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Pressure from Bush ends overtime for 8 million Americans

Date Posted: February 6 2004

The U.S. Senate caved in to pressure from President George W. Bush and approved his plan to cut U.S. workers’ overtime pay on Jan. 22.

Bush had threatened to veto a massive $373 billion spending bill if it included an overtime pay protection guarantee for some eight million of the nation’s workers. In December , Senate Democrats launched a filibuster to protest the lack of an overtime pay guarantee in the bill.

But the 61-32 Senate vote on Jan. 22 that ended the filibuster against the omnibus appropriations bill was one vote more than needed to meet the 60-vote threshold to shut off debate. The House had previously approved the bill.

“The president and Republicans in Congress have refused to extend unemployment benefits,” said Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, to a crowd of a few hundred union members at the IBEW Local 58 hall in Detroit on Jan. 28. “That’s bad enough, but now the cruelest cut of all may be banning overtime for eight million workers. People like nurses, firefighters and police officers are on the frontline of homeland security, but they’re the ones who are targeted for losing overtime pay. What in the world is wrong with the Bush Administration?”

Congressional backers of the overtime pay guarantee say they will try to find another legislative avenue to block the Bush administration’s changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“Today’s vote will galvanize workers who are appalled by the administration’s attempts to deprive them of fair compensation for extra hours on the job,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Such hostility to the needs of working families cannot be tolerated.” Sweeney pledged to use “every vehicle” to block the rules.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, who voted against the omnibus bill for a number of reasons, said the bill contains a regulation “to end overtime pay for millions of working men and women. Although the House and Senate both voted to oppose this regulation, their will was ignored because of White House pressure and the language was dropped in conference. This omission will negatively impact such public servants as police officers and firefighters.

“I cannot support this legislation as it has been brought to the floor on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis, violating procedures which assure the Senate’s input.”

Since the proposal was announced last year, workers have sent more than 1.5 million e-mails, letters, faxes and made phone calls to the White House.

The labor-backed Economic Policy Institute calculated the overtime pay eligibility ban would cost an average worker who now gets overtime $161 per week – and could affect eight million workers.

The ban on overtime isn’t expected to affect workers who toil under collective bargaining agreements – yet. But employers are expected to use the rules to their advantage in future rounds of bargaining.

Business lobbyists backed the overtime pay plan, saying the present rules cause confusion and lawsuits.

Under the new Labor Department rules, anyone making over $22,100 could be classified as an “administrator” or some type of supervisor – even if administration was only a small share of their job time – and can thus be banned from earning overtime.