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This week we\u2019re finally going to tell you what happened to Jerry Vazquez \u2014 and how his story relates to the 1930s case of a hotel chambermaid. Jerry and some of his fellow Jan-Pro franchisees decided to sue the company, saying they\u2019d been misclassified as independent contractors when they should have been employees (and entitled to minimum wage, over time, and other protections). But the argument over what defines an employee has a long and strange legal history. So, we\u2019ll dive in and explore the origins of the federal minimum wage, why lawmakers wrote the law as broadly as they did, whom it applied to and whom it excluded. And we\u2019ll tell you about this odd but powerful phrase, \u201cto suffer or permit to work,\u201d that\u2019s at the heart of lawsuits like Jerry\u2019s.\n\nFor even more of \u201cThe Uncertain Hour,\u201d subscribe to our newsletter! Each week we\u2019ll bring you a note from host Krissy Clark and explain some terms that have come up in our reporting. This week we\u2019re looking at \u201cmisclassification.\u201d