US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. In a proceeding brought by the Administrator to enjoin alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to enjoin the employer's use of a method of wage payments which the employer had abandoned on the day before the trial where the court found no evidence of intent to resume use of such method of payments, nor of willful violation of the Act, nor of intent to violate the Act in future. P. 325 U. S. 421.

2. The regular rate contemplated by § 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act refers to the hourly rate actually paid the employee for the normal, nonovertime workweek for which he is employed. In the case of piecework wages, this regular rate is the quotient of the amount received during the week divided by the number of hours worked. P. 325 U. S. 424. chanrobles.com-red

Page 325 U. S. 420

3. The regular rate, by its very nature, must reflect all payments which the parties have agreed shall be received regularly during the workweek, exclusive of overtime payments. The determination of this rate is a matter of mathematical calculation, and is unaffected by any designation of a contrary "regular rate" in the wage contracts. P. 325 U. S. 424.

4. Wage agreements between a lumber manufacturer and employees engaged as stackers provided for compensation at a "regular rate" of 35 cents per hour and one and one-half times that rate for overtime, with a guaranty of 70 cents per 1,000 board feet of lumber ricked and 80 cents stacked. The guaranteed piece rate would result in an average hourly rate of 59 cents for a normal, nonovertime workweek.

Held, that the wage agreements, so far as they failed to provide for overtime compensation of one and one-half times the regular rate actually received, which in this instance would equal the average hourly rate of 59 cents, violated § 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. P. 325 U. S. 425.

The individual regular rate which must be used will depend upon the number of hours worked and the wages received by each stacker during the particular workweek in question, but such a rate is the one that must enter into any calculations of overtime payments due under § 7(a).

5. Walling v. Belo Corp., 316 U. S. 624, is not authority for fixing by contract a "regular rate" wholly unrelated to payments which the employees actually and normally receive each week. P. 325 U. S. 426.

145 F.2d 349 reversed.

Certiorari, 324 U.S. 837, to review the affirmance of a judgment dismissing a suit by the Administrator to enjoin alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.