“… this only applies to big business …”

The union‐ and trial‐​lawyer‐​backed Paycheck Fairness Act, which would greatly expand the scope of lawsuits against private employers alleging gender pay inequality, has run into considerable resistance in Congress. The Bangor Daily News, for example, notes that middle‐​of‐​the‐​road Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, known for their willingness to support some Democratic initiatives, have criticized the PFA as “broad,” “unprecedented,” and costly to employers (Snowe) and as likely to “impose excessive litigation on the small‐​business community” (Collins).


Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree (D‑Maine), on the other hand, is impatient with all such objections:

“If there is litigation in the future, that is minor compared to making sure that people get fair pay for the work that they do,” Pingree said. “It is also important to say that this only applies to big business, this does not apply to the sandwich shop around the corner.”

What do you think she means by “only applies to big business” and not “the sandwich shop around the corner”? Keith Smith at ShopFloor checked out the language of the bill, which by its own terms would affect employers subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Does the FLSA apply “only … to big business”? No; according to the U.S. Department of Labor, it covers “almost every employee working in the United States.” To begin with, the law covers all employers that have two or more employees and do at least $500,000 a year in business. But that’s just the start, as Smith explains:

Even if a business meets these thresholds, the only employees who would not be covered by the FLSA would be the ones who do not produce goods for interstate commerce, or closely‐​related process or occupation directly essential to such production, who are not involved in domestic service and are not engaged in interstate commerce. So that means if an employee makes a phone call to another state, sends mail to another state, travels to other states or even processes credit card transaction [he or she] is engaged in “interstate commerce”.

It sounds as if Rep. Pingree has a distinctive, not to say eccentric, understanding of what constitutes “only … big business”.