U.S. V. Darby Lumber: The Triumph of Fair Labor Standards

The story of how the advocacy of workers and labor unions and a monumental shift on the Supreme Court paved the way for fair labor standards in the United States.

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.

The social movement for fair labor standards in the United States began in the late 1700s when some of the first associations of working men demanded fair wages and maximum work hours. In advocating for national fair labor standards, workers and labor unions had to overcome not only opposition from powerful business groups but also entrenched legal doctrines that challenged the very idea of labor unions. They also had to overcome deeply held beliefs that workplace regulations were local economic issues reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Several groundbreaking decisions by the Supreme Court in the spring of 1937 changed the whole debate over government regulation of the market and opened the door for federal legislation on fair labor standards. In what is widely known as the Constitutional Revolution of 1937, Justice Owen Roberts switched to the liberal bloc, and with the support of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Supreme Court in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish and NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. abruptly shifted its view of economic regulation. Ultimately, this paved the way for the Supreme Court to confirm the constitutionality of the FLSA in 1941.

The Darby Lumber decision is a landmark case that affirmed the powers of Congress over labor standards and working conditions. Today the decision is as important as ever, with conservative groups seeking to undo these labor protections facing off against an insurgent labor movement aiming to regain lost ground.