Obama plans to Increase Overtime Pay for Millions of Workers
All Right!!!
This'll get the Teabaggers' panties in a bunch.
President Obama is planning to use his Executive Authority to redefine which types of jobs are eligible for time-and-a-half pay after forty hours. As it stands now, millions of workers are not eligible for overtime pay because their jobs are defined as administrative, executive or professional. This includes fast-food managers, sales people, computer technicians; for that matter, almost anyone who toils away in a cubicle farm.
If you're paid a salary instead of an hourly wage, and your salary is a whopping $23,660 (or more) a year, then you're making too damn much money to be whining about overtime pay. This threshold was established in 1975 and hasn't been revised since then. 1975?!?!?!? I'm gonna venture a guess that the cost of living has gone up a tad since then.
1975. Hey, there's a cutting-edge new comedy series called Saturday Night Live. And the Bee Gees have this dynamite new record out, Jive Talkin'. It's totally different from that limpid folk-rock stuff they used to sing. Is there a name for this new sound? Disco, you say?
In today's dollars, the 1975 threshold of $23,660 is equal to $50,440.
Tomorrow, Obama will instruct the Labor Department to revamp these definitions and bring that $23,660 threshold into the twenty-first century.
These changes in the Labor Department will be subject to public comment before they can be implemented. Undoubtedly the Oligarchs will instruct their useful idiots to swamp the Labor Department with millions of choreographed comments.
And the rightwing pantytwist begins. Daniel Mitchell, who's a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and who's never lifted anything heavier than a briefcase, said:
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Gee, I've never heard that profound statement before.
Marc Freedman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said:
“I expect this is an area we will be very much engaged in.”
That's right, time to start cranking out a few more anonymous six-figure “political contributions.”
Let's hope President Obama won't scale back these recommendations because of too much corporate-orchestrated outrage.
Labels: Daniel Mitchell, Labor Department overtime, Marc Freedman, Obama executive authority
posted by Tom Harper @ 4:38 PM
4 Comments:
"There's no such thing as a free lunch" sure there is under GW Bush. What the first article didn't say is that during his administration they lowered the exemptions so that just about anybody and everybody was non-exempt from the overtime pay. No on really screamed until they tried to deny solders in the thick of Iraq Battle Pay in order to save money.
Bush could do it, so could Obama, Sauce for the goose.
Erik
If employers don't want to pay the overtime, fine. Let them hire new employees to cover the workload. Sorry, employers. NO FREE LABOR! It is time you pay for what you get.
Idea!
To please the conservatives and Teabaggers, give them an option out form, if they think OT is so horrible let them wave their right to have it.
We should have thought of that way back in the introductions of Social Security and Medicare.
They can now sleep better.
Erik
Erik: And if you're a defense contractor, there are free lunches galore.
Jerry: I think that will be the result -- employers will end up hiring more people instead of making one employee do the work of four. No wonder conservatives are pissed.
Erik: There you go, an Opt Out plan. Maybe that'll please the teatards, or maybe not.
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