pm. They will not be hiring more staff to cover you going home at 5pm.

Oh my, My links to the federal stuff don't work because it's been updated:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.pdf

Which is pretty close to this new Bill it seems (I've not done side by side comparison, and I need to (gasp!) get back to work)

$27.63 is approximately $54,130/year. I'm referencing my pay scale sheet which shows $27.41 = $53,614/yr and $28 = $54,768/yr

This is what the Department of Labor has to say about people in IT who make that salary: Link

This is all much ado about nothing. There are no real changes to current law here - the computer professional exemption has been a part of the FLSA for years at least - probably decades. See the Department of Labor fact sheet - http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm The proposed amendment has 2 purposes. 1) It provides a more detailed definition of computer professional. 2) It cleans up the weekly salary requirement by linking it to the standard salary requirements, instead of existing seperately. The hourly number is the same in both versions. So there's essentially nothing new here. This is a cleanup/clarification of existing law, with almost nonexistant changes.

Most companies won't hire him because he's too old

Such companies that hire an inexperienced young person but don't hire an equally inexperienced older person may find themselves in violation of the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 or foreign counterparts.

The actual value of a minimum wage varies by state, and in the US isn't close to a livable wage
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm#Georgia

  All of these incentives and perks that everyone runs around and demands as "rights" (healthcare, retirement, pension, social security etc) are increasing the total costs of goods that get passed along to consumers too. But, people such as yourself don't even see those real costs to the employers because all you are looking at is a simplified hourly rate, and not all the extra paid by your employer on your behalf.

The minimum wage laws were enacted to help protect worker rights in sweatshops long ago, and now we are competing with other nations that don't have minimum wage laws, and have sweatshops. (and doing badly at it) By supporting minimum wage we are letting the government put us at a disadvantage among other nations in the marketplace, and by adding more government taxes for services we are putting a bigger monkey on the backs of small and middle sized business owners.

Read the first paragraph. http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp Employees includes anyone doing work that is not specifically excluded. Only listed exclusions are religious, non-profit, and public agencies.

The difference is that it's OK to volunteer for a non-profit or charitable organization, but illegal when it's a for profit entity that's profiting from the labor. The reason being that it makes it harder for companies to pressure employees to work off the clock so that they don't get laid off in the future.

http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp

You mean apart from the fact that this is almost certain to be a violation of the FLSA? http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp for more information.

The shortened version is that you can't accept volunteer labor unless you're a religious institution, a charitable organization or are public sector or are a similar type of non-profit entity. Valve definitely can't accept volunteer labor if its going to be profiting from it.

Under federal law volunteers must be volunteering for a public sector, religious or non-profit institution. For profit entities are barred from profiting from volunteer labor. http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp

In civilized world (doesnt include america) corporations HAVE to pay interns at least minimum wage.

In the US, corporations do HAVE to pay interns at least minimum wage; there is one special exception that applies to internships solely for personal educational/training purposes of the student, and there are strict standards to be met for that exception to apply, see US Department of Labor Fact Sheet 71:

The Test For Unpaid Interns There are some circumstances under which individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs may do so without compensation. The Supreme Court has held that the term "suffer or permit to work" cannot be interpreted so as to make a person whose work serves only his or her own interest an employee of another who provides aid or instruction. This may apply to interns who receive training for their own educational benefit if the training meets certain criteria. The determination of whether an internship or training program meets this exclusion depends upon all of the facts and circumstances of each such program.

The following six criteria must be applied when making this determination:

• The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
• The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
• The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
• The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
• The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
• The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

If all of the factors listed above are met, an employment relationship does not exist under the FLSA, and the Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions do not apply to the intern.

Most unpaid internships are downright illegal.

There are at least 20 states that have mandatory meal breaks: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.

Furthermore, 33 states have laws covering mandatory meal breaks for minors: Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

California, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have mandatory rest period laws as well.

Source: United States Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division

Where I worked, until we were switched to salary status recently, we were regularly warned that failure to take a lunch break could result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination. I don't know if it was ever enforced, but the company made very sure that we understood.

The U.S. Department of Labor does not consider bona fide lunch breaks to be compensable (i.e. payable). Note the key phrase "bona fide" -- in this case it means the employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals. If you are sitting at your desk eating lunch, and are still reading/writing work-related emails and making/taking work-related phone calls, you are not on break and are therefore still compensable. In that situation you are essentially eating while working. If you are away from work at a restaurant, and are not performing work-related duties (e.g. checking and replying to work-related emails on a cell phone), you are not compensable. A gray area arises when you are at a restaurant with colleagues and are discussing work-related topics. I would surmise that this would count as compensable if management sanctions/requests the activity, and/or if the predominant discussion topics are work-related in nature. That is my understanding anyway... YMMV. FWIW, IANAL.

Gee, I didn't know it was the government's job to ensure people are getting paid for their work, at least not in any economic regime other than socialism.

Here's more from the actual Department of Labor. Sorry, but just because you don't think it's the government's job to ensure people are being compensated fairly doesn't make it so:

http://www.dol.gov/compliance/laws/main.htm

And I think you are confusing statism with socialism.

And sorry to double-reply, but your comment truly irks me.

Why do I get a lunch break? The unions require it.

A whole bunch of employees are not unionized. Does it mean they don't get a lunch break? If you claim that, it doesn't match the reality.

Do you think that if we eliminate minimum wage employers would cut wages and hire more people or would they just cut wages?

In majority of industries nothing will happen. Already the minimum wage is paid only to a miniscule percentage of employees. Most people earn far more than that. Why doesn't the company cut their wages to the minimum right now? Why the CEO of BofA doesn't work for the minimum wage? Once you answer that question you also answer your own one.

The only group of people who are in any way affected by the minimum wage law are essentially young, unskilled workers who are willing to do very simple and pretty easy jobs. Everyone else has already negotiated the price of their own labor and is not going to trade down unless there is a good market reason to do so. A good number of states don't even have minimum wage laws; how do they manage to survive, I wonder? (even though it's South, there shouldn't be many slaves left there by now :-) This proves that the minimum wage law is at best irrelevant and at worst it suppresses economic activity at its lowest level.

Let me illustrate further. Let's imagine that the Congress raises the minimum wage to $500 per hour. To do better than that you need to win a lottery, or something. Any employer caught paying less than that will go to jail. What will happen next? Do I need to spell it out?

it depends on the exact job but most of what you are claiming is in fact false
No holiday time,: Most jobs will have some vacation time after a year or so
no sick leave, : Most jobs have a block of "personal days"
no maternity leave,: Its unpaid but required by the Family Medical Leave Act http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/index.htm
it unpaid but present
no restrictions on hours worked,: this gets a bit squishy but in an hourly job everything above 40 hours in a week gets paid time and a half and there is some stuff related to salaried jobs
no mandated breaks,: most states will have either custom or actual law on this point
few health and safety regulations, : ever hear of something called OSHA?? (this may hook into the break thing also)

I stand corrected. According to the Department of Labor, an employer can suspend a salaried employee without pay for up to 12 days but only pursuant to a written policy applicable to all employees and only when imposed in "good faith" for infractions of workplace rules.

I doubt it can be imposed in good faith when the employee reasonably disputes the facts and no hearing is performed. I highly doubt his workplace has a written rule against registering domain names.

http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Part_541/29CFR541.602.htm

But if you actually read the dept of labor's page about this it will show that the worker MUST receive at least real minimum wage through tips+restaurant pay. Now the restaurant can choose to let the server go if they end up paying real minimum wage all the time compared to waitress minimum wage, but welcome to capitalism.

http://www.dol.gov/wb/faq26.htm

Be sure your rights are not being violated. Department of Labor -FSLA. http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.pdf

The google tells me that private buisnesses can only administer polygraphs when investigating "ongoing investigations of economic loss or injury to the employer's business." So a specific incident of theft might allow an employer to request a polygraph. However, the law seems to be wrapped in so many layers of caveats that, were I a business owner, I would think the risk of getting sued outweighs the possible benefit of finding a thief. Among other things, you can't actually act on a polygraph test to discipline someone unless you have other evidence ... at which point you're better off just using the other evidence, and you can't discipline someone who refuses to take a polygraph even if you suspect them of the theft.

Specifically, the people who were polygraphed who didn't have access to the equipment almost certainly had grounds to sue.

When I was 19 I worked at a pawn shop. After working there for 6-8 months something (I don't know what) happened and everyone was lined up from 3 stores for polygraphs. We were let know in no uncertain terms we would lose our jobs if we failed.

When was this? If this happened after 1988, it was very likely illegal under the The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988.

Commercial businesses may not polygraph their employees on a generalized suspicion that someone did something. They may polygraph an employee if they have a "reasonable" suspicion that that employee did certain illegal things, like theft or embezzlement. Even in those situations, employers must follow specific, strict rules - the employee must be given the opportunity to review all questions in advance, consult with an attorney, and not must not be asked questions about things like his political beliefs, associations with unions, etc. Most importantly, the results of the test may not be used as the sole basis for disciplining/firing an employee - there must be independent corroborating evidence.

And that's just the federal law on polygraphs. Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin all have other, stricter laws regarding polygraph testing by private businesses. Governments, of course, generally do not limit their own use of polygraphs in such ways.

However, this US minimum-wage requirements don't apply to "tipped" employees. They get a special minimum wage of 4.19USD (4.89AUD). And restaurants do not pay waiters/waitresses over minimum...ever.

That is bullshit, and I hear this lie repeated often in discussions about tipping. If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. This means that all tipped employees in the US receive at least the Federal minimum wage, or their employers are breaking the law.