Bush to low-income workers: “Look! I’ve revamped the payroll system so that more of you will get overtime pay! We’re talking \$895 million more in wages here! Aren’t I great?”
On July 10, the House…voted to support the Department of Labor’s (DOL) efforts to give 1.3 million low-income workers the right to receive overtime pay. Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH) and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Charlie Norwood (R-GA)…praised the Labor Department for its efforts to provide additional protections to low-income workers and ensure that they are entitled to overtime pay.
Millions of workers in America are not going to lose their overtime pay in the United States if DOL completes its proposed update to “white collar” overtime regulations. Unfortunately many Democrats, organized labor, and other opponents of this proposal are trying to scare everyone into believing that they will.
Bush gets votes.
Meanwhile…
Bush to employers of low-income workers likely to be affected by the changes: “Okay, here’s how you can get away with not having to pay them any more money after all! Aren’t I great?”
A proposed Labor Department rule suggests ways employers can avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible this year.
[…]
Among the options for employers: cut workers’ hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new \$22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible.
[…]
Employers’ options include:
[…]
Making a “payroll adjustment” that results “in virtually no, or only a minimal increase in labor costs,” the department said. Workers’ annual pay would be converted to an hourly rate and cut, with overtime added in to equal the former salary.
Essentially, employees would be working more hours for the same pay.
Bush gets votes.
And in the end, of course, real people get screwed.
Crap like this makes me sick, and really makes me worry that Bush and his cronies will be able to wheedle and manipulate their way back into the White House in November. I hope not, but I won’t say that it doesn’t make me worry.
(via Lane)