ADMINSTRATION OFFERS YOUR BOSS TIPS ON SCREWING YOU

[mburbank]

This vanished with the three days the board ate, so I'm reposting it.

U.S. offers employers ways around overtime pay
By LEIGH STROPE
Associated Press


WASHINGTON — The Labor Department is giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible under new rules expected to be finalized early this year.

The department's advice comes even as it touts the rules by saying workers will get $895million in increased wages.

Among the options for employers: Cut workers' hourly wages so that regular and overtime pay equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible.

Under the old rules, an employee could make as little as $155 a week and still be classified as a "professional" or "white-collar" employee, and thus exempt from overtime. The new rules would increase that annual pay rate to $22,100 from $8,060.

The department says it is merely listing well-known choices available to employers now or under the new rules. "We're not saying anybody should do any of this," department spokesman Ed Frank said.

A final rule that revises the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act is expected to be issued in March. The act defines the types of jobs that qualify workers for time-and-a-half if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Overtime pay for 1.3 million low-income workers has been a selling point for the Bush administration in trying to ease concerns in Congress about millions of higher-paid workers becoming ineligible.

But the Labor Department, in a summary of its plan published last March, suggests how employers can avoid paying overtime to newly eligible low-income workers.

"Most employers affected by the proposed rule would be expected to choose the most cost-effective compensation adjustment method," the department said. For some companies, the financial impact could be "near zero," it said.

Employers' options include:

# Adhering to a 40-hour workweek.

# Raising salaries to the $22,100 threshold. If employers raise a worker's salary "it means they're getting a raise — that's not a way around overtime," Frank said.

# 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.

The department does not view the "payroll adjustment" option as a pay cut. Rather, it allows the employer to "maintain the pay at the current level" with the new overtime requirements, said the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division administrator, Tammy McCutchen, an architect of the plan.

Labor unions criticized the employer options.

Mark Wilson, a lawyer for the Communications Workers of America who specializes in overtime issues, said the Bush administration was protecting the interests of employers at the expense of workers.

"This plan speaks volumes about the real motives of this so-called family-friendly administration," Wilson said. He added that cutting workers' pay to avoid overtime is illegal, based on a 1945 Supreme Court ruling and a 1986 memo by the Labor Department under President Reagan.

But McCutchen disagreed. If changes were made week to week to avoid overtime, they would be illegal. A one-time change is not, she said.

[kellychaos]

Originally Posted by mburbank

# Raising salaries to the $22,100 threshold. If employers raise a worker's salary "it means they're getting a raise — that's not a way around overtime," Frank said.

In other words, under this salary system, the schmuck that never does over 40 hours a week (and is probably lazy and/or incompetent to boot) makes as much as the guy that consistently puts in what was once considered overtime? No thank you, sir.

[The One and Only...]

So don't do overtime. If employers need you to, they better pay you for it.

[kellychaos]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

So don't do overtime. If employers need you to, they better pay you for it.

You don't get it. For instance, under the "suggestion" that I quoted, they would go into a salary system. Under those conditions, EVERYONE would be getting paid equally regardless of whether his employer directed him to work over forty hours a week or not. The onus of a choice as pertains to the number of hours a week worked would not be with the employee but with the employer and I think that it would be a fair prediction to say that many of the people chosen to work overtime would be of the hard-working, competent variety and not of the dead-beat variety, thus, leaving the former variety disgruntled. Consequently, both the attitude of the workers and the quality of work would eventually suffer.

[The One and Only...]

And if that happens, profits lower and productivity decreases.

If they got rid of overtime pay, they wouldn't still force people to work overtime. If they did, they would have to spread the love or choose workers who are already lucky to have the job. Otherwise, problems would arise.

[kellychaos]

So the need to work hours "outside the box" would just magically disappear? I don't think so.

P.S. There's book learnin' and there's wisdom based on experience. Your paradigm does not fit this discussion. Thank you for your application. We'll be in touch.

[ziggytrix]

OaO, if you've ever had a job besides mowing lawns, it sure doesn't show.

Spend a day or two around Wal-Mart corp HQ (where I've been working for the past 2 months) and you'd understand that some employers are going to do everything in their power to screw over their employees as much as possible while telling them to smile about it.

[Jeanette X]

You've never worked a day in your life, have you, OAO?

[Dole]

paper routes dont count

Just wait till you work for some corporation/company and see how much their workforces get fucked over. I have seen it (and experienced it) time and time again.

People in the UK work longer hours than any other european country, and to reward us for this our government is opting out of the EU directive on recommended working hours. If you are salaried, you will have to work as many hours as your bosses demand, without overtime pay and there is jack shit you can do about it.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Jeannette beat me to the punch. OAO has no real world experience in any matter that he attempts to discuss in the forum, especially in the area of wages and overtime. I doubt he's ever mowed a lawn, much less held a full or part time job.

[Anonymous]

Dole, I'm pretty sure that's the way it's been over here for like, ever.

[Dole]

From what I can gather you lot get a worse deal than us, yes.

[Anonymous]

My ex-coworker worked a stupid amount of hours. For that matter, so does my dad. He's a project manager and is living in a home on the construction site on weekdays because it saves him a few hours' drive to home and back. If he were even getting minimum wage for all the hours he's putting in, he'd be rich by now.