LIPSTICK ON A PIG

Statement of Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)

On the Bush Administration’s Final Overtime Regs

“The cosmetic changes in the final Bush rules amount to putting lipstick on a pig.  Make no mistake, this is still a pig.”

“The new Bush rules will eliminate the right to overtime for potentially millions of workers earning as little as $23,661 a year. The rules are riddled with loopholes and calculated ambiguity designed to give employers leeway to exempt employees from overtime.  For example, a worker who is a “team leader” on a major project, but has no supervisory responsibility, could lose overtime pay.  Tom Kochan of MIT says that this loophole, alone, could strip overtime rights from up to 2.3 million workers.”

“The Administration’s final rules are a clear win for big employer groups – and campaign contributors – who lobbied hard for more relaxed overtime requirements.  The rules take the teeth out of penalties for employers who cheat, and actually give advice to employers on how to avoid paying overtime.”

“This is not the time to stick working families with a pay cut.  Time-and-a-half pay accounts for 25 percent of the total income of those who work overtime.  The new rules will hurt job creation.  If employers can more easily deny overtime pay, they will simply push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation.  With nine million Americans out of work, why give employers another disincentive to hire new workers?”

“As one working mother told me, her time at home with family is truly her ‘premium time,’ the most valuable time of her day.  If she is going to be required to sacrifice that premium time, then she ought to receive premium pay.”

“Working families are fed up with the administration’s schemes and spin.  They have a simple request:  “Give us an iron-clad guarantee that our overtime rights are safe.  If Mr. Bush and his Dept. of Labor are sincere in their stated desire to preserve overtime, they can prove it by supporting my amendment to guarantee that workers who are entitled to overtime pay under the old rules will not lose that right under the new rules.”