“ Under Section 7 (a) an employer is required to compensate his employees for all hours in excess of 40 at not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which they are employed. Thus by increasing the employer's labor costs by 50% at the end of the 40-hour week and by giving the employees a 50% premium for all excess hours, Section 7 (a) achieves its dual purpose of inducing the employer to reduce the hours of work and to employ more men and of compensating the employees for the burden of a long workweek. ”

“ Once the parties have decided upon the amount of wages and the mode of payment the determination of the regular rate becomes a matter of mathematical computation, the result of which is unaffected by any designation of a contrary 'regular rate' in the wage contracts.
Here it is established that under the new wage agreements the stackers will receive 70 or 80 cents per thousand board feet ricked or stacked. Translated to an hourly basis this means that they will receive approximately 59 cents per hour for both regular and overtime hours. ”

“ The 35-cent per hour 'regular rate' fixed by the contracts is obviously an artificial one, however bona fide it may have been in origin. Except in the extremely unlikely situation of the piece work wages falling below a 35-cent per hour figure, this 'regular rate' is never actually paid. In the normal case where the stackers earn more than 35 cents per hour on the piece rate basis during non-overtime hours, they are guaranteed this higher figure and are actually so compensated. ”