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White House - AP Cabinet & State New Overtime Rules at a Glance Fri Aug 20, 9:56 AM ET Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo! By The Associated Press Highlights of the Labor Department (news - web sites)'s new overtime regulations taking effect Monday:   _Workers earning $23,660 annually or less are eligible for overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week. The department says about 1.3 million workers will be newly eligible. _White-collar workers earning $100,000 or more a year are newly exempt from overtime pay. _Changes to duties that determine whether...

From foxnews.com website --> New Overtime Rules to Start Labor-law overhaul takes effect Monday; liberals still outraged

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stumping for the ouster of Pennsylvania's Republican senior senator, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called Wednesday for a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate to protect overtime pay for workers. Unfortunately for Clinton, however: Specter is one of the few Republicans who has sided with Democrats on the controversial issue. "It is essential for Pennsylvania, in my view, that there be a Democratic majority," Clinton, D-N.Y., told reporters on a conference call with Specter challenger Rep. Joe Hoeffel, D-Pa. "I'll give you one example: This (Bush) administration has tried to end overtime as we know it and everybody's...

The Republican-controlled Senate voted yesterday to block new Labor Department rules that critics said would deny overtime pay to millions of white-collar workers, handing an embarrassing rebuff to the Bush administration on a politically sensitive jobs issue. [snip] But, on the final vote, Republicans Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Colo.), Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) joined all Democrats present except Zell Miller (Ga.) in voting to protect overtime pay.

Dems Want Overtime Pay Rules Killed Wednesday, April 28, 2004 WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary Elaine Chao told Congress on Wednesday that new overtime regulations would strengthen "protection for more American workers that ever before," but a former federal investigator countered that the rules would subtly undermine eligibility of nursery school teachers, nurses and others. Appearing before a House committee, Chao said the regulations would mean guaranteed overtime protection for 1.3 million salaried workers who earn $455 a week or less. "They are predominantly married with less than a college degree and live in the South," she said. Other workers earning...

Politicians, labor unions, trade associations and employment attorneys reacted with varying degrees of enthusiasm to the new overtime pay regulations released last week by the Labor Department. Most experts agreed that the rules will provide overtime protection to more workers than the version proposed last year that touched off a firestorm of debate. But they don't do enough to eliminate the ambiguity in the old rules and will still cause too many workers to lose overtime protection, some compensation experts and labor leaders said. "At first glance, it seems to be an improvement over the proposed rule, but still worse...

Let's cut right to the chase: Are you going to lose your overtime pay under the new Labor Department rules? While lawyers, labor leaders and policy wonks pore through the 536 pages of regulations the government released Tuesday, a few clear winners and losers have emerged. If some of the critics are right, millions of U.S. workers are in danger of losing their overtime pay. And don't think the issue doesn't apply to you. If you are suddenly no longer eligible for overtime, what's to stop your boss from working you 60 hours a week? Or 80? So, let's get...

Bush revising rules to preserve OT for most white-collar workers WASHINGTON -- Retreating under pressure, the Bush administration intends to revise a proposed overtime regulation to preserve eligibility for most white-collar workers making up to $100,000 a year as well as for police, firefighters and other first responders, Republican officials said Monday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said revisions also would guarantee overtime for lower-wage workers making less than $23,660 a year, up from the $22,100 initially proposed. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is expected to preview the new proposals Tuesday, the sources said. A spokeswoman for the...

AP: Bush Administration to Revise OT Plan Tuesday April 20, 2004 3:01 AM By DAVID ESPO and LEIGH STROPE Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON (AP) - Retreating under pressure, the Bush administration intends to revise a proposed overtime regulation to preserve eligibility for most white-collar workers making up to $100,000 a year as well as for police, firefighters and other first responders, Republican officials said Monday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said revisions also would guarantee overtime for lower-wage workers making less than $23,660 a year, up from the $22,100 initially proposed. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is expected...

RadioShack Corp. remains at odds with thousands of current and former store managers in a class-action suit brought under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act over unpaid overtime. The case has already taken 18 months, cost untold dollars and distracted corporate executives including chief executive Leonard Roberts, who gave a deposition in February. But it may be one of the last suits of its kind as the U.S. Department of Labor prepares to release dramatic revisions to the nation's overtime laws. The Office of Management and Budget is expected to sign off on the new regulations this month. Lawyer Jim...

<p>A months-long Senate fight over proposed new rules on overtime pay for U.S. workers is threatening to derail a high-priority bill aimed at ending trade sanctions by Europe that could eventually cost American exporters $4 billion a year.</p> <p>The bill to substitute corporate tax cuts for export subsidies that have been outlawed by the World Trade Organization has broad, bipartisan support in the Senate. But the Senate is more closely divided over a Democratic proposal to add a provision that would block a Bush administration proposal to reduce overtime pay protections for many white-collar workers.</p>

Executive summary On March 31, 2003, the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed regulatory changes, which if adopted, could make more than eight million white-collar employees ineligible for overtime pay. Under the current Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations adopted in 1938, most workers—an estimated 79% as of 1999—are guaranteed the right to overtime pay, or time and a half, for every hour worked beyond the normal 40-hour workweek. For white-collar workers, three tests determine whether they are exempt, and thus ineligible for overtime pay, or nonexempt, and thereby eligible for overtime pay. The rule changes proposed by the Bush Administration...

Would Bush Eliminate Overtime Pay for 8 Million? A TV ad from an anti-Bush group says so. But it's based on a study that actually says something different. March 5, 2004 The latest TV ad from the Moveon.org Voter Fund says "George Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers," referring to new overtime rules that the Department of Labor has proposed. The 8-million figure (hotly denied by the Bush administration, of course) comes from a study by the labor-funded Economic Policy Institute. The ad misquotes the study, however. What the study actually says is that an estimated...

Summary The latest TV ad from the Moveon.org Voter Fund says "George Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers," referring to new overtime rules that the Department of Labor has proposed. The 8-million figure (hotly denied by the Bush administration, of course) comes from a study by the labor-funded Economic Policy Institute. The ad misquotes the study, however. What the study actually says is that an estimated 8 million would lose the legal right to premium overtime rates should they work more than 40 hours per week. It does not say they would actually lose pay as...

"Working Families e-Activist Network" 03/04/2004 06:16 PM Please respond to notice-reply-dbe32ze3bbe Subject: Overtime Pay Update: Senate Fails to Act / Petition Tops 500,000 Dear Working Families e-Activist: A lot is going on in the drive to block President Bush's overtime pay take-away. Here is all the news: * The U.S. Senate scheduled but failed to vote today on new legislation to block the Bush Department of Labor from implementing the overtime pay take-away. * Unless they are stopped, it is now likely that the overtime pay take-away will be finalized before April 1. The exact date is up to President...

Dear Friend, President Bush is taking overtime pay away from millions of Americans who rely on it to make ends meet, and veterans will be among the first victims of the new rules. The new regulations will allow employers to define some military training as equivalent to a four-year degree and declare their veteran employees ineligible for overtime pay. That's President Bush's program for those who join the military: drop into a war zone, risk your life for your country, then come home to find you aren't eligible for overtime pay. Bush's overtime outrage is a devastating attack on families,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — The Senate gave President Bush and his Republican allies a victory today by approving an $820 billion spending bill covering more than a dozen federal departments and agencies in the fiscal year that began almost four months ago. The vote was 65 to 28. But that vote was anticlimactic, in a sense, because minutes earlier the chamber had voted, 61-32, to end a delay, or filibuster, that had blocked the measure. The 61 votes were one more than needed to defeat the filibuster. The bill, approved by the House weeks ago, was a conspicuous item of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Labor Department on Tuesday defended Bush administration plans to change overtime rules, and labor groups said the proposed changes threaten to cut paychecks of millions of Americans. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the administration wants to change the 1938 law to ensure an additional 1.3 million low-wage workers can claim overtime pay. Updating the law to better define who is eligible for overtime would also help cut down on litigation in pay disputes, Chao told a Senate panel. But Richard Trumka, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, said 8 million workers...

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. Employers' options include: >Adhering to a 40-hour work week. >Raising workers' salaries to a new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible for overtime pay. If employers raise a worker's salary "it means they're...

<p>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.</p> <p>The department's advice comes even as it touts the $895 million in increased wages that it says those workers would be guaranteed from the reforms.</p>