Friday, July 3, 2015

Experts speak of overtime How Obama to the rule could change millions of workers and employers benefit

Obama
AP
By Rachel Gillett

Since 1938 the US you have a policy in place to protect workers and overtime to ensure they. For the additional work they are paid

But acquired in the 70 years since the political force of the law, the parameters are rarely updated to take account of inflation. Several influential Americans expect changes.

"The problem we have now is that people these laws were designed to protect are no longer protected," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a research center without profit, in a recent video-on protection over time.

Currently, the workers of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) 1938 will fall, must be paid at least one and a half for every hour worked over 40 hours a week.

"No matter what your boss calls you - store manager, shift supervisor, deputy regional director - if his salary is lower than the threshold, it must be paid for overtime," Eisenbrey said. "This is a simple and important protection."

But the salary threshold for which the employee is entitled to overtime a simple $ 23.660 per year ($ 455 for the week). Anyone who did more than that can not receive overtime.

"That's less than half what it was worth 40 years ago," said Eisenbrey. In 1975, the FLSA comprised about 61% of all employees said - now protects only 8%.

Employers, he explained, easy to pay and overtime so that title currently senior employees and pay them just above the annual limit of $ 23.660.

"The threshold to workers from that protect victims of labor exploitation, but too small to really work," Eisenbrey said. "If we want the protection of overtime and it is believed to upgrade the Ministry of Labour the law."

"This problem has a simple solution: to raise the threshold for overtime wages and the rate of inflation," he said.

Initiated a new change in policy by the Ministry of Labour and supported leaders like President Barack Obama would bring in the 21st century by increasing salary threshold to $ 50,440 per year (or $ 970 per week) LSF. The rule change could also prevent future problems automatically updating the salary threshold based on wage growth over time.

This would affect nearly 5 million American workers in the first year of application.

"Today, many Americans work long hours for less pay than they deserve," Obama wrote in a Huffington Post opinion piece Wednesday. At a press conference Tuesday afternoon Eisenbrey applauded the proposed change of policy, said: "It's a win-win for the workforce."

Predicting work new employees will be revised or part-time workers to move, noted, citing a new study by Oxford Economics, that if the salary threshold would be raised even $ 808 per week contract, 76,000 part-time workers to fill labor needs of companies.

And according to an article on the Institute for Economic Policy Eisenbrey website under the new threshold, 3.1 million mothers and 3.2 million fathers are guaranteed overtime pay, which would affect some 12.1 million children.

Politics is not only good for employees who want a fair wage, Obama said in his development. The policy should entrepreneurs who already pay their employees what they deserve, he said, because they do, their employees often from competitors who do not undermine to help.

"This is how the United States to do business," Obama wrote. "In this country. Is the work of a hard wage for a fair day's wage of the heart of what it means middle class in America."

Damon Silvers, policy director and special adviser to the American Federation of Labor, said at the press conference on Tuesday that this is a common sense measure that the basic understanding of American workers that if become less and recovery is more work to be paid overtime.

"Unlike many things in Washington, which is very simple," he said.

According to the Ministry of Labour website, the White House Office of Management and Budget reviewed and approved the opinion of the proposed policy change, but the document is not published in the Federal Register.

Christine L. Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, the rights of the defense organization of the workers, said at the press conference on Tuesday that the standard should be in the Federal Register for public comment some time in the week it comes published.

Following the publication of the proposed rule change, interested parties may be writing comments www.regulations.gov as part of the social plan.

Owens predicted the rule was adopted end of 2015 entered into force early 2016. She said it is unlikely that the threshold at which to reduce currently proposed, as it is still below historical standards.

Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist of the Vice President Joe Biden, a senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and author of "The Agenda of reconnection: Reunification growth and prosperity," he wrote in a Washington Post put on Tuesday because it is a "rule change "that go comparable to an ordinance that does not by this Congress, where the Conservatives would definitely try to kill him.

He said the proposed threshold of $ 970 per week useful for several reasons:
  • "The salary threshold is a way to avoid labeling someone a" manager ", while clearly what your salary paid no management. So you can have a threshold value significantly higher than the average wage, which tends in our economy to the salary will be paid the typical production, nonsupervisory employee, someone who has clearly paid overtime. "
  • If the Ford administration increases the salary threshold in 1975 was 1.57 times the average wage. Today 1.57 times the average wage would be $ 1,050 per week, which is close to the lines of $ 970 per week.
  • In 1950 the legislator asserted that the salary threshold should be 25% higher than the starting salary of a college graduate. Today this would be a threshold of $ 1,000 per week.
  • According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people in positions of real responsibility now earn anywhere between $ 1,520 and $ 3,995 per week. "In other words, this measure is the new threshold well below the level monitoring functions, and associated presumably free, at work."
  • The Labor Department Statisticsa is $ 970 per week, always at the bottom, such as non-supervisory workers with responsibilities to make the cut.
"We live in a time when the bargaining power of many people who depend on their salaries greatly reduced compared with the influence and the power of those whose income is derived from their portfolios of wealth," Bernstein wrote.

"This is not the first time in our history when these conditions have prevailed," he said. "In fact, it was the RSA acute realization that a function of government is to balance the forces, to help those who, risking exploitation, overwork absent overtime rules, and the inability of their claims born fair share of productivity growth were itself Generate ". Owens wrote in an editorial on Tuesday that workers in industries as diverse as retail, hospitality, accounting and oil and gas will benefit from the updated rules. "By offering a new salary threshold indicated will lead to growth, the Ministry of Labour took the first step to put improve the salaries of the middle class and overtime rules for its intended scope," she writes in.

"This is an important step in the practical work of the renovation of our country and overtime, only to more workers, including women, to ensure low-income and people of color people," writes Nancy Zirkin, vice president and general manager of the policy Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, in a press release.

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Some conservatives and business groups argue against raising the thresholds because they believe it is too high, or that might reduce workers' compensation.

But overwhelmingly the rule change was met with resounding support.

"We welcome the Obama administration and labor minister Thomas E. Perez for this important step to ensure that more workers can pursue the American dream," said Zirkin.
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