Bush and friends trying to get rid of overtime pay

[Guest Doyo]

http://www.afscme.org/publications/public_...03/peso0314.htm

 

September/October 2003

 

Save Our Overtime Pay!

 

The Bush administration has made overturning the 40-hour workweek a top priority. AFSCME and our allies were able to keep legislation from going to a vote in June, but a showdown looms.

 

By Susan Ellen Holleran

 

DULUTH, MINNESOTA

 

Mary Alvar and her family depend on the money her husband, Timothy, earns through overtime. He is a carpenter who works primarily in outdoor construction. That's seasonal employment here where winter temperatures are often below zero. Timothy takes all the overtime he can get when work is available. The extra earnings help pay the bills throughout the winter.

 

That's why Mary, a child support officer and member of Local 66 (Council 96), is especially concerned about the Bush administration-backed legislation that would replace overtime pay with compensatory time off. "You can't bank comp time. Comp time doesn't pay the bills," she says. "We have two children in college. What we need is money. I have to budget for everything — car insurance, utilities, everything. Times in the winter are very lean."

 

The bill, which unions energetically lobbied to keep off the House floor, is H.R. 1119 — the Family Time Flexibility Act. It's the perfect example of a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing — a major corporate initiative to rob workers of overtime pay and increase flexibility for business' benefit.

 

Workers and their unions struggled for decades to win the eight-hour day and the 40-hour workweek. In recent years, as corporations have increased their political clout, they have whittled away at such hard-earned protections. And many misinformed U.S. workers, striving to balance work and family responsibilities, see initiatives like H.R. 1119 as a good step.

 

Corporations are trying to sell their plan to the public with a slanted public relations program. One woman interviewed on a radio news show explained that her baby needs surgery. If she works enough overtime, she can use her comp time to care for him as he recovers. What she doesn't say — and may not know — is that H.R. 1119 does not give her the right to use paid time when she wants it, but only at her employer's convenience.

 

Equally unfair is the fact workers would be paid nothing for overtime work. If you put in 48 hours on the job, you would be paid for 40; you wouldn't even get straight time for the extra hours. It's a loan to your employer, repayable in comp time — rather than money — at some future date. According to the Economic Policy Institute, "there is nothing in the proposed bill but rhetoric and slick marketing. ... It doesn't create employee rights. It takes them away."

 

FROM ALL SIDES. When the Bush administration took power, one of its first priorities was to derail workplace ergonomic standards that had been developed through years of comprehensive research. That effort succeeded. Now the attack is on overtime.

 

In addition to congressional efforts like H.R. 1119 and a number of Senate bills, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed to broaden job descriptions ("duties tests") that determine which workers qualify for overtime pay — and to implement a new, so-called high-income salary test. Salaried workers earning between $22,101 and $65,000 who can now earn overtime pay could be reclassified as executives or administrative or professional staff, making them ineligible for the premium. Some of the jobs affected: police and firefighters, nurses and medical therapists, retail managers and insurance claims adjusters. By the DOL's own calculations, these changes would disqualify between 2.1 million and 3.3 million workers who currently receive overtime pay.

 

This proposal would have a dramatic, adverse effect on earnings for those who would lose eligibility and probably increase their workloads. Employers would save money by shifting extra work from staff members who receive the pay premium to those who don't — along with more mandatory overtime. In July, the House of Representatives voted down efforts to protect workers from those threats. The flood of letters and e-mail messages — some 80,000, overwhelmingly against the changes — has slowed DOL action. But the Bush administration has not given up.

 

The battle to keep overtime pay is one we cannot afford to lose.

 

Some Facts About H.R. 1119

 

If enacted, the legislation will:

 

    * Reduce family income by taking away overtime pay.

 

    * Lead to longer work hours for many employees because it will be cheaper for the employer. In addition, reducing the employers' overtime costs lessens the incentive to hire more workers.

 

    * Produce unpredictable schedules by encouraging employers to call for mandatory overtime.

 

    * Leave more workers vulnerable. H.R. 1119 provides no remedy for workers who want to use leave at specific times and cannot do so.

 

What Can You Do?

 

    * Read the AFSCME CyberActivist Alert on overtime and write, phone, or e-mail your U.S. senators. Let them know that working people need overtime protections.

 

    * Download a flyer about overtime to share with your colleagues.

 

    * Stay informed. Check out the AFL-CIO's Web site at www.aflcio.org for updates and details on congressional and DOL attacks on the Fair Labor Standards Act. Click on "Take Action" to join your voice to those of other union members across the country.

[Guest Doyo]

I haven't seen this on the news or heard people talking about it. If the news

media were doing their real job, this would be a big story and every average

American would be against this. Of course most of the major news media is

owned by big corporations and they are the ones who want to pass this.

They had Bush on the news a few nights ago giving a "rah-rah" speach to a

bunch of workers. I'm conservative in many ways and have supported him

on issues, but this just makes him look like a snake by trying to shit on the

American working men and women like this.

 

[Guest JMA]

I hope Bush reconsiders this course of action. Overtime is needed. It also rewards hard work.

[Guest BDC]

Great. Yeah, I knew when I processing this in the senator's office that it would come up.

 

There's more to it, just give some time to find it if you'd like.

[Firestarter 0]

If the news media were doing their real job, this would be a big story and every average American would be against this.

The media isn't making it a story because if people had the facts they would understand that the proposal actually benefits those who make the lowest salaries - as opposed to trial lawyers. Your statement would only be true if you redefined "every average American" as "every American with below average intelligence," or, alternately, as "every Democrat." Which is much the same thing, of course.

[Guest Doyo]

the proposal actually benefits those who make the lowest salaries

 

Uh, you're joking right?

How does working 56 hours and getting paid for 40, while being forced to give your

employer a loan for the 16 hours, which they will pay you for in the future when they

see fit, help the worker? Why are the worker's unions against this and the big

corporations for it? How does disqualifying 2-3 million workers from overtime benefits

help the workers?

 

Your statement would only be true if you redefined "every average American" as "every American with below average intelligence," or, alternately, as "every Democrat." Which is much the same thing, of course.

 

Oh so you're into the republican/democrat sports game - root for your team even when

they do something obviously stupid. Hope that a republican never tells you to walk off a bridge.

[Firestarter 0]

the proposal actually benefits those who make the lowest salaries

Uh, you're joking right?

Nope. Under the pending rules (not just HR 1119), people who earn $65k per year or more for "white collar" labor wouldn't be given overtime pay. But almost one and a half million people making less than $22k per year would be. Who has more money, someone who earns $65k or someone who earns $22k? Some people making six-figure salaries also get overtime. Trial lawyers are agitating against the Department of Labor because they get big cases as a result of the messiness of the current rules.

 

Try actually reading the resolution itself instead of relying on your premasticated partisan bullshit for the facts. Really, let's be serious. The old rules are from the '70s. It's way past time we revised them.

 

Oh so you're into the republican/democrat sports game - root for your team even when they do something obviously stupid.

Actually, I'm one of the least partisan people on the board. I've attacked Santorum and Lott in the recent past, I hated Strom Thurmond, and I disagree with the Republican Party on a lot of issues, including but not limited to abortion, freedom of and from religion, drug prohibition, gun control, homosexual rights, mandatory minimums, and sex education. And that's just for starters. But on this issue the Democrats have been bought and paid for by the lawyers and the unions, as they usually are, and the Republicans are right. Sorry.

[Guest Doyo]

Of course they are going to throw in some things that look good. That

is part of the political game to get people to be in favor of it that wouldn't

be if they understood the whole bill. The whole thing is 39 pages with

3 columns on each page and can be viewed here.

I haven't read it all and I doubt you have either.

 

Even if we assume the unions have been bought and paid for by the lawyers,

why are the corporations so in favor of this bill? If this was really great overall

for the workers then why isn't Bush promoting it in speaches all over the place?

 

The International Union of Police Associations, which is representing more than 110,000

officers from across the USA is against it. They are not exactly a radical leftist

organization. http://www.iupa.org/legislative/deacoppose1119.html

 

 

 

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

 

http://aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/overtimep...underattack.cfm

 

The Bush administration claims its plan would give overtime protections to more workers by allowing anyone who earns $22,100 or less to automatically qualify for overtime pay. But many of those workers, such as fast-food employees, already are covered.

 

Both H.R. 1119 and S. 317 give an employer ultimate control over when—or even if—an employee is allowed to use earned comp time. The legislation also provides no meaningful protection against employers requiring workers to take time off instead of receiving payment and no protection against employers assigning overtime only to workers who agree to take time off instead of money.

 

On the surface, the legislation says it is the employee who can decide to accept comp time instead of paid overtime. But “this ignores the reality that most workers have no say in their hours or working conditions,” Ellen Bravo, director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women, told the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee at a March 12 hearing on H.R. 1119.

 

“There is nothing in the bill (H.R. 1119) for workers except rhetoric and slick marketing,” according to an analysis by Ross Eisenbrey, vice president and policy director of the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. “Not only will employees who substitute comp time earn less, so will employees who refuse comp time and insist on being paid for their overtime at the time they work it. Employers will assign overtime preferentially to those who accept comp time, thereby depriving the workers who need the extra cash of overtime work,” Eisenbrey says.

 

In fact, H.R. 1119 could be a huge cash bonus for greedy employers. “Under H.R. 1199, an employee who works overtime hours in a given week might not receive any pay or time off for that work until a year later, at the employer’s discretion,” says Eisenbrey.

 

With a 160-hour overtime maximum allowed under H.R. 1119, “A company with 200,000 employees, for instance, might get 160 free hours at $7 an hour from each [employee],” Eisenbrey reports. “That’s the equivalent of $224 million the company wouldn’t have to pay to its workers for up to a year after the worker has earned it. Considering that under normal circumstances, the employer might have to pay 6 percent interest for a commercial loan of this magnitude, it could save $13 million by relying on comp time to ‘borrow’ from its employees instead,” he says.

 

Both H.R. 1119 and S. 317 would allow employers to save money by requiring more mandatory overtime, which would encourage them to schedule even more overtime that would keep workers away from their families for longer hours.

 

Bravo says the legislation “does nothing to address the problem of mandatory overtime.” In fact, by making it possible for employers not to pay for overtime and instead offer comp time at some later date convenient for the employer, “this bill provides an incentive to require workers to endure long hours on the job,” she says.

 

But on this issue the Democrats have been bought and paid for by the lawyers and the unions, as they usually are, and the Republicans are right. Sorry.

 

Sounds like a massive conspiracy theory. Where is the evidence? The big corporations have

more money than the lawyers or unions. Big corporations donate big money

to politicians because they want the politicians to help them. Corporations look out for their

own interests first; this is common sense. Lawyers will work for either side as long as they get

paid.

 

The fact remains - a bill was introduced by politicians and it is being supported by corporations

and is being opposed by worker's rights, women's rights, and family rights organizations.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I loved getting overtime. You got twice the pay and did half the work because you usually came in on a Saturday and there was no supervision.

 

The comp time for extra hours is B.S. though. Hell, even when my employer told me to "bank" my hours so I wouldn't get overtime I laughed in their face because I've known too many people in the past to get screwed over this...

[EricMM 0]

Where I work, if one gets overtime, one's hours are reduced to forty and one is warned. If one goes over forty hours another week, one is fired.

 

Sweat shop? No! The state of MD

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

So you work at Wal-Mart, eh?

 

Don't you know by now -- you have to CLOCK OUT, then go back to work. Don't want any managers to get in trouble...

[EricMM 0]

No, I work FOR the state, specifically, the Univ. of MD Residential Facilities.

 

Ask Gov. Erlich where the fuck our money went.

 

He'll say: "Not to Eric, who is not allowed to work overtime."

 

Bastard.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

If Im not gettin paid for it, Im not working.

 

 

Oh, and I voted for Erlich and I think he's done a fair job so far. Stupid idiots should have passed the slots legislation. Id rather see people from Maryland (like myself sometimes) blow $50 a week in MD slots than in Delaware, New Jersey or West Virginia.

[JHawk 0]

I look at it this way. If I was told to work six hours of overtime and told I'd get paid for it if they felt like it, I'd tell them I'd only work for what I got paid for. Why work the extra six hours and not get paid for it? I work because I need to pay the bills, not because I'm a nice guy who wants to help out.

 

The theory behind passing this is the economy will improve because the corporations, now having to spend less money on wages, could hire more workers. The problem is that most people who are working would have less money to spend, and many corporations wouldn't hire additional workers when they could use the ones they've already got and not pay them.

[Dr. Tom 0]

Stupid idiots should have passed the slots legislation.

Hell fucking yes. I wouldn't even play the slots (if I'm going to gamble, I'm going to be playing poker, dammit), but the boost to the economy would have been tremendous. Considering the lottery -- which is basically a scam to get poor people to part with their money -- is given a fee pass on the no-gambling thing, I don't see why slots would have been so bad.

[Guest MD2020]

No, I work FOR the state, specifically, the Univ. of MD Residential Facilities.

 

Ask Gov. Erlich where the fuck our money went.

 

He'll say: "Not to Eric, who is not allowed to work overtime."

 

Bastard.

Well, at least the gov. knows you personally!!

[Guest MD2020]

Stupid idiots should have passed the slots legislation. 

Hell fucking yes. I wouldn't even play the slots (if I'm going to gamble, I'm going to be playing poker, dammit), but the boost to the economy would have been tremendous. Considering the lottery -- which is basically a scam to get poor people to part with their money -- is given a fee pass on the no-gambling thing, I don't see why slots would have been so bad.

It better be Texas Hold'em. Anything else Tom, and my opinion of you would go down.

 

(OK, OK. It can be seven-card stud, too).

[Dr. Tom 0]

DEFINITELY Texas Hold'em. I wouldn't even bother with other card games at a casino.

[Guest Retro Rob]

DEFINITELY Texas Hold'em. I wouldn't even bother with other card games at a casino.

The game of Kings. I have NEVER taken a hit in Hold'em or 7 Card Stud. Five Card Draw is a different story....

[NoCalMike 0]

Didn't they say they were also going to ring in new "definitions" of certain jobs in order to cut out overtime for certain blue collar jobs. Like if you were working in a warehouse where you drove a forklift, instead of calling you a warehouse worker, you would be renamed a forklift technician or something like that in order to fall under a different classification, thus screwing you out of overtime pay.

[Guest wrestlingbs]

I don't get paid for overtime, but I still think this is moronic.

 

Does Bush even think these things through before he puts them out there? I mean, the guy's got a bad enough image as it is. He already looks like an inept war-loving politician.

[NoCalMike 0]

I don't get paid for overtime, but I still think this is moronic.

 

Does Bush even think these things through before he puts them out there? I mean, the guy's got a bad enough image as it is. He already looks like an inept war-loving politician.

well the problem is, stupid proposals like this are attatched to a bill called, "More Money to help the troops" so everyone is eager to sign it, then they look it over and see this thing on it, and it just ties everything up.

 

I mean if this proposal was just sent to a vote on it's own, not attatched to something else, it would get shot down no problem. However then it just wouldn't be the world of politics, now would it.

[Anakin Flair 0]

I believe this was shot down a day or two ago, although I didn't read the story- just saw the headline on the Post as I was leaving school.

[JangoFett4Hire 0]

Actually, I'm one of the least partisan people on the board.

Man, I needed a laugh. Thanks Marney Rubble.

[Firestarter 0]

I've attacked Santorum and Lott in the recent past, I hated Strom Thurmond, and I disagree with the Republican Party on a lot of issues, including but not limited to abortion, freedom of and from religion, drug prohibition, gun control, homosexual rights, mandatory minimums, and sex education.

So you would define a mindless party-line Republican drone as someone who disagrees with the GOP on all the issues cited above?

[Art Sandusky 0]

Actually, I'm one of the least partisan people on the board.

 

You just called a thread about lower approval ratings for Bush in the latest round of polls a left-wing circlejerk.

[Firestarter 0]

Yep. Just as in the past I called threads on other boards rejoicing in lower approval ratings for Clinton (in the middle of the Starr fiasco) right-wing circlejerks.

[MrRant 0]

But which side's naive, young, big titted "assistants" give the best circle jerks? Because that is the side I want to be on.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Yep. Just as in the past I called threads on other boards rejoicing in lower approval ratings for Clinton (in the middle of the Starr fiasco) right-wing circlejerks.

Since I didn't know this before, fair enough.