The defendants further argue that even if Mr. Santelices were considered an “employee” within the meaning of the FLSA, he has not sufficiently demonstrated that he worked any overtime. IV. THE FLSA Congress enacted the FLSA in 1938 as a comprehensive remedial scheme to lessen, if not eliminate, the distribution in commerce of goods produced under deficient labor conditions. See 29 U.S.C. § 202(a). The elimination of low wages and long hours was chosen as the method “to free commerce from the interferences arising from production of goods under conditions detrimental to the health and well-being of workers.”

See Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys. Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 739 (1981); 29 U.S.C. § 202(a). The United States Supreme Court in Overnight Motor Transp. Co. v. Missel described the underlying purposes of the FLSA’s overtime requirement as follows: The provision of § 7 (a) requiring this extra pay for overtime is clear and unambiguous.

Martinez v. Combs (2010) 49 Cal. 4th 35, 49x. Both the federal government andthestate of California have enacted comprehensive wage and hour laws establishing minimum wages, overtime compensation requirements, and record keeping requirements, among others, for the primary purpose of protecting employees from oppressive working conditions. (See 29 U.S.C. § 202(a) (b) (federal policy); Cal. Lab. Code § 90.5(a) (purpose of enforcement of minimum laborstandardsis to “ensure 33 4814-7609-4277.6 that employees are not required or permitted to work under substandard or unlawful conditions ....”).)

The FLSA sets forth minimum wage and overtime standards to remedy “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers.” 29 U.S.C. § 202(a). In accordance with our Constitutional system of government, the FLSA is not enforced by “continuing detailed federal supervision or inspection of payrolls,” but rather by setting up each employee as their own private Attorney General, charged with reporting and prosecuting violations through the court system.

Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 567 U.S. 142, 132 S. Ct. 2156, 2162, 183 L. Ed. 2d 153 (2012) (citing Barrentine v. Arkansas–Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 739, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981)); see also 29 U.S.C. § 202(a). Among other requirements, the FLSA obligates employers to compensate employees for hours in excess of 40 per week at a rate of one and one-half times the employees' regular wages.

See 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1). The FLSA’s overtime provisions further contain a Case 4:16-cv-00731-ALM Document 37 Filed 10/31/16 Page 50 of 62 PageID #: 1000 41 “clearly delineate[d] general policy,” Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 372-73, of “correct[ing] and . . . eliminat[ing]” the “existence . . . of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers,” 29 U.S.C. § 202; see also, e.g., Barrentine, 450 U.S. at 739, and of spreading employment by incentivizing employers to hire more employees rather than imposing longer hours on current employees, see Davis v. J.P. Morgan Chase, 587 F.3d 529, 535 (2d Cir. 2009). And by charging the agency to “defin[e] and delimit[]” the terms “bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity,” Congress set forth a policy “of having specific criteria laid down . . . by which employer and enforcement agency could determine with certainty whether an employee fell within or without one of the exempted employments.”

The wage payment requirements of the Act will not be met when an employee “kicks back” directly or indirectly to the employer- or to another person for the employer’s benefit- all or part of the wages delivered to the employee (Marshall v Quick-Trip Corp., 672 F2d 801, 807 [10th Cir 1982]; see Mayhue's Super Liquor Stores, Inc. v Hodgson, 464 F2d 1196, 1199 [5th Cir 1972]; Teoba v Trugreen Landcare LLC, 769 F Supp 2d 175, 180 [WD NY 2011]; Morangelli v Chemed Corp., 922 F Supp 2d 278, 299 [ED NY 2013] recon denied in part, No. 10 CIV. 0876 BMC, 2013 WL 1212790 [ED NY Mar. 25, 2013]). 24 work performed (29 USC § 202; Tony & Susan Alamo Found., 471 US at 296 (citation omitted); Rutherford Food Corp., 331 US at 727). Nothing in the statute or case law requires that a worker have the opportunity to earn more compensation in order to be considered an “employee” under the Act.

The FLSA was adopted during the Depression to address “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers.” (29 USC § 202 [a].) It “was designed to raise substandard wages . . . thereby helping to protect this nation ‘from the evils and dangers resulting from wages too low to buy the bare necessities of life and from long hours of work injurious to health.

As discussed above, “The principal congressional purpose in enacting the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was to protect all covered worker from substandard wages and oppressive working hours, ‘labor conditions [that are] detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being of workers.’ ” Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 739 (1981) (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 202(a)). While the language of the statutes are not identical, the purpose behind both the NCWHA and the FLSA is to promote the general welfare of the public under the respective purviews of the laws.

The Supreme Court has recognized that a fundamental purpose of the FLSA was to prevent “unfair method[s] of competition” by businesses paying sub-standard or, in the case of claimed “volunteers” no, wages to employees. See Alamo, 471 U.S. at 299 (citing 29 U.S.C. § 202(a)(3)); see also id. at 302 (permitting an FLSA exception for anyone claiming to be a volunteer “would be likely to exert a general downward pressure on wages in competing businesses.”)