>I received a "sub-minimum wage" in my first job (1979, $1.95/hr, WI) which
>was legal for agricultural work. My job was not agricultural at all but
>because my employer could get away with it (laws are one thing,
>enforcement is another) I got paid less. My father insistence I work hard
>and learn the value of a dollar woefully backfired as all I learned about
>was exploitation. Interestingly, my first superviser's daughter (I worked
>9 summer's as a janitor but only the first year was paid a sub-minimum
>wage) is now the head of Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development
>(the labor department).
yeah, the ex beau worked as a delivery driver for a seafood company which was classified as agricultural or somesuch shite. this entitled his employer, or so his employer thought, to pay him a salary rather than hourly rate and work him 60-70 hours a week. he fared better than migrant labor, of course, making 400 clams a week rather than what he should have been paid, $700 +, had he been paid over time properly. i always said he ought to nail him for that but...when you live in upstate new york during the mid eighties and are first hitting the job market, you are mollified into willingness to take whatever you can get and count your blessings that you aren't working the same backbreaking work for even less.
kelley