It looks like more “equality” has come to the workplace. But how and why?
According to the U.S. government, almost all businesses are involved in “interstate commerce,” which means that the government can regulate them - for example, the government can dictate how much money employees are paid. Even if the businesses only sell goods locally, they are still involved in interstate commerce in some way, e.g., they might buy pencils from companies which are located out-of-state.
Today, according to the government, almost any action by a business is interstate commerce, even if goods aren’t actually moved from one state to another state.
The meaning of interstate commerce was redefined and expanded in the early 1940s by the U.S. Supreme Court through the Roosevelt administration [1]. The pointman for that redefinition and expansion was the Jewish, Supreme Court judge Felix Frankfurter, who was an adviser to Roosevelt even before he joined the Court [2]. Interstate commerce seems to have been a pet issue with Frankfurter - so much so that he edited/wrote two books on the subject (in 1915 and 1937) and he was getting interstate-commerce rules into federal law for Roosevelt as early as 1933, e.g., the Securities Act.
The redefining of the meaning of interstate commerce had an extremely negative impact on America by leaving many hiring, firing and wage decisions up to the government. Interstate commerce has also been used by the courts as an excuse to uphold civil-rights laws. It’s a one-size-fits-all tool for government regulation.
[Article].
More on interstate commerce: [Here].
[1] see United States v. Darby Lumber Co., February 1941, Kirschbaum v. Walling, June 1942 and Wickard v. Filburn, November 1942
[2] a mention of Felix Frankfurter as being “the central figure” in the effort to get the meaning of “commerce” redefined is found in the book “Law and Ecology” by Dr. Richard O. Brooks, et al, 2002