In case of employees engaged in commerce, home workers in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, employees in American Samoa, seamen on American vessels and agricultural employees, the employer is to pay to each of his employees who in any workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or is employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, wages at the following rates:-
not less than $4.25 an hour during the period ending on September 30, 1996
not less than $4.75 an hour during the year beginning on October 1, 1996
not less than $5.15 an hour beginning September 1, 1997
if such employee is a home worker in Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, not less than the minimum piece rate prescribed by regulation or order.
If no such minimum piece rate is in effect, any piece rate adopted by such employer which yields to the proportion or class of employees prescribed by regulation or order not less than the applicable minimum hourly wage rate.
Care has also been taken to ensure that no employer discriminates, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex for equal work and equal skill.
