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ESA News Release: [05/04/2004] Contact Name: Lisa
Kruska Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
Wage & Hour Division Administrator Testifies: Harkin
Amendment Will Put OT Protections at Risk for Millions
WASHINGTONU.S. Wage and House Division Administrator Tammy
McCutchen today told a Senate subcommittee that the Labor Departments new
overtime security rules will strengthen and guarantee overtime pay protection
for 6.7 million additional workers.
McCutchen also testified that a proposed amendment by U.S. Sen. Tom
Harkin to block the new rules raises many questions and will put overtime
protections for millions of employees at risk. In her testimony before
the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education, McCutchen posed a number of the questions she said would put workers
at risk.
How would we determine which sections, paragraphs or even
sentences were still in effect should the amendment pass? McCutchen
asked. How would the amendment affect the last 50 years of federal case
law, wage-and-hour opinion letters and the wage-and-hour field operations
handbookwhich are not reflected in the current regulations? Would all or
some of these still have the force of law?
Will new employees be subject to a different set of rules? What
rules would apply to an employee who changes employers but performs the same
work? It appears that the amendment could result in different employees who
perform the same work for the same employer being paid differentlyand
that could create other legal issues.
In short, we have opposed the amendment because we do not know
what the law would befor any employeeif the amendment is
passed, McCutchen said. We do know it would add confusion and
double the litigation. The amendment would make our enforcement more difficult
because each case would require two determinations instead of one: was the
employee exempt under the current regulations, and whether the employee is
exempt under the final regulations.
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 lower-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.
The Departments new rule was published in the Federal
Register on Friday, April 23, 2004 and a text version is also available
online at www.dol.gov/fairpay.
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