I’ve been trying to understand what this will mean to my family. I tried reading about it here .
I guess I’m just not that bright. I feel like my head’s going to explode.
Could someone please explain this to me so I can understand ?
Thanks.
The page has been moved. Can you give us the gist?
I’m researching this myself since one of my chicken little coworkers mentioned something about it yesterday. Your link doesn’t work for me, but is this what you’re talking about?
I’m looking for some text on the bill itself to see exactly what is optional for the employee.
So far in the search it looks like businesses are for, employee advocates are against.
Looks like similar bills have been introduced over the past few years. This years versions are S.317 and HR.1119
The basics are that the Republicans want to look like they are helping people get paid overtime, but actually they are removing so many people from being eligible that it is far in favor of slavedriving companies.
This is how most bills under Bush are designed. A good thing in the title that is far outweighed by the negative loopholes buried inside.
Very cynical.
If you look at the history of minimum wage, overtime pay, and almost all such fair work rule, the worker has lost over half of the protections gained when they were first instituted.
Who are the removing from being eligible?
The Charlotte newspaper article and Senator Hutchison’s remarks paint different pictures. From the newspaper:
Senator Hutchison:
As to whether flexible schedules are better or worse than rigid ones, that can only be a matter of opinion, on which people will undoubtably vary. While flex time appeals to me, I doubt there’s a way to “prove” that one or the other is better for everyone.
Nothing in what Sender linked as his/her “best synopsis so far” sets off any alarm bells, but I still don’t know what the rules are for exempt employees. An article on NPR yesterday only mentioned that exempt employees had been at a minimum salary of $8K and that would now become $22K.
It seems to me that any flexibility for workers is bad for workers. Because employers are in a position that allows them to coerce workers into excersizing flexibility in a way that favors the employer and is detrimental to the worker.
If employees are given a choice between time and a half and comp time, many employers will quietly let it be known that choosing time and a half is not a good choice for folks who want to keep their jobs.
Sadly, the same thing can be said about many bills coming from either side of the fence.
How so? Are you saying that any flexibility for (I’m assuming you mean hourly) workers is bad for said workers? Hmmm…, yes, that appears to be exactly what you’re saying. If the employer remains liable for time-and-a-half pay or flex time, how does that favor the employer or become detrimental to the worker?
And remember that accrued payroll remains on the debit side of the balance sheet.
there was a great debait on this a while ago. the thing was, if i remember correctly, that comp time could be delayed for a year. it was at the employer’s discretion when you would get the time. since the comp time could be delayed for a year it was like getting a year’s lone on the fee for the labor.
You are all missing the bigger picture.
Many employees are being redefined as professionals and will no longer be eligable for any type of overtime compensation.
What I’m trying to figure out is how are they going to be redefined ? In plain english.
“Many employees are being redefined as professionals and will no longer be eligable for any type of overtime compensation.”
How so? I think that’s how it should be for some people. Our local fire chief in this city of 15,500 made $170,000 in 2002 because of overtime. I think they are a salaried position so they can’t get overtime, but they won’t let us see employee records so we can’t figure out why he made so much when his basic salary is supposed to be about $110,000 a year & he only has to put in 2 days a week at the office, plus 2 alternate days.
The incorrectly-typed link in the OP is NOT to the Working Families Flexibility Act, which has nothing to do with exemption rules. It’s THIS, a proposed rule-change from the U.S. Department of Labor. The change increases the pay level under which non-exempt status is automatic (i.e., the right to receive overtime pay), and institutes a pay level above which all workers are exempt, regardless of duties.
In addition, the rule redefines “administrative,” “professional,” and “executive”: they eliminate the requirement for consistent use of discretion and independent judgment; that employees devote the greatest part of their work time to exempt administrative duties; they substitute an employee’s high skill or level of training for a requirement that the employee’s work be managerial and of substantial importance to the employer’s business operations.
Exactly how this affects a particular employee depends on the job involved, as well as the intent of the employer.
Handy, your fire chief is so irrelevant to this discussion that I don’t know where to begin.
Maria, perhaps you should read the note about political responses in GQ.
Simulation:
Mr. Supervisor, can I work an extra day this week, but instead of paying me overtime could I instead take off for my daughter’s college visit?
That would be fine with me, but it’s ILLEGAL.
Maria, you do a disservice to the terrible scourge of slavery when you casually toss it off for partisan purposes, especially when discussing a law that requires employee signoff to be effective.
Whenever an employer has the “option” to screw employees, for many businesses, that “option” becomes mandatory. Want to KEEP your job? Then you had better “consent” to “flextime”. Want to KEEP your job? Then you had better NEVER use that “flextime”. Complain? You get fired for actually preferring overtime pay? The burden is upon YOU to prove that it was not for good cause. You probably can’t afford as good a mouthpiece as the slimeball corporation. You will probably lose.
Academia is infamous for its “optional” flextime in lieu of overtime (even when no such arrangement can technically exist). Oddly enough, when one wants to take the time off, things are just too hectic and overloaded for it to be permitted.
This is politics - keep it out of GQ. But since you started: Last time I checked, congress had a fair number of dems and republicans. If the dems are getting duped, get new dems. -end of polictics.
I don’t know if anything is being propped up to help employers, other than then benefit of offering options to employees.
The fuzzy area is exactly how it breaks for exempt employees.
I don’t know why that didn’t show up, but this is what I was looking at.
Thanks.