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ESA News Release: [04/20/2004] Contact Name: Lisa
Kruska Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
Workers Win with Labor Departments New
Overtime Rules
FairPay Initiative
Guarantees Overtime Rights for Millions of Workers
WASHINGTONU.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao today
announced the final regulations governing overtime eligibility for
white-collar workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The
regulations had not been substantially updated for over 50 years, creating
confusion for workers and employers, generating wasteful class action
litigation, and failing to effectively protect workers pay rights.
Today, workers win. The departments new rules guarantee and
strengthen overtime rights for more American workers than ever before,
said Secretary Chao.
When workers know their rights and employers know how to pay
workers, everybody wins, added Chao. With the FairPay
rule, we are restoring overtime to what it was intended to be: fair pay for
workers, instead of a lawsuit lottery. And we will use these new clear
standards to vigorously enforce the overtime laws on behalf of
workersbuilding on this Administrations strong record of pro-worker
wage and hour enforcement.
The new rules expand the number of workers eligible for overtime by
nearly tripling the salary threshold. Under the 50-year-old regulations, only
workers earning less than $8,060 annually were guaranteed overtime. Under the
new rules, workers earning $23,660 or less are guaranteed overtime. This
strengthens overtime protection for 6.7 million low-wage salaried workers,
including 1.3 million salaried white collar workers who were not entitled to
overtime pay under the existing regulations. These workers will gain up to $375
million in additional earnings every year.
To provide even stronger overtime protection for workers, the FairPay
rules add new sections that clearly state that blue-collar workers,
police officers, fire fighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and
licensed practical nurses are entitled to overtime protection.
The departments new FairPay rule will take effect in 120 days. It
will be published in the Federal Register and a text version is available
online at www.dol.gov/fairpay. For
further information about the Fair Labor Standards Act, visit the
Departments Wage and Hour Division web page at
www.dol.gov.
An online audio news release is
available for this announcement.
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Archived News Release Caution: Information may be out of date.
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