Obama's new overtime expansion

[Fang]

In the fast food and retail industries in particular, many workers have missed out on this because they’re deemed “managers” – they work long hours but are paid little more than the people they supervise.

Under the new rules, first released in draft form last summer, the annual salary threshold at which companies can deny overtime pay will be doubled from $23,660 to nearly $47,500.

That means a fast-food manager making $14 an hour – or roughly $30,000 a year – would now be eligible for overtime for those extra hours.

'Career killer': Obama's new overtime expansion under fire | Fox News


I like the overtime expansion. Thoughts?

 

[MisterBeale]

Terrible.

 

[TNHarley]

Im not one for government regulation of private property. So, no.

 

[BULLDOG]

Calling someone a manager to prevent paying him overtime was just a loophole to screw the workers.

 

[TooTall]

Calling someone a manager to prevent paying him overtime was just a loophole to screw the workers.

If a person is promoted to manager and is unhappy with the pay, he/she can always request being demoted back to worker bee.

 

[waltky]

Obama on new overtime rule...

Obama Explains Administration’s New Rule That Businesses Must Pay Salaried Workers Overtime
May 21, 2016 | In his weekly address released today, President Barack Obama explained a new federal regulation finalized this week by the Department of Labor that will required employers to pay overtime to salaried workers who make less than $47,500 per year.

The federal-regulation-mandated overtime will kick in once the salaried worker has worked more than 40 hours in a week. “It’s a move that will boost wages for working Americans by $12 billion over the next 10 years,” Obama argued. “We’re more than doubling the overtime salary threshold,” he said. “And what that means is, most salaried workers who earn less than about $47,500 a year will qualify for overtime. Or, their employers can choose to give them a raise so that they earn more than $47,500. Or, if employers don’t want to raise wages, they can let them go home after 40 hours and see their families or train for new jobs.”

Here is the White House transcript of the president’s address:

Hi everybody. Last summer, I got a letter from a woman named Elizabeth Paredes from Tucson, Arizona. Elizabeth is the mom of a 3-year-old boy, and an assistant manager at a sandwich shop. She earns about $2,000 a month, and she routinely works some 50 hours a week, sometimes even more. But because of outdated overtime regulations, she doesn’t have to be paid a dime of overtime. She wrote: “It’s not easy work and requires a lot of time away from my son… at times I find [it's] not worth it.”

Things like the 40-hour workweek and overtime are two of the most basic pillars of a middle class life. But for all the changes we’ve seen in our economy, our overtime rules have only been updated once since the 1970s. Just once. In fact, forty years ago, more than 60 percent of workers were eligible for overtime based on their salaries. But today, that number is down to seven percent. Only seven percent of full-time salaried workers are eligible for overtime based on their income.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Obama's executive order on overtime blocked...

Judge blocks Obama rule extending overtime pay to 4.2 million U.S. workers
Tue Nov 22, 2016 | A federal judge on Tuesday blocked an Obama administration rule to extend mandatory overtime pay to more than 4 million salaried workers from taking effect, imperiling one of the outgoing president's signature achievements for boosting wages.

U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant, in Sherman, Texas, agreed with 21 states and a coalition of business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that the rule is unlawful and granted their motion for a nationwide injunction. The rule, issued by the Labor Department, was to take effect Dec. 1 and would have doubled to $47,500 the maximum salary a worker can earn and still be eligible for mandatory overtime pay. The new threshold would have been the first significant change in four decades. It was expected to touch nearly every sector of the U.S. economy and have the greatest impact on nonprofit groups, retail companies, hotels and restaurants, which have many management workers whose salaries are below the new threshold.

The states and business groups claimed in lawsuits filed in September, which were later consolidated, that the drastic increase in the salary threshold was arbitrary. On Tuesday, Mazzant, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled that the federal law governing overtime does not allow the Labor Department to decide which workers are eligible based on salary levels alone. The Fair Labor Standards Act says that employees can be exempt from overtime if they perform executive, administrative or professional duties, but the rule “creates essentially a de facto salary-only test,” Mazzant wrote in the 20-page ruling. The states and business groups that challenged the rule applauded the decision.

Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt said in a statement that the ruling "reinforces the importance of the rule of law and constitutional government." The Labor Department said it strongly disagrees with the decision. It remains confident that the entire rule is legal, and it is currently considering its options, department spokesman Jason Surbey said. The Labor Department can appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but that court has stymied the Obama administration before, blocking Obama’s executive actions on immigration in 2015. In any case, the Labor Department could drop the appeal after Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. In August, Trump told the website Circa that the overtime rule was an example of the type of burdensome business regulations he would seek to roll back as president, perhaps by exempting small businesses or delaying implementation.

Even if the rule survived the legal challenge, it could be upended by legislation passed by Congress or withdrawn by Trump's Department of Labor. U.S. Chamber of Commerce official Randy Johnson said in a statement that the rule would have been costly and disruptive to businesses. But Ross Eisenbrey of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which supported the rule, called the decision "extreme and unsupportable." "It is also a disappointment to millions of workers who are forced to work long hours with no extra compensation, and is a blow to those Americans who care deeply about raising wages and lessening inequality," Eisenbrey said in a statement. The case is Nevada v. U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, No. 16-cv-731.

Judge blocks Obama rule extending overtime pay to 4.2 million U.S. workers