If you think it’s bad enough that President Bush has put the screws to American workers by ramming through a plan that substitutes comp time for overtime… whoops, he did it again.

Under Bush’s plan, which has passed the Republican Congress, workers who make more than $22,100 per year would receive compensatory time off instead of overtime pay, but that time off could only be taken at the discretion of the employer.

That’s bad enough – but Bush wasn’t satisfied. On Jan. 7, Bush’s Labor Department had the gall to issue suggestions to employers on how they can keep labor costs from increasing under the federal government’s new overtime wage eligibility rules.

The focus of those suggestions affects workers who make an annual salary around the $22,100 threshold. For workers who earn below that amount, Bush’s new rules would guarantee them overtime pay (although the AFL-CIO maintains that existing laws guarantee them OT pay).

Workers who earn above that amount wouldn’t necessarily lose overtime pay, but employers in many job areas would be able to arbitrarily classify them as “administrators” who work in a supervisory capacity and thus could be forced to take comp time instead of overtime. An example is a registered nurse could be called an “administrator” because she supervises a nurse’s aide, but conceivably, these new classifications could be extended to just about any line of work.

Here are two of the Labor Department’s cost-cutting suggestions for employers who have employees earning a salary at or near the $22,100 threshold:

*Cut workers’ hourly wages (say, to $20,000 per year). Then, add in the $2,100 in overtime pay to equal the original salary. (Of course, that set-up would allow employers to take away the $2,100 when the “overtime” is no longer needed).

*Or, the Labor Department suggested, employees’ salaries that are just below the $22,100 level could be raised to $21,100, thus making the workers ineligible to make more than $21,100 if overtime is ever required. Of course, if the worker had been regularly making more than $21,000 per year with overtime – too bad.

“Clearly, Mr. President, your party’s not with you on this,” said Service Employees Local 2000 President Grant Williams, whose union members could be most affected by this rule. “We need to protect overtime pay – not jeopardize it. Pull the plug on this mindless policy. You can’t justify rule changes that take hard-earned dollars away from workers in order to build corporate treasuries.”

Unions have maintained that the changes are illegal, and lawsuits are no doubt on the horizon.

The Associated Press reported that the Labor Department said it is merely listing well-known choices available to employers. “We’re not saying anybody should do any of this,” said Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank.

Then why say anything at all?

Tammy McCutchen, who helped write the plan for the government, told the AP that “we had a lot of lawyers look at this rule. Unless you have a contract, there is no legal rule … prohibiting an employer from either raising your salary or cutting your salary,” she said, adding, “We do not anticipate employers will cut people’s pay.”

Oh, OK. Everyone feel better?