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Common Dreams reports
[On November 22, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of Texas] halted an Obama administration rule that would have expanded overtime pay for millions of workers, a decision that was slammed by employees' rights advocates.
The U.S. Department of Labor rule, which was set to go into effect on December 1, would have made overtime pay available to full-time salaried employees making up to $47,476 a year. It was expected to touch every nearly every sector [1] in the U.S. economy. The threshold for overtime pay was previously set at $23,660, and had been updated once in 40 years--meaning any full-time employees who earned more than $23,600 were not eligible for time-and-a-half when they worked more than 40 hours a week.
[...] Workers' rights advocates reacted with dismay and outrage. David Levine, CEO and co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council, mourned the ruling, saying the opponents were "operating from short-sighted, out-moded thinking".
"The employees who will be hurt the most and the economies that will suffer the most are in the American heartland, where wages are already low", Levine said. "When employers pay a fair wage, they benefit from more productive, loyal, and motivated employees. That's good for a business' bottom line and for growing the middle class that our nation's economy depends on. High road businesses understand that better compensation helps build a better work culture."
[...] Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), noted [2] that the rule would have impacted up to 12.5 million workers, citing research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
"The business trade associations and Republican-led states that filed the litigation in Texas opposing the rules have won today, but will not ultimately prevail in their attempt to take away a long-overdue pay raise for America's workers", she said. "Unfortunately, for the time being, workers will continue to work longer hours for less pay thanks to this obstructionist litigation."
[1][2] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 28 2016, @01:07PM
I'm sure we've all seen this sort of abuse: A top notch employee is enticed into a "promotion" - and his net take-home pay drops by 5, 10, even 15 percent. And, in exchange for a stupid title, he gets to work 60 to 80 hours per week.
I work with a man who has chased after a title for the past 15 years or more. He actually moved to Dallas, for a job with a manager's title. He lasted about six months. When he wasn't able to pay the rent, he moved back home, and begged for his old job back.
Titles are cheap. Titles don't put food on the table. If you're offered a title of "manager", you better look closely at the deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @01:46PM
You hit the nail on the head. Da judge was paid off to bow to corporate greed. I was suckered into the managers salary twice, but my job didn't change except for more hours per day and more days per week. I finally refused to advance into management in my last job (retired now) and instead got paid on productivity only. It was nice going home at 4pm after 8 hours, and making so much money that the manager complained about me making more than himself. My weekly paycheck was between 50 to 200 hours of pay for between 30 to 50 hours of actual clock time, and anything over 40 hours clock time or holidays was overtime pay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @05:15PM
Speaking of titles, one of the places I worked had title galore. By example in order of precedence, administrative assistant, secretarial assistant, secretary, administrator, department administrator, master secretary, division administrator, chief secretary, head of administration, corporate secretary. Note that "corporate secretary" was not the secretary in the board of directors sense and that the pay separating the entry level from the top level was only $10,000. It was similar with other entry level grunts, with it possible to become a manager from an entry level job in less than a year. In fact, some jobs even had multiple titles that you could choose from when you were "promoted."