Mr. Speaker. 50 years ago. Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act to establish certain minimum employment standards to protect all working Americans. The single. most important purpose of the act was to eliminate the substandard labor conditions commonplace in the late 1930s. We are all familiar with these conditionsthe sweatshops cramped with countless immigrants. small children. and women. With passage of the act. Congress extinguished these conditions forever. and safeguarded the minimum wage. Today. the protections set out by the FLSA are prohibiting thousands of Americans from working in their homes. I am speaking specifically of the home knitter.
Identified stereotypes
Immigrants are associated with sweatshops and substandard labor conditions.