BAD FOR WORKING FAMILIES, BAD FOR THE ECONOMY
•Overtime pay makes up about one-fourth of the weekly earnings of workers that earn it ($161 per week average).
•The new restrictions on overtime pay will hurt many workers, taking money out of their pockets during an economic crunch and discouraging job creation.
•The Administration could have updated the rules without taking away workers’ overtime pay. Instead, they weakened eligibility rules and stripped overtime rights from workers making as little as $23,660 per year.
•The Bush Administration addressed the concerns of highly visible workers – like firefighters and police, which were targeted in the initial proposal – at the expense of less visible workers.
•The Bush Administration consistently misled the American people by underestimating and misrepresenting the number of workers that would have lost overtime pay under the original proposal. There is no reason to believe they are not doing the same now.
Who will lose overtime pay rights?
•The new regulation will have a large impact on workers with minimal supervisory or “leadership” responsibilities, those who perform minimal amounts of administrative work, and those with special skills, among others.
•There is an enormous new loophole that will allow management to disqualify workers from overtime by simply appointing them “team leaders” (New Section 541.203).
•Working supervisors, including assistant retail managers that spend most of their time performing non-management work will lost overtime rights.
•Workers in network and database administration, tax, finance, accounting, budgeting, auditing, insurance, quality control, purchasing, procurement, advertising, marketing, research, safety and health, personnel management, human resources, employee benefits, labor relations, public relations, government relations, and legal and regulatory compliance will be especially vulnerable to losing overtime rights.
•Journalists working in print media, radio, television, and electronic media are especially vulnerable to loss of overtime rights, as the new regulation eliminates the presumption that they are non-exempt professionals.
•The final regulation will affect the overtime rights of some blue collar workers that fall within the expanded exemption for “administrative” employees.
•Middle income earners making as little as $23, 660 per year will lose overtime rights even if they spend less than 50% of their time on administrative management work.
•The requirement that the primary duty of administrative employees must include the exercise of independent judgment and discretion is much weaker in the new rule. Also, the primary duty no longer needs to occupy 50% of the employee’s time for the employee to be exempt.
•For the first time, there is an income cap on overtime eligibility. The cap is not indexed for inflation, which will strip more workers of their overtime rights every year.