U.S. Government’s Unclear Labor Laws
- Nearly bankrupts my Dad in 1955 -
My Father, Marlin Eller, was a very honest businessman, and would never knowingly violate a law. However, when laws are passed, there are often “gray areas” which have to be tested and clarified in our court system. That is what happened to my Father with a U.S. Labor law situation requiring time-and-a-half pay for any hours worked over 40 hours. When it was passed there were a lot of exemptions made. One of the exemptions had to do with agriculture-related businesses.
Most of our business at the time was related to the repair and manufacturing of farm equipment. In addition, Dad’s investment partner at the time was a farmer, and a lot of our company’s work related to maintaining equipment on his farm. Normal working hours, at the time, were five eight-hour days plus four hours on Saturday morning for a 44 hour work week. Dad did it that way for years and paid straight pay for 44 hours. The business was small and, besides Dad, there were typically two machinists, two welders, two laborers and I, as a teenager part-time after school.
One of our long-time machinists, Horace Holliway, decided to quit us and go to Alaska to make some big money. So Dad hired a 30-year-old young man named Bart, who had just moved down here from up north and assigned him to the 24”Nebal lathe near our large front door facing Dixie Highway. Bart was a very good machinist and very personable. In fact, he liked to meet our customers as they entered the front door and find out what they needed. Dad began to notice that some of the customers bringing items in for repairs would leave with their items shortly after talking to Bart.
Suspicious, Dad called one of the customers and asked why? The customer told Dad sheepishly that Bart had told the customer to bring the work to his, Bart’s place, on Saturday afternoon and Bart would do the work for a lot less than Dad would charge. Furious, Dad called all our workers to the front of the shop. Pointing his finger at Bart, Dad explained what he had found out and loudly told our other workers “This man is stealing from you and me, and I’m firing him right now!” Bart gathered up his tools and slunk out the side door.
A few weeks later, a heavy set man in a white shirt and tie with a goatee, carrying a clipboard, walked in and handed Dad his card. He was with the U.S. Department of Labor in Miami. He said there had been a complaint filed by a man name Bart who asked to see Dad’s payroll records. He, then, asked Dad why he wasn’t paying time-and-a-half for the four hours worked on Saturday. Dad explained that it was his understanding that because most of our work was farm-related, it didn’t apply to us. The man asked to see our invoices. Going through them he noticed that we also had done work for a rock quarry west of town. He said that disqualified us from the agricultural exemption.
By this time, our workers were clocking out and standing around to find out what was happening. When they heard Dad arguing with the man and saying that if that was the way it was, there would be no more Saturday work. Hearing that, our workers started getting agitated with the government man and all agreed that they would sign a petition asking to be exempted from the time-and-a-half in order to get the extra four hours pay. This seemed to make the government man mad. He left in a huff and then served Dad with papers ordering him to go back three years and pay extra half time to all workers involved, and the workers were not allowed to refuse it. Dad did it, but it almost broke our business.
Dad even had to mail our top former machinist, Horace Holliway, a check up in Alaska. When Horace got the check he called Dad to see what was happening. When he found out, and then learned that Dad had fired Bart, Horace admitted that Alaska was too cold for him and asked for his job back. Dad quickly agreed. So something good came out of the situation. Horace, who Dad always said was the best and fastest machinist “in the world,” came back to Deerfield to work for us until he retired. Dad assigned me to work with Horace, on the lathe next to him, until I went off to college. He trained me well. I was able to get machinist jobs in the research departments at both Stetson University and the University of Florida years later, when I went off to college.
My Father, Marlin Eller, was a very honest businessman, and would never knowingly violate a law. However, when laws are passed, there are often “gray areas” which have to be tested and clarified in our court system. That is what happened to my Father with a U.S. Labor law situation requiring time-and-a-half pay for any hours worked over 40 hours. When it was passed there were a lot of exemptions made. One of the exemptions had to do with agriculture-related businesses.