|
It’s hard to
say whether this is simple honest disagreement over what the changes will mean
or if it’s deliberate misinformation.
From my perspective, it’s become increasingly difficult to take Bush2 at
it’s word, on any number of subjects, not just 16 words on WMD and/or the Bush
Preemptive Doctrine, or the Pentagon’s trial balloon at selling futures shares
in terrorism acts (Hello? Are we joking?
Poindexter resigning because of this does not repair the growing suspicion
that the Pentagon needs a little fresh air housecleaning). Earlier this
week I came upon this from Sojourners’ e-newsletter and had an amusing tour of
the blog this quote came from. "...Lots of lies can be uttered in less than 16
words. 'No Child Left Behind,' for example, is four words, and 'Clean Air Act,'
only three." -From "The Daily Enron" blog So it is with some bemusement that I read this today in the Oregonian. As is often the case, it’s the question
asked that makes the difference. Senators hear widely different numbers on overtime proposal
A labor agency official says
fewer than 650,000 would lose pay, but a union-supported center disagrees By Dune Lawrence, Knight Ridder
News Service, August 1, 2003 WASHINGTON – A Senate Appropriations
subcommittee heard wildly varying claims Thursday about a proposed Bush
administration rewrite of federal rules that determine who is eligible to earn
overtime pay. The Labor Department
official who drafted the revisions said that fewer than 650,000 workers will
lose overtime pay. The Economic
Policy Institute, a Washington research center supported by labor unions,
warned that more than 8 million will be affected. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washing.,
was among those who were confused.
She asked how a typical worker would fare. Christine Owen, the AFL-CIO’s general counsel, said many technical workers, such as medical technicians, would lose overtime.
But the Labor Department’s wage and hour administrator, Tammy McCutchen,
assured Murray there’d be no big
changes. “We are not changing the
rule” affecting technicians, she said. And so it went. At issue is McCutchens’ proposed
revision of rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that define who
must be paid overtime for working more than 40 hours in a week. Lawmakers decided back then that
certain executives, administrators and professional employees didn’t need
overtime protection, because they had enough
control over their work and enough clout to set their own conditions when it came time to hours. Congress left it to the Labor
Department to define “from time to
time” just who belonged in those exempt
categories. It’s been 28 years
since the rules were last updated, partly because the issue is so politically
charged. The rules include tests
based on salary and on the nature of the job. Under the new rules, all workers who make less than
$22,100 a year would be entitled to overtime pay. Workers earning $65,000 a year or more would be exempt
almost automatically as long as they do office, nonmanual work. Between these two limits is where
the waters get murky because that’s where “duties tests” come in to determine
who’s a professional, executive or administrator. Court decisions and Labor Department rulings over decades
hammered out interpretations of most of the gray areas in the existing
rules. The new rules lack that clarity on precedents, which makes many workers nervous. “There have been lots of cases
that have defined the parameters of what’s kosher and not kosher, and you’re
essentially throwing out the baby and the bathwater here,” said Steve Zierff, a
lawyer in the San Francisco firm Rudy Exelorod & Zieff who represents
employees. Union representatives content
that the new rules are too employer-friendly, giving them more leeway to
exclude low-wage and middle-income workers from overtime protections. Not so, McCutchen
said. “We have no intention to
expand the exemptions.” Yet
in comments to the Department of Labor on the proposed rules, in interviews,
many lawyers and experts on the employer side said that the new rules would
expand the ranks of workers who were not paid overtime. |
