White House Wins Fight on OT Rule Changes

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sat, Nov. 22, 2003

White House Wins Fight on OT Rule Changes
ALAN FRAM
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Foes of the Bush administration's proposed rules changing which workers would qualify for overtime pay abandoned their fight Friday in the face of unrelenting pressure from the White House and the House.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chief Republican opponent of the new rules, agreed to drop a provision killing the regulations from a massive spending bill, lawmakers, congressional aides and lobbyists said.

Critics of the new rules said they could lead to 8 million Americans losing eligibility for overtime pay, largely white-collar workers earning more than $65,000 a year. Administration officials say more than 644,000 such employees would lose the time-and-a-half pay now required when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

The dispute was the biggest hurdle to completion of a huge, overdue bill financing dozens of federal agencies that Congress' leaders want to complete before lawmakers leave town for the year. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7321821.htm

[pfitz59]

1. Unrelenting pressure my ass!

Rove: "Eliminate overtime."
Congress: "OK!"
Fucking spineless POS money-grubbers!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. ROVE SAY DO NOW! NOW NOW NOW!

Ah, come on. Give congress some credit.

Rove: Eliminate overtime. Do it now.
Congress: But that would mean...
Rove: ELIMINATE NOW.
Congress: We need to...
Rove: FUCKING DO NOW! NOWWWW! OR I KILL!
Congress: Look, you can't intimidate us with this...
Rove: NINE ELEVEN SADDAM OSAMA NOW NOW TAX CUT ECONOMIC RECOVERY CLEAR FORESTS NOW NOW NOW!!!
Congress: Hey! You don't talk to me like that!
Rove: CLASS WAR TAX CUT OSAMA NINE ELEVEN UNPATRIOTIC WMD FLIGHT SUIT MISSION ACCOMPLISHED NOW NOW AXIS OF NORTH KOREA TEN COMMANDMENTS MICHAEL JACKSON NOW!!!
Congress: Well, when you put it that way...

[JackSwift]

2. This is disposable income that will no longer

be spent by families. 8 million of them. That oughta kill the economy.

[baby_bear]

3. Specter is running for re-election

How will this affect his chances? I understand he has a fight on his hands. He has now effectively abandoned the working/middle class. Are there enough Santorum-type fans in PA to feel Specter has done the right thing here?

s_m

[Guaranteed]

4. No more overtime, no more 40 hour work week.

No more forty hour work week, no more need to hire more people! And with no more need to hire more people, you get to save on all kinds of health care and such, not to mention the fact that you bump those working up into a higher tax bracket, possibly, so THEY'RE creating more tax revenue to pay for overpriced bombs that we buy from those same corporations who don't pay their workers overtime and get tax breaks from the Bushees!!! Yay for corporations!! I guess.

[camero]

13. well, welcome to 16 hour days

Say goodbye to watching your kids grow up too. Because now there is nothing to stop your employer from working you those kind of hours.

[MaineDem]

6. This administration HAS to go!

Why don't people wake up and realize what they're doing to us all?!!!

This is an assault on every single working person in this country. The Dem candidates have been handed some excellent campaign fodder with this one!

[LizW]

7. Direct assault on the middle class

We need to hammer this every single day until the election.

Here's my suggested political ad:

"Bush's own party faithful recognized this as a devastating attack on the middle class and on the economy. But he would not be satisfied until his big business cronies were paid off, and the forty hour work week was effectively eliminated.

Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Bush's corporate buddies are."

[1songbird]

10. That's pretty good actually

[Rose Siding]

8. More aid to a handful of contributors

Now they'll have more money to help the country by.... :think: having more money!

[1songbird]

9. Why do we even have the Congress?

Everything the pResident wants he gets. We should just send them all home right now and save some tax dollars.

[camero]

15. Even the Soviets had the Duma

We have congress, like the Duma, just for show. Talk about a rubber stamp government.

[cthrumatrix]

11. People .... read it ... take action .... demand answers because the

path were on with this administration is step by step taking away your rights, your social saftey net and now overtime pay.

IF Gen. Tommy Franks interview of a WMD going off here or some place else is a reason to disregard the constitution.

This is bad .... all of this has been a nightmare

[dusty64]

12. This week has been

the worst we've seen yet. I guess they are desperately ramming their evil agenda before the holidays so they can start 2004 with their "compassionate" sham. Lets remember though, this couldn't have all happened without Democratic assistance. I know I'll remember that, they ain't fooling me anymore. This item warranted a filibuster and it isn't happening.

[cthrumatrix]

14. the agenda is a "corporate agenda" of elitists and others who

own the world and it's leaders....

the parties are there fro the sheeple to think we have a choice...we don't

[mainer]

16. This is going to be a huge campaign issue

Overtime pay is sacred to Americans. What on earth is Rove thinking? The WH has just exposed its own jugular to attack.

[0007]

23. Shit, it won't even be brought up! Are you kidding?

I thought this bill was defeated. Now all of a sudden it is law.

[54anickel]

26. Yep, guess 3rd time was a charm. Defeated twice. Millions of letters.

[54anickel]

17. Guess this makes Wal-mart the prima example of how to properly

run a corporation. :hurts:

[IndianaGreen]

18. To those of you that love and defend capitalism

Bush is going to give you pure, undiluted capitalism. Reaganism triumphal in all of its ugly glory!

After you all get tired about being exploited by corporations that are only interested in maximizing their profits, and get tired of waiting for Jesus's Return, perhaps you might want to rediscover the beautiful simplicity of Marxism:

Just as the emerging bourgeoisie in its revolution against feudal society challenged the conservative ideas of the old feudal aristocracy, so the working class, in its fight for a new society, needs to challenge the dominant outlook of its own oppressor, the capitalist class. Of course, the ruling class, through its monopoly control of the mass media, the press, school, university and pulpit, consciously justifies its system of exploitation as the most "natural form of society". The repressive state machine, with its "armed bodies of men", is not sufficient to maintain the capitalist system. The dominant ideas and morality of bourgeois society serve as a vital defence of the material interests of the ruling class. Without this powerful ideology, the capitalist system could not last for any length of time.

"In one way or another," states Lenin, "all official and liberal science defends wage-slavery… To expect science to be impartial in a wage-slave society is as foolishly naïve as to expect impartiality from manufacturers on the question of whether workers' wages ought not to be increased by decreasing the profits of capital."

Official bourgeois ideology conducts a relentless war against Marxism, which it correctly sees as a mortal danger to capitalism. The bourgeois scribes and professors pour out a continual stream of propaganda in an attempt to discredit Marxism - particularly the dialectic. This has especially been the case since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the ferocious ideological offensive against Marxism, communism, revolution, and such like. "Marxism is dead", they repeatedly proclaim like some religious incantation. But Marxism refuses to lie down in front of these witch doctors! Marxism reflects the unconscious will of the working class to change society. Its fate is linked to that of the proletariat.

The apologists of capitalism, together with their shadows in the labour movement, constantly assert that their system is a natural and permanent form of society. On the other hand, the dialect asserts that nothing is permanent and all things perish in time. Such a revolutionary philosophy constitutes a profound threat to the capitalist system and therefore must be discredited at all cost. This explains the daily churning out of anti-Marxist propaganda. But each real step forward in science and knowledge serves to confirm the correctness of the dialectic. For millions of people the growing crisis of capitalism increasingly demonstrates the validity of Marxism. The objective situation is forcing working people to seek a way out of the impasse. "Life teaches", remarked Lenin. Today, to use the famous words of the Communist Manifesto, "A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism."

What is Dialectical Materialism?
A study guide with questions, extracts and suggested reading
By Rob Sewell

http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide1.html

[sleipnir]

20. Excellent, YES, it's quite true

Well, goodbye to humanity.

[reprobate]

21. IG, I've said for years that capitalism is a self defeating system.

Capitalism to me is like the game Monopoly. The game is over once one player has all the money.

I say it's 'self-defeating' because it's basically a zero sum game. In order for me to win, you must lose. Simplistic, maybe. But I wish someone would show me how it's wrong.

It seems to me that we are now living thru the beginnings of the collapse of the capitalist system. Medicare is being destroyed. Overtime pay is being destroyed. Social Security is next.

One wonders at what point the masses will rise up and replace the system. And I truly believe that it will happen. History showes that when the worker class has enough taken from them by the investor class, they will rise up and destroy the system. It will happen here.

I just hope it happens before the starved bodies start littering the streets.

[Lindacooks]

19. I have to wonder

how many of those people making over $65,000/year voted for the chimp. Those who did are getting exactly what they voted for, although most can't seem to connect the dots.

[0007]

22. How are they (republicans) getting away with this?

Nader made sense when he said there is no difference between the two parties.

All I hear is hot air by a bunch gas bags!

[54anickel]

24. This article does NOT point out what is truly wrong with this proposal

"Critics of the new rules said they could lead to 8 million Americans losing eligibility for overtime pay, largely white-collar workers earning more than $65,000 a year. Administration officials say more than 644,000 such employees would lose the time-and-a-half pay now required when they work more than 40 hours in a week."

That's to take focus away from those it would truly hurt. No one is going to feel sorry for someone making 65,000 a year. This is an example of filtering information to suit your needs.

The following is from http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_flsa_jun03

The DOL's proposed regulations would raise the salary level under which all employees are protected to $425 per week (i.e., any employee making under $425 would be eligible for overtime benefits). Under current law that level is set at $155 ($170 for professionals), a pay rate that has remained unchanged since 1975. This proposed increase is sorely needed and would raise the number of workers entitled to overtime pay by roughly 1.3 million. However, earnings of $425 per week equal an annual salary of just $22,100, and because the level is not indexed for inflation, it will protect fewer and fewer workers over time.


Unfortunately, the proposal removes as many employees from overtime coverage from the upper end of the pay scale as it adds at the bottom. The DOL proposes a new exemption that will deny overtime pay to white-collar employees who earn $65,000 or more a year, even if they do not meet the definition of executive, administrative, or professional employees. This proposal will exempt an estimated 1.3 million employees who currently are entitled to overtime pay.


The many other rules changes the DOL proposes would remove millions of workers from overtime coverage and cancel out the benefit to employees of the higher salary-level test. For example, changes to the three duties tests would dramatically increase the number of workers who would be classified as "professional," "administrative," or "executive." Current law stipulates that employees who do not have sufficient status and authority to exercise discretion or independent judgment in their work may not be so classified and should, therefore, be entitled to overtime pay. Under the proposed regulations, this requirement would be eliminated, and hundreds of thousands of editors, reporters, health technicians, and others who are currently entitled to overtime pay will lose it.

Equally significant, education levels required to be considered a professional or administrative employee are diluted, allowing employers to deny overtime pay to paralegals, emergency medical technicians, licensed practical nurses, draftsmen, surveyors, and many others who currently have the law's protection.

Changes in the primary duty test and the redefinition of "executive" will allow employers to deny overtime pay to workers who do a very low level of supervising and a great deal of manual or routine work, including employees who do set-up work in factories and industrial plants. Employees who can only recommend—but not carry out—the hiring or firing of the two employees they "supervise" will be exempted as "executives."

[Fovea]

25. Political Ad

30 something guy standing next to his healthy family, obviously happy.

VO- Meet Klaus. Klaus is 40, works a 34 hour work week, has his health care paid for, his oldest child is getting ready to go to college free, and the whole family enjoy 8 weeks paid vacation a year.

<Klaus and the family smile>

How did Klaus get that lucky? What does Klaus do that allows him to live so happy and secure? Simple, Klaus is a welder. He lives in Germany, a nation that has not sold all its industrial jobs for slave labor profits.

Yes, Klaus Deiter is part of Old Europe. You on the other hand as an American can be proud to be working for higher dividends and executive bonuses. You can be proud to go to work unpaid overtime with no health care or higher education.

Look on the bright side though, your boss's boss George smiles a lot more than Klaus all the time, aren't you happy for him?


Chyron --

Vote Republican in 2004 -- Sucker!
VO- Paid for by the Anyone But Bush Committee.

BLACKOUT

[agincourt]

27. I held my nose,

and just went over to the freeper board. Their posts are running 3 to 1 against the overtime changes. Americans, if there are any left in this country, we just might an issue with traction against the treasonous unelected POS, this next november.

[Dan]

28. I said it before and I'll say it again

The Patriot Act was not passed with a foreign enemy in mind.


This Act was created because at some point - people are going to realize that our government is in fact the enemy.