Labor Dept. on How to Cheat Your Labor

[reachout]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3882629/


U.S. offers tips on avoiding overtime pay
New labor rules expected to take effect early this year

The 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.

***

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.

***

"We're not saying anybody should do any of this," said Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank.

***

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.

[HereSince1628]

1. So what about this ISN'T class warfare?

[grannylib]

2. It's the Haves vs the Have Nots - it's only class warfare if it's the

other way around; they have their own set of rules, remember?
It's only immoral/illegal/criminal/treason/impeachable/a lie if it's a Democrat doing the deed.

[Jacobin]

3. My favorite line:

We are not saying anybody should do this

These morons are beyond shameless.

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. "We are not saying anybody should do this"...

But here are the rules to show you how you can get away with it.

[zbdent]

16. Didn't G. Gordon Liddy do something like this?

"Not that I am telling you to do this, but 'Aim for the head'!"

?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. I'm speechless

oy

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Gee, What A Surprise

With foxes guarding the henhouse, can anyone honestly say they didn't expect this?

One more example of narrow thinking processes. People only work so hard for so long before they realize their giving too much for the return. This is a long proven human resource fact. (Read the Wexley/Latham book for the data.) Anyone can LOOK busy, even though their accomplishing less. If people fell cheated, they'll find a way to cheat the system.

Of course, the neoconservative dunces running this gov't aren't capable of seeing the long range view.
The Professor

[pansypoo53219]

7. when the revolution comes

will the haves understand then?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

19. it will be much too late for them

they have their reward

[Robb]

8. Devil's advocate

A lot of small biz folks were feeling like they were gonna get screwed by the new rules. This may simply be a carrot to them.

[Beetwasher]

9. Yup. Overtime for just about everyone is a thing of the past

You can bet on it.

All a company has to do is give their employees shiny new titles and designate them as part of mamagement...A grocery cashier will now become "supervising" cashier, with no raise, and be ineligible for overtime.

[Gulf Coast J]

11. Overtime for everyone was never the reality

Plenty of non lawyer/exec types were inelegible for OT before. The new rules don't help, but cashiers will still be able to get overtime (they must if they make under $22K a year.)

[Beetwasher]

12. I never said everyone had overtime

I said "overtime for JUST about everyone", meaning of course, everyone who has been eligible in the past...Did you read the article? The cashier making 22k will be screwed out of their extra money from overtime by having their hours cut...

[reachout]

14. It's not lawyers and execs we're talking about.

Seventy-nine percent of American workers were eligible for overtime pay in 2000. The way the law was before, employees with "executive" and "administrative" functions were not eligible. Under the Bush administration's new rules many employees would be reclassified to fit these categories without having their duties change.

Education levels required to be considered a professional or administrative employee have been diluted by these changes. This will allow employers to deny overtime pay to paralegals, emergency medical technicians, licensed practical nurses, draftsmen, surveyors, and many others who were protected under the old rules. Exempt professionals will also now include anybody who learned their skills in the military (there's those "support our troops" Republicans for you).

Labor Department estimates in the above article put the likely impact at 1.5 to 2 million workers. Unions say 8 million. Even just taking the middle ground between those numbers paints a scary picture. I know an EMT who barely gets himself and his family by on what he makes now. These rules could hit him hard.

[Gulf Coast J]

15. Do you have a link to the actual proposals?

I've seen press releases from both labor and industry sources, and I know enough not to trust either.

In a previous job doing office type stuff, the secretary who made $30K a year was exempt from overtime pay. I guess that's the reason why I don't assume a change from the previous definitions is a necessarily a bad thing. Increasing the lower threshold to $22K is unambiguously good. I'd have to read up on the new definitions to make up my mind on the rest of it.

[w4rma]

20. They aren't cutting overtime, they are cutting overtime PAY.

So now there will be *more* overtime since employers won't have to pay their employees for it.

[Gulf Coast J]

10. Not exactly insightful advise

Either give employees a raise or don't have them work more than 40 hours a week. It's not like any semi-competent business owner wouldn't have come up with those two solutions to avoid paying OT.

[brainshrub]

13. Wal-Mart is getting an erection just thinking about this report.

These new labor rules are Corporate-pornography.

[nolabels]

17. I depise Wal-Mart

Yesterday Grandma needed me to get her tire fixed on her car (flat). After I had goten the tire off, then she said she wantedd to fund me to go to Wal-Mart (where she just bought her last one). I said no thanks, I will pay for it myself. Took her old receipt to 'America's Tire Store' and they beat the Wal-Mart price. As I getting the new one put on her rim I noticed the tire on my truck had a nail in it so I got that fixed too (for free as always).

Thank goodness no good deed go unpunished

[ajacobson]

18. It's just a misunderstanding

there is so much lawlessness in the Rove Administration that the DOL got confused and thought they were SUPPOSED to show employers how to violate labor law.

Next up, the IRS shows drug dealers how to set up an off-shore numbered wire transfer account.

"We're not saying anybody should do any of this..."

</sarcasm>