WASHINGTON (PAI) – A lot of Republicans are joining Democrats in the fight to save overtime pay. But there’s one Republican – the man in the Oval Office – who is adamant in taking away overtime rights for millions of U.S. workers.

By a 16-13 vote, the powerful – and Republican-controlled – Senate Appropriations Committee joined the GOP-run House in the fight to protect workers’ overtime pay. But the Sept. 15 vote didn’t register with President George Bush. His Office of Management and Budget issued an explicit veto threat against protecting overtime. If carried out, the threat would have the practical impact of having Bush take overtime away for up to six million workers.

AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said the support in Congress “sends a strong
message to the White House: America’s workers, leaders and communities do not support his overtime pay cut, and Bush should back off his threats to veto this important protection for workers’ overtime pay.”

Unionized workers in construction and in other industries aren’t affected by the new provisions – yet. But many analysts are predicting that when collective bargaining agreements expire, employers will attempt to take away workers’ rights to overtime, or use the new law to as a bargaining chip to win other concessions.

Overtime pay protection, pushed by organized labor and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), was inserted in the money bill that funds the Department of Labor (DOL) for the year starting Oct. 1.

It specifically says that “none of the funds” in that mammoth measure – which pays for unemployment assistance, aid to workers who lose their jobs to imports, combating child labor and many other worker-oriented programs – “may be used to implement or administer” Bush’s overtime pay changes.

“This provision requires the immediate reinstatement and enforcement of the
old overtime regulations in effect” before Bush’s change, which took effect Aug. 23, the committee said.

The sole exception to overturning Bush’s overtime pay ban would be that
part of his plan that declares that virtually all workers earning up to $23,660 per year – teachers are a notable exception – are eligible for overtime. The maximum was $8,600.

Even as Bush’s OMB opposed overtime, his Labor Department tried to have it
both ways. It charged that Harkin’s overtime pay protection plan would hurt specific groups of workers that the Labor Department claims that Bush’s new rule protects, including fire fighters, (nonunion) construction workers and police.

The overtime pay fight moved to the Senate when the GOP-run House voted
223-193 on Sept. 9 to ban DOL from using any money to impose the new overtime rules. The Senate committee vote gives labor and its allies time and support in lobbying on the issue.

Independent analysts and former Labor Department wage enforcement officials
calculate that Bush’s plan would deprive up to 6 million workers of overtime pay protection. They also calculate many of those workers could lose up to one-quarter of their earnings should the Bush overtime pay ban go through.

In a remarkably brazen effort to spin the story around, Bush’s Acting Wage and Hour Administrator, Alfred B. Robinson Jr., took a swipe not just at labor’s defense of overtime
but at another group that defends injured workers, trial lawyers.

“The amendment puts the overtime rights of millions of workers in jeopardy
by preventing the department from enforcing the new rules which protect and
strengthen these rights,” Robinson alleged. “Under the amendment, workers who make more than $23,660 will be left to fend for themselves, having to hire expensive trial lawyers to defend their overtime pay.”

The idea that workers will have to hire trial lawyers to protect their rights overtime pay if U.S. labor law is returned to the way it was before Aug. 23, is preposterous.

Robinson’s statement puzzled union representative is Barry Kasinitz of the Fire Fighters government affairs department. He said “I’m at a loss to understand how Fire Fighters, who have been eligible for overtime since a Fair Labor Standards Act extension in 1986, would suddenly become ineligible. We are very confident that, regard-less of what happens, they’ll stay eligible for overtime.”