George Bush: Have You No Shame, Sir?
The utter disregard for the worker displayed by this president grows more vile by the day. He is determined to maintain the fig leaf of economic growth, even if it has to be done on the backs of employees who are terrified into submission by a stagnant job market.
Perhaps he forgets that angry employees make angry voters.
So what? The evil Bush Administration labor department is the same group that gave the extra money to the employees in the first place.
HA-HA-HA! WHAT A JOKE!
The American worker doesn’t read, he doesn’t think, and he doesn’t vote. He just sits there, like a dumb brute beast, and takes it.
I hate it, but George W. hasn’t a thing to worry about from the working man, as long as beer prices are low.
You’re so naive, Fear Itself. :rolleyes:
Don’t be so sure, buckaroo. A lot of folks are mired in apathy, that’s true, and find it difficult to connect to the images that flash across thier TV screen.
But damn near everybody reading this, at one point or another, has been Screwed by the Boss. And resented it. And by and large, the common wisdom (such as it were) is that the Boss is a Republican.
This is an astonishing example of hubris, in my estimation. They are really asking for trouble with this kind of action, which amounts to dancing on the grave of Labor. Any working person who ends up working 10 hours a week more for nothing but the selfless joy of buying the Boss a new Lexus…is gonna be pissed.
Those of you who are of an age to have grandparents who participated in the Labor movement should get yourselves a bit of oral education. Or read Studs Terkel.
People fought and died for the reforms that this rump administration rolls back with sardonic glee. We need to lay that stupid fuck of a President off.
What “extra money” are you talking about, SmackFu? Under this plan, that worker would take home $63.20 less each week, and would have to work 5 hours of overtime just to stay even! How is this a gift from the labor department? Is that more “Republican Math”, the same skill with numbers that conjured up the Florida votes in 2000?
What this is, my friends, is just business as usual for most federal rulings.
They issue a ruling.
They provide examples.
This is just a particularly embarassing one. And my colleagues covering The Hill got a hold of it and are milking it.
And, for my money, that’s fine. Providing examples of what the new overtime rules might actually lead to should be educational.
But there’s nothing ‘hubris-like’ about this. It’s perfectly normal.
Bad…but normal.
It looks like Fear Itself does not actually comprehend what is going on. Let me try to explain a bit. (Though perish the thought that I muddle up his rant with mere facts!)
Fact: Under GW’s administration, more people are eligible for overtime pay than were eligible for overtime pay before.
Does that make sense? More people will be eligible for overtime, meaning that if they work over 40 hours per week, they will earn at overtime rates, which means more money in those peoples pockets.
The above is a fact, as in, ‘Not idle speculation’, or, ‘The opposite of wild-eyed conjecture’.
If you have a specific example of a company changing its payroll around to minimize its payroll expenses, let us see it. If you have an example of GW mugging people at the ATM, again, let us know.
But until then, you will excuse me if I disregard your OP as being devoid of anything worth being concerned about.
No, I think you missed the topic, Brutus.
At issue here is not the overtime rules themselves but the illustrations provided by the administration for ways by which employers can minimize payroll.
The political fallout (and whether it has legs) is far more important than the ruling itself.
It is optimistic to claim that there was a topic here, other than typical Bush-bashing. Various methods for dealing with payroll expenses have been around since 1938 or so. (Whenever it was that overtime was placed on the books.) Unless you think that certain aspects of certain laws should remain secret, there is no valid debate in this OP, only ranting.
Of course you have a cite for this fact?
Thus speaks a voice from the party that styles itself the champion of the working man.
Here’s a more comprehensive story from the AP.
IMHO, the labor department is just being practical. Just because the law now requires paying OT doesn’t mean a company wants to or is able to actually pay their employers more. So of course they’ll fire people or cut their wages to make it work out the same. The fact that the labor department tells them how to calculate the required hourly wage cut is irrelevant to whether the companies will actually do it. Obviously the labor department itself has no position on how well employees are paid, if it’s above the minimum.
Am I the only one expecting that next month, the Labor Department will simply tell employers “Just tell the damn employees to work overtime without pay, and threaten to sue them for everything they’ve got if they complain”?
Yes. The OP.
“Newly eligible” refers to the fact that the rules are being changed by the admin to make more people eligible for OT. That they are doing this with one hand while simultaneously telling employers about loopholes is rather stupid, and horrible politics to boot; but unless 100% of all employers use the loopholes, the fact remains that more people will get overtime.
No, you’re not. There seems to be no lack of Bush-hating, mindlessly paranoid partisan hacks to keep you company here.
I would hope so, considering how silly a leap of logic that is. Unfortunately, my hope is usually dashed in such cases as these…
I would imagine, my dear friends in the Chicken Little party, that any company that wanted to do what the OP is foaming about would have to have a clause in any employee contract that lets them do it. Which would be… y’know… absolutely the same as things are now. Don’t want your company to stay solvent? Don’t sign the contract. You can make a liveable wage at McDonald’s.
furt: “Newly eligible” refers to the fact that the rules are being changed by the admin to make more people eligible for OT.
Actually, this omits more than half of the story. There will indeed be some lower-income workers who become newly eligible for OT, but at least as many—in fact, probably far more—currently OT-eligible workers will become ineligible.
According to a news article linked from the OP’s link,
More specifics are supplied by the Economic Policy Institute:
So I think it’s quite fair to suggest that the main goal of the Bush Labor Dept. here seems to be reducing the overtime-pay burden on employers. The helpful hints about how to avoid paying OT even to the smaller group that will be eligible for it under the new rules are merely adding insult to injury, as far as benefits to workers are concerned.
Hey smartmouth!
Which party am I a member of?
Answer–NO PARTY! I’m an independent.
:mad:
Get you facts straight next time—before you grunt incoherently, m’kaaaay? :rolleyes:
Thank goodness the Administration informed corporate america about this loophole. Otherwise, companies would never have figured out that they could lower labor cost by reducing hourly wages! I mean, who woulda figured?