US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

The Eight Hour Law, 40 U.S.C. § 324, as amended by 40 U.S.C. § 325a, which provides, in effect, that every contract to which the United States is a party shall contain a provision that no laborer or mechanic doing any part of the work contemplated by the contract shall be required or permitted to work more than eight hours in any one day upon such work unless he is compensated at the rate of one and one-half times the basic rate of pay for all work in excess of eight hours per day, is not applicable to work done under a contract between the United States and a private contractor on construction projects for the United States in Iraq and Iran. Pp. 336 U. S. 282-291.

1. There is nothing in the language of the Act that indicates a congressional purpose to extend its coverage beyond places over which the United States has sovereignty or some measure of legislative control. Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U. S. 377, distinguished. Pp. 285-286.

2. The legislative history of the Act reveals that Congress was concerned with domestic labor conditions. Pp. 286-288.

3. Administrative interpretations of the Act tend to support the conclusions here reached. Pp. 336 U. S. 288-291.

297 N.Y. 217, 78 N.E.2d 480, reversed.

In a suit by an American citizen for overtime pay for work done in excess of eight hours per day for an American contractor on a construction project in Iraq and Iran chanrobles.com-red

Page 336 U. S. 282

under a contract with the United States, a trial court of New York gave judgment for the plaintiff. The Appellate Division reversed. 272 App.Div. 446, 71 N.Y.S.2d 592. The New York Court of Appeals reversed. 297 N.Y. 217, 78 N.E.2d 480. This Court granted certiorari. 335 U.S. 808. Reversed, p. 336 U. S. 291.