Overtime Laws Changing
“Nobody listens when a worker squawks, but they have to listen when
the union talks."
Local 848 members have joined thousands of activists
in America by signing petitions and making calls to try to stop the Bush
Administration from cutting into our rights under 1938’s Fair Labor Standards
Act. The government recently issued new regulations that were evaluated as not
as bad as those they had been pushing, but not good, nevertheless.
Union leaders are hoping that Senator Harkin will
succeed with his legislation to stop the Bush Administration’s attack on our
rights. In general, the 1938 law guarantees American hourly workers the right
to collect time-and-a-half when they work more than 40 hours in a single week.
Management and other workers are exempt under the law. Since 1938, legal
battles have raged over who is exempt and who isn’t. Union leaders say that the
general effect of Bush’s changes would be to make it possible for corporations
to put a lot more people into the “exempt” category, even though some others
would be re-categorized and start drawing overtime pay.
How Important Is It?
Even Local 848 members, who are protected by union
contract as well as the federal law, have to fight constantly to protect their
overtime rights. The printed Vought grievance report that we received 4/18/04
had 50 grievances listed, and 25 of them were on overtime. Many aerospace
factories, including Raytheon and Lockheed, have thousands more salary
employees who are exempt from the overtime law than hourly employees with
overtime rights. Management wants work to be done more cheaply by exempt
employees.
Even union workers who have strong contractual overtime
rules are hurt when the 1938 law is weakened, because the work will gravitate
toward other shops and other employees with less protection under the overtime
law. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act was the result of more than a century of
struggle to end management’s control over all our waking hours.
What Can We Do?
A letter from Nick Robinson, CAP Rep of Region 5,
asks us to call our Senators and ask them to vote for the Harkin Bill to
protect workers' overtime pay rights. 1-877-331-2000 toll free. Previously,
both Texas Senators have voted on management’s side.
Robinson says, “Please call your senators as soon as
possible. Tell them to vote for the Harkin amendment to protect workers'
overtime pay rights! You can call your senators toll free by dialing:
1-877331-2000. For more information and talking points on this issue, visit the
UAW web site: http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/F7aE30M1y781/overtime"
What More Can We Find Out?
The following came from Ed Sills, Communications
Director of the Texas AFL-CIO:
“ Under an intensifying glare of publicity and
protest, the George W. Bush Labor Department has apparently cut and run -- but
not
completely -- from new overtime pay regulations that
would have ended the right to time-and-a-half pay for 8 million American
workers, more than 540,000 of whom are in Texas.
‘The rules as set forth today may still cut hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, of Americans out of overtime rights, starting in
120 days. But according to the Labor Department's
characterizations issued last night, they may not be as harsh as what has been
on the table for many months.
‘So far as organized labor is concerned, not even one
worker should lose overtime pay eligibility through administrative fiat, so it
has to be said that the only side looking to
"compromise" on this issue is George W. Bush, facing mounting
political concerns, and
his Labor Department. The Fair Labor Standards Act
has stood the test of time -- it is the legal backbone of the weekend -- and
only
Congress should have the power to amend rules that
have been in effect for 50 years.
‘Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has attempted to scotch
the rules in Congress, said in a statement, "The Bush Administration
simply is not trustworthy on this issue, and I am beyond skeptical about these
so-called revisions. This President has gone out of his way
time and again to undercut working families' right to
overtime pay for overtime work. . . . The Senate will soon have the opportunity
to stand up and be counted on this issue, and I look
forward to the debate."
‘The Washington
Post reports that revisions in the proposed regulations will protect most
white-collar workers who make up to
$100,000 a year and all emergency workers, including
police, firefighters, EMS personnel and licensed practical nurses. The
threshold of ineligibility for overtime pay in the
previously proposed rules had been $65,000. In addition, language that would
have rendered workers who have military or junior
college training "learned professionals," who are ineligible for
overtime, has been
eliminated, The Post
said.
‘Union workers would not be directly affected by the
rules changes, because the overtime
standards in most union contracts take
precedence over the Fair Labor Standards Act. But the
rules would undoubtedly encourage employers to attempt to reopen overtime
provisions that have been settled for decades.
‘The revisions in the proposed rules amount to a
partial cave-in to the public pressure generated for many months by organized
labor.
Hundreds of thousands of working people have
protested the proposed overtime pay regulations, which would upset rules that
have been crafted over decades. While the question of whether some categories of
workers are eligible for overtime pay for weekly hours worked above 40 is
sometimes close, answers that had been settled by decades of court decisions
and administrative practice were
suddenly being tossed aside by the proposals.
‘In announcing revisions, the Labor Department raised
the maximum proposed salary for guaranteeing overtime eligibility from $22,100 to
$23,660. In other words, anyone who is deemed by management to be a
"supervisor" or a "professional" still collects overtime
pay if her salary is less than $23,660 under the pending rule. The current
maximum salary, set decades ago, is $8,060.
‘The AFL-CIO has supported increasing that paltry
cutoff point from the beginning and has never tried to jettison the proposal.
However, the Bush Labor Department has published
advice to employers on how to avoid paying overtime to these low-pay managers
under the rules.
‘The AFL-CIO has consistently argued that the only
purpose of the rules changes is to cut overtime rights for working people and
steer money from employees to employers. The national
federation makes the point that we know this because the Bush administration
has fought "tooth and nail" to kill any
congressional effort to amend the rules by
simply protecting workers from any overtime
cuts. Even though both houses of Congress have backed
labor on this point, the Bush administration has engineered procedural kills
that have kept the proposed rules alive. The issue is still alive in Congress,
may be addressed in the courts and can definitely be
addressed at the polls in November.
‘The Labor Department's rules are not a neutral
administrative interpretation of the law, but an employer-driven sop to big
Bush
contributors
who wish to work employees more than 40 hours a week on the cheap. They
would encourage employers to place employees in newly exempt categories and
demand 50, 60, 70 hours a week at straight pay or, if the employees became
"salaried," at no pay. They
would discourage family time and ruin weekends for millions of Americans.
‘But with these rules changes, the proposals may no
longer apply to 8 million workers. The Economic Policy Institute, a
labor-friendly
think tank, will likely recalculate the number of
workers who are on the brink of losing overtime pay. The Bush administration
numbers on this point lack credibility because they
do not include workers who are eligible for overtime but are not actually
working
overtime. In many cases, the reason workers are not
asked to work overtime is the Fair Labor Standards Act guarantee of
time-and-a-half pay.
‘The fight continues.
‘AFL-CIO President John Sweeney issued this statement
on the overtime rules:
‘"Ignoring the protests of millions of American
families and defying the wishes of Congress, the Bush Administration has
pressed forward with new overtime regulations that will eliminate the right to overtime
pay for many hardworking Americans. The Bush
Administration staunchly opposed legislation which
would preserve overtime pay for all workers and instead pressed forward with
eliminating overtime pay for a huge swath of
middle-class workers – many who make as little as $23,600 a year. The Bush
overtime
changes will take money directly out of the pockets
of workers and put it into the hands of the President’s corporate campaign
contributors. This has to be one of the biggest pay
cuts in American history--special delivery to American workers straight
from the White House. It is a huge windfall for large
corporations."
‘"Last year both the House and the Senate voted
for legislation to prohibit overtime cuts, but the White House strong-armed
Congress
to keep this overtime guarantee from becoming law.
The Administration has also ignored a tremendous outcry from millions
of workers who sent many millions of e-mails, faxes
and petitions urging Bush not to eliminate their right to overtime pay."
‘"President Bush claims that his overtime plan
will have 'no impact' on American workers and will preserve overtime pay for
such workers as firefighters and nurses, but the president has a credibility
gap when it comes to overtime. Over the past year, in promoting its plan to
eliminate overtime rights for 8 million workers, the Bush Administration has
left an appalling trail of misstatements,
evasions, half-truths, and outright falsifications
that destroy any credibility they might have as defenders of workers’ overtime
pay.
If the Administration really believes that workers
will not lose their right to overtime pay under its proposal, it should support
pending legislation in Congress that would guarantee
workers’ overtime rights and repeal any part of the regulation that cuts
overtime. Workers need a binding overtime guarantee,
enacted into law, not empty promises from an Administration that doesn’t care
about workers."
‘"It’s not enough that President Bush has been
AWOL on jobs during his entire presidency, during which the country has lost
nearly 3
million private sector jobs and long-term
unemployment has reached record highs. Now, the new regulation will further
discourage job
growth. Allowing businesses to stop paying for
overtime will only encourage them to overwork their existing employees and
refrain
from hiring new workers. Americans should demand
immediate repeal of any part of the President’s plan that cuts overtime
pay."