Over Time Pay Jeopardy Editorial

[colleen10]

Hi everyone,

This appears in today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Business Section. I think it is well written, although I wish it would discuss a little more specifically the legislation as it is the first item I have seen in my local paper depicting the changes that the Dept. of Labor has planned.

However, I think the fact that the author cannot discuss the specifics of this legislation just shows how "shadey" the whole thing is in the first place.

The Private Sector: Labor Department's proposed changes would cost workers time and/or money

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

By Linda Foley

To hear the business lobby and its friends at the Department of Labor tell it, their scheme to erode the 40-hour workweek for millions of employees is nothing more than an effort to clarify some dusty bureaucratic rules that the modern American work force has long since outgrown.

Those of us on the labor side of the equation have become accustomed to the DOL's propensity to downplay -- some would say fib about -- the damage to workers and boon to employers under the Bush administration's single-minded business agenda.

But this time the DOL has topped itself. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business interests, including employer attorney James G. Seaman in his Post-Gazette commentary last Tuesday, would have the public believe that a relative handful of workers will be hurt by these revisions and that far more will be helped. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The media have so far largely failed to take a critical look at these proposals. The DOL's numbers and motives haven't been challenged, except to the extent that the few stories on this vital matter note that labor unions and an Economic Policy Institute report disagree with the agency's conclusions.

What is happening is the most fundamental shift in workers' rights in generations. The Fair Labor Standards Act established the 40-hour workweek in 1938 to do two important things: To ensure that workers would have a life beyond their jobs and that employers who want them to put in extra hours would have to pay for it. And, two, to spur job creation by barring employers from working a minimum number of employees a maximum number of hours.

The EPI report, which used the Labor Department's own methodology, found that at least 8 million workers making more than $22,100 a year stand to lose their overtime protection under the proposed rules. These include police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, nurses, journalists, chefs, secretaries, dental hygienists, bookkeepers, administrative support workers, computer support staff, drafters, surveyors, designers, graphic artists, working supervisors, engineering technicians, planners, assistant and associate architects, health technicians, paralegals and retail workers, and anyone with military training.

If you're not on the list, don't rest easy. There are plenty of loopholes in the vague, ambiguous language. Your employer could find any number of ways to label you an "administrator," an "executive" or a "professional" and make your overtime rights disappear. And if you make more than $65,000 a year, you're virtually guaranteed to lose overtime.

Millions of workers depend on overtime pay to make ends meet. Millions of others rarely or never work overtime because their employers don't want to pay for it, or they choose not to work it so they can spend time with their families, go to school, volunteer, or pursue other interests away from the job.

Whichever category you're in, you are at risk of losing your time and your money. If your employer can find a way to exempt you -- and these regulations provide many such opportunities -- you'll find yourself working longer with no extra pay to show for it.

And what about the 9 million-plus workers in this country who are unemployed, with the worst jobless rate in nearly a decade? When employers can force a smaller number of workers to put in more hours, why fill more jobs?

Perhaps the most galling aspect of the DOL's spin on the rule changes is its smug claim that it is extending a helping hand to 1.3 million low-wage managers who will now be eligible for overtime protection. Business proponents, like Seaman, are seizing on this disingenuous argument.

While we applaud any effort to make more people eligible for overtime, this is clearly not the Bush administration's goal. Buried in the regulations are instructions for employers on how to cheat the very workers the DOL claims it's helping. Complete with a mathematical example, the DOL explains how to convert the workers' already low salaries to even lower hourly wages so their net pay doesn't change once overtime is figured into the equation. This is at best immoral and at worst illegal.

If these rules truly helped employees at the expense of employers, you wouldn't hear business cheering. But that's exactly what's happening, and it's very telling.

Many union members have strong contracts that will protect them in the immediate future from this assault on their rights. So why is organized labor speaking out? Because it is the right thing to do. The vast majority of workers in this country have no union and no voice, and it falls to us to lead the fight against an attack that could be devastating to their pay, their private time or both.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Linda Foley is a native of Pittsburgh and president of The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America, based in Washington, D.C.)

[essarge]

If my math is correct, just from the above list, healthcare workers make up a little over 17%. That's outrageous! Not just for us but everyone! Imagine staffing if this comes to be! Quite a few nurses that I know work their "40 hours" within 2 1/2 days. That leaves 4 1/2 days uncovered....hmmm. Wonder what DOL higher ups and politicians will think when they have to go to a hospital on a Wednesday afternoon (with the work week starting on Monday) and there is NO ONE to take care of them because they have already worked their 40 hour week!!!!

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

But there won't be a 40 hr week. Nurses (and others) could be forced to work as many hours of overtime as employers demand, without extra pay!

There will be nurses there, albeit even more exhaused, overworked, and angry than they are now. Managers will rest easy knowing they don't have to pay for agency, or find coverage.

Just force nurses already there to stay over with the threat of "pt abandonment" and no overtime pay! This will be a cash cow for for-profit hospitals and clinics!

Just wait until this takes effect. I think Bush will be the most despised president in U.S. history.

[agent]

if this takes effect there will be some serious sh1t coming down on washington, hell id drive there to protest!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Right now at least I doubt it will be enforced, at least in my facility. We are paying time and a half PLUS $15.00/hr for working any extra above your schedule. Which for me is at the 37th hour, because I work 3 12-hour shifts a week.

But who knows what the future holds.

Just because they legally can, doesn't mean they will.....yet. Right now, I'm very bothered by this law and what it means, but for nursing in my area, it's not going to happen.....yet.

[agent]

It bothers me severely

[Shiva_Las_Vegas]

This is interesting.....

http://www.iape1096.org/billot.htm

Bill Offers Option of Compensatory Time

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

ASHINGTON, May 6-Congressional Republicans and corporate America thought they had a family-friendly idea that workers would love-give them the choice of taking compensatory time or time-and-a-half overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week.

Under current law, employers are generally required to give overtime pay to hourly workers in the private sector and are barred from giving comp time. But Republicans say creating a comp time option would be a boon for workers who want to visit parents in nursing homes or attend weekday soccer games.

But when a House committee passed a comp time bill last month in what would be the first significant change in the nation's overtime law in 65 years, organized labor declared war against the idea.

Lobbyists for dozens of unions as well as some women's groups have flocked to Capitol Hill to fight the bill, insisting that corporations would use such legislation to twist workers' arms to accept comp time instead of overtime. That, opponents say, would hold down corporate costs and reduce take-home pay for workers.

With a House floor vote on the bill scheduled for later this month, the fighting is so intense-and the margin apparently so close-that each side is predicting victory.

Union leaders say that House leaders originally scheduled a vote for May 8, in time for Mother's Day, but that Republican leaders delayed the vote because they had failed to muster a majority. But Representative Judy Biggert, Republican of Illinois and sponsor of the bill, known as the Family Time Flexibility Act, said the delay was caused by the press of other legislative matters.

"The law governing the private sector has been frozen for more than 60 years, locked in a time when women worked in the home, most families had only one wage earner and nobody went to kids' soccer games," Ms. Biggert said. "Times have changed, families have changed, the workplace has changed."

She said the bill's concept was simple: if workers work overtime, they should be allowed to choose how they will be compensated, with more money or more time off. She added that the bill would help employers by giving them another option to make their workers happy.

Under the bill, a wage earner who works a 50-hour week, meaning 10 hours of overtime, would be able to choose, computing at time and a half, between taking 15 hours of comp time or 15 hours' pay. Emphasizing that the choice is voluntary, the bill sets strict penalties for companies that coerce workers into taking comp time instead of cash.

The bill would allow workers to bank up to 160 hours of comp time a year, and whatever banked time is not used by Dec. 31 would have to be cashed out. The bill says workers could take the comp time when they want, unless managers say it unduly disrupts operations.

"What this bill does is give employers flexibility to schedule more overtime without paying for it," said Bill Samuel, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s legislative director. "Right now, the Fair Labor Standards Act is meant to discourage excessive overtime because it costs money. The real point is this is going to mean more overtime for more workers for less pay. And more overtime will mean less family time for many workers."

Despite the bill's provisions against coercion, its critics predict that many employers will subtly pressure workers to take comp time instead of overtime, perhaps by awarding raises or promotions to those who take comp time. Opponents also predict that companies will steer overtime work to those who choose comp time.

With the House divided into 229 Republicans, 205 Democrats and one independent, organized labor hopes to defeat the bill by persuading 15 to 20 Republican moderates to oppose it. On April 9, the House Education and Workforce Committee approved the bill 27 to 22.

Privately, some supporters say organized labor is lobbying far harder than business because labor unions appear to see it as a rare opportunity for a victory when the White House and both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans.

Randel Johnson, vice president for labor policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said, "Labor's opposed because there are certain people in the union movement who just don't trust employers ever to do the right thing anywhere."

The bill would generally not apply to higher-level salaried workers who are exempt under overtime provisions, although some union agreements provide overtime coverage even to exempt employees. Nor would it apply to public employees who are generally covered by state laws, which often give workers the choice of overtime pay or comp time.

"Under this bill you get more time with your family only after being forced to spend more time away from your family," said Ellen Bravo, director of 9to5, the National Association of Working Women. "Another flaw in this bill is that flexibility requires control, but all control rests with the employer. The employer chooses whether to offer comp time, who gets to work overtime and when you can take comp time."

Seeking to reassure wavering lawmakers, the bill has a five-year sunset provision.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, has offered a similar bill in the Senate, but organized labor opposes it even more. It calls for similar comp time provisions but would change the 40-hour week to a biweekly 80-hour schedule so workers qualify for overtime only by working more than 80 hours over two weeks. A wage earner who works 50 hours one week and 30 hours the next now qualifies for overtime in the first week. Under Mr. Gregg's proposal that worker would not qualify for overtime because the total does not exceed 80 hours over two weeks.

[Want2bRN]

They had this set up long time ago u ask me.

I am very piss about this matter. I will not work for

free. I spend enough time way from child now working and going to school... Thk im do it free.. NO not dont thk soooo

I wish we all can stand by each other in this matter it is really needed.

I have been telling people about this at work and at schools and stores i go into.

Most of the people i tell dont even know about it

never even heard about the bill being up for vote..

Well i told them to come to this site and read it... where to look for it on this board...

well thk you for reading ....