Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday November 28 2016, @12:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the longer-hours-for-same-pay dept.

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday November 28 2016, @01:49PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday November 28 2016, @01:49PM (#434022) Homepage Journal

    I used to have a job where I had to account for every hour, and at least 60% of those had to be billable. Horrible. Where I am now, I have a job to do. SAP has some hours in it, but they're a joke to keep the accountants happy. I worked piles of extra hours September through last week. Now the crunch is over, and I can take it easy through Christmas. I didn't count the hours, neither did my employer - we're both happy, so what's the problem?

    There can be abuses, sure. I remember Texas Instruments was renowned as a sweatshop. If you took a job as an engineer there, they paid pretty well, but you worked 60 hour weeks. If you cared, or had a choice, you worked somewhere else. I was working for another company in the same city, but with the opposite philosophy. The pay was probably lower, but you did your job and went home. When there was a overdue release, people worked overtime; after the release, the office was pretty empty for a couple of days. Mutual trust and respect, works wonders.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday December 03 2016, @09:40PM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday December 03 2016, @09:40PM (#436657)

    Now the crunch is over, and I can take it easy through Christmas. I didn't count the hours, neither did my employer - we're both happy, so what's the problem?

    I get it, if something bad is not happening to you it is not happening to anyone. Such freedom is scarce, in increasingly more places you would work the extra hours when needed and then be covering for non-salaried employees, who then lose their income, when things slow down.