I am one of those 640,000 to 8,000,000, depending on who you trust, whose white collar job can’t be sent overseas. I usually put in about 400 hours of OT a year. I will put in zero OT when this thing goes through. I will earn the extra income I’ve become accustomed to by instead subcontracting it the same people that President Bush* is letting off the hook, at a substantial increase to them. Most of the affected workers will not have that option.
From the cite:
The administration has already taken steps to lower the wages of our brave men and women in the military, now our first responders are going to get the shaft. What kind of Homeland Security is that? Is it easier for President Bush* to shaft the little guy to preserve corporate welfare? Are there any affected white-collar Republicans out there that support this?
Is this a stupid thing, even for Bush, to do in an election year? Or is this guy that good at screwing people and getting away with it?
Union contracts are to be honored, or course. However, how this will affect future negotiations is open to discussion. Especially in right-to-work states.
The new federal limit is $22,100 if the employee performs work that is of “substantial importance” or requires high-level training. The $65,000 limit makes employees ineligble for overtime no matter what work they do.
Sorry, I was horribly unclear. And forgot to mention the McD’s asst. manager thing.
Here’s my impression of the new rules: If you make under $22,100, you’re now legally entitled to overtime no matter what BS title your boss gives you to make you sound like and administrative or supervisory employee.
If you make over $65,000, you do not have federal entitlement to overtime, even if your position is not supervisory in nature (or one of the other things under the old “exempt/non-exempt” rules).
But even if you make over $65K, you or your union may negotiate overtime rules with your employer such that things were the same as they were before this federal rule change – that, indeed, in the case of most fire, police and EMTs there is already overtime protection, which protection preceded the federal rules and will survive the federal rules’ changing.
I’d disagree only slightly- the overtime protection will survive until the next contract negotiation and then there will be a protracted fight, and I don’t know which side will win. Fire, police and EMT’s are not the only government employees who have contracts providing for overtime. I’d be willing to bet most government employees are currently being paid for overtime they work, because of both contract provisions and the federal law. Once a government agrees to pay overtime to police ,fire and EMT’s, a pattern wil be set, and sanitation workers, corrections officers, nurses, secretaries, etc will demand it in their contracts as well. And some of them will fight very hard- perhaps not the secretaries and nurses, but surely sanitation and corrections will.
I have one question about the new rules - will the distinction between salaried and hourly employees remain at all ? As I understand the current rules, a salaried employee is one who receives the same pay no matter how many hours are worked in a week- they may not receive overtime for extra hours , but they also don’t get docked pay for leaving two hours early one day. Will the new rules allow those who don’t receive overtime to be docked for missing hours?
My impression is that if you made <$65K/yr hourly you got 1.5X your pay over 40 hours/week. Bush has decreased that to $22K, in the guise of making it easier for corporations to know which of their employees are eligible for OT, and to decrease legal expenses of fighting lawsuits filed over OT disputes. This administration wants you to believe that it was so hard to figure out the OT laws that worker’s rights had to be gutted to fix it. This is just plain stupid. Why won’t he just tell us his real reasons?
Regarding union contracts, don’t think that OT will be automatic in future negotiations. Workers are losing a good amount of their leverage now that King George has given his blessing. And, if I may reiterate, especially in right-to-work states like mine.
I’ll tell you as an employer it is that difficult. Probably still will be for most people, the new rules notwithstanding.
You’ve got at least one misunderstanding. There wasn’t any lowering of anything from $65,000 to $22,100. There are two new regulations using those salaries.
Basically, under the old rules an employee is “exempt” (i.e., not protected by federal overtime rules) if s/he is a supervisor – that’s why I called the $22,100 rule the McD’s asst. manager rule. Basically, a lot of employers would give some employees like “assistant manager” or “team leader” or some such BS and what it basically meant was “you can close up the store and we don’t have to pay you overtime.” The new rules say that the government doesn’t care if you call the guy God, if he’s making under $22,100/yr he’s getting OT. This is a new, important protection for low-wage workers.
The other new regulation is on the other side. Remember, when the old rules were made there was a bigger divide between management and labor (or there was thought to be). The old rules were basically made so that “labor” got OT, management could take care of itself. Well, now there’s a big supply of highly skilled people who are not “labor” in the auto worker sense but not “management” in the executive washroom sense. And yeah, it’s really really hard for employers to know when an employee’s job description fits the rules that make one “exempt.” Heck, I know we kick our programmers out after their hours. Our accountants, too. No OT. No nothing. The new rule says, basically, "if a person makes $65 K, s/he can basically take care of themself. Let 'em work it out with the company without the feds getting involved.
I’d respond to the labor union thing, too, but anyone who has a habit of calling the President of the United States “King George” in a forum meant for intelligent debate is either too stupid to understand what I’d type or too obstinate to pay any attention to it. So I’ll save myself the time.
Manhattan, the fault in your argument lies in your belief that there is a large supply of highly skilled workers. There isn’t, at least not in my field (medical technology). Maybe you’re up to your elbows in programmers and accountants where you work. What do you do if you need them to work late to finish a project, and they tell you to bug off? Do you replace them the next day from that large pool of programmers and accountants camped outside on the sidewalk?
Your indirect insult makes me think that you don’t know the answer to the union question, or you do but giving it would not toe the party line. Please, don’t waste any more of your time in my thread.
Disagree. I’m a labor lawyer, and of the hundreds and hundreds of clients I’ve had, I don’t recall meeting a single one who was paid less than $22,100/yr who was exempt from overtime. Not one. And in ten years, $22,100/yr will seem even more ridiculously low.
Of course, I practice in New York City, where wages tend to be higher. Perhaps the threshold will make a difference in Georgia. But in New York, forget about it.
IMHO, the folks behind this proposal are only pretending to be doing workers a favor.
I disagree with this too. The reality is that, with the exception of an elite few employees who have rare and important skills, employers have a lot more bargaining power than employees. And in my neck of the woods, $65k is not a huge amount of money to be making.
Nope, I just prefer to engage in a Great Debate with someone who has enough respect for the term and the forum not to post like s/he is in usenet. It’s not against the rules of this forum to drag it down to usenet levels, but if you want to debate with me, you’ll have to do better.
I agree that regional wage differences are important. If you or someone else wanted to argue that the specific numbers set as threshold ought to be indexed to local wages or to inflation, that the standards ought to be set by state and local governments instead of of the feds or, Ghod forbid, that the market should take care of it is the subject of a legitimate debate. Are you saying one of these things?
Well, it might make a difference in fast food joints in the outer boroughs, but you’re mostly right (see above). But the main reason I wanted to quote this is to thank you for mentioning your anecdotal and regional bias. I’m so happy to see it that I’ll return the favor.
I’m a supervisor of a small department for a company in New York City. A very, very compliant company. I recently had to spend several hours and several thousands of dollars of legal talent to establish that my analysts are “exempt.” That’s securities analysts. Guys I pay over $100,000 per year and who want my job someday. It’s crazy to me that it was even a question and that I had to expend time better spent serving my customers to establish it.
I also have an assistant. One who aspires to be an analyst. Who wants to pay her dues and get promoted. Unfortunately, most of the other assistants at my company are more traditional clerk/secretaries. So she’s stuck in “non-exempt” (remember, we’re very compliant). She’s not allowed to eat lunch at her desk, I have to get my boss’ approval if she’s going to do any analytical work after the market closes, etc. And, cost-conscious company that we are, that isn’t easy to get very often. The new law won’t directly affect my situation, as she currently makes less than $65,000. But I want to give her a path. Under the new law, if I can get her up to $65K I can put her on the path to make over $100K and become a full-fledged securities analyst. I’d rather give her that path now.
So yeah, I think the $65K hard threshold might not be the best way to go – maybe allowing employers to designate a certain number or percentage of employees as being on the “management track” (and a formula to ensure compliance) might be better. But as someone who wants to flatten management structures and move people up rather than recruiting different people out of business schools, I have to say that any move toward providing that flexibility is a good one in my eyes.
Also, please correct me if I’m in error here: For non-supervisory employees, even those making over $65,000, aren’t employers still required to offer comp time? That was my recollection of the interpretation of the regs last time I took a close look, but of course both interpretations and regs can change with time.
lucwarm, since you indicate some skill in this area, perhaps you can clear something up for me: I thought salaried employees were always exempt from overtime - that you only got overtime if you punched a clock.
Everyone save one individual at my company is salaried, but the handbook insists that anyone working beyond the normal work week expected of them (which I think was 45 hours) would get paid overtime. I think they were serious when they wrote it, but I can’t imagine anyone asking for overtime at all. We have a hard time getting “comp” time off when we travel on weekends. I quote one of my bosses, “Well, we can have some kind of comp time, but it shouldn’t be one to one.” No, it should be one and a half to one.
But yeah, I can’t imagine anyone trying to throw the employee handbook in their face.
So how would it work in a job category like mine? “Paralegal” covers an awful lot of ground. There are firms that treat their paralegals like secretaries, and there are firms that treat paralegals like junior attorneys. My firm has paralegals in both categories. We start people here on the lower end of paralegal duties and give them more challenging assignments as they gain experience, since paralegal certificate programs don’t usually teach the area of law we do; nobody here even has a paralegal certificate.
Most, but not all of us have at least a bachelor’s degree, and some have graduate degrees in various fields. In terms of professional background, we range from administrative assistants who worked their way up the food chain to people with 15 years of progressive experience. All the paralegals in the office are exempt, but I ain’t making no $65,000, and I believe only the most senior ones, who manage large client accounts, make that much. Because of the nature of what we do, our work must be reviewed by an attorney, and we theoretically aren’t allowed to make case strategy decisions (although in practice we do all the time, except in the most complex cases). And we do some mighty complex and technical work, involving digesting technical legal information as well as potentially technical information in any professional field – you never know who might need a work visa. At what point does a worker become “highly skilled”?
And yet we are all exempt, and all of us put in more than 40 hours a week, sometimes quite a bit more. And if I have a doctor appointment during the workday, I have to use leave time for it. Am I owed about a zillion dollars in back wages, even if the law is changed for future work?
Maybe it does have to do with you being in New York.
I can tell you for a fact shift managers at atleast two southern McDonalds do not receive overtime and make less then $22,100 a year. Usually they work about 50 hours a week.
You can’t just stick and “or [option]” in an insult and make it OK, or else I’ll have a dozen posters saying stuff like “Either you misread my quote, or you are a mouth-breathing syphilitic monkey whose mother fucks pigs.” No. This is not a precedent I want set as acceptable. You want to make a comment on a poster’s stupidity do it in the Pit.