U.S. V. Darby Lumber

The eight-hour day. The five-day work week. Minimum wage. Time-and-a-half overtime pay. Prohibition of oppressive child labor. Today we take these features of employment for granted, but they are the result of a long, difficult, and often violent struggle for workplace protections that culminated in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. But it was the landmark 1941 Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Darby Lumber Company that secured those protections.