• Workers in United States industries are the lifeblood of production and comprise a large percentage of the U.S population. As such, U.S labor laws work to protect workers and ensure they have basic rights on the job, such as the right to minimum wage, workmen's compensation and freedom from discrimination or prejudice.
  
  

"Freedom of Association"

• Like most state codes, the U.S. Labor Code states the nature of employer-employee relationships. In disputes and negotiations, the individual worker has a disadvantage against an employer. It fixes this imbalance by defending a worker's right to join with other workers and negotiate with employers collectively using the strength of numbers. An employer may not help form, contribute to or interfere with an employee association, such as a labor union. If an employee brings charges against an employer to the National Labor Relations Board, the government body that mediates labor disputes, the employer may do nothing negative to the employee for that reason. Also, labor organizations (like unions) may not interfere with an employee's right to act outside the will of that organization. Neither the employer nor a union representative may refuse to negotiate work terms for the employees unless the NLRB gives them permission to stop negotiations. No one may bribe a union representative or a labor union representing non-union workers in a workplace or industry.
  
  

Wages

• Employers may not discriminate in worker's wages by race, gender, religion or beliefs or any factor unrelated to performance or other merit (like seniority). No labor organization (i.e., a labor union) may try to convince an employer to discriminate on those terms. Employee minimum hourly wages may not factor in company gifts (like Christmas gifts); paid vacation, sick leave or times that the employer cannot provide work; reimbursement for expenses in work done for an employer; profit shares; employer contributions to health benefits or employee retirement funds, overtime pay and employer-provided grants or dividends from employee stock shares.
  
  

Hours

• Employers may not work employees more than 40 hours in a work week unless the employee volunteers, is paid 1.5 times normal pay and the overtime work does not push the workweek to 60 hours. An exception to this rule applies if the employee representative agreed with the employer on a maximum number of workable hours in a 26-week period, which cannot be more than 1040 hours in that period. Overtime rules do not apply to employees in retail whose pay is over 1.5 times minimum wage or make a majority of their income from sales commissions. Employees in the following industries are not protected by these laws: fishing, agriculture, newspapers with readerships below 4000, sailors on private ships, babysitters and companions for the aged, criminal investigators and computer programmers.
  
  

Other Protections

• An employee may refuse in all cases to take a polygraph or lie detector test for an employer. The employer may not, in any case, influence the employee to take such a test. Any actions taken against the employee for refusing to take a lie detector test are unlawful.