How Obama's Reforms To Overtime Law Will Change People's Lives [View all]

[applegrove]

How Obama's Reforms To Overtime Law Will Change People's Lives

by Dave Jamieson at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/obama-overtime-law_n_4957998.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

"SNIP.....................


In her years managing a small dollar store in Michigan, there were times when Dawn Hughey worked 60, 70, or even 80 hours a week just to keep the place running on a short staff. But no matter how many hours she logged, she was paid the same flat salary in the mid-$30,000s.

Painful as it was, Hughey often did the math. During the more crushing weeks, she earned a not-so-managerial $10 per hour, barely more than the people who worked for her. And she nonetheless found herself doing the same duties as them -- stocking shelves, manning the cash register and cleaning the floors.

"It was more like 60 or 70 hours a week than the 44 or 48 they told you when you got hired," Hughey, who no longer works for the company, told HuffPost. She said she used to laugh inside when her hourly workers said she got paid "the big bucks" for being a manager.

If Hughey felt she was overworked and underpaid, there was a simple reason for her predicament. As a manager earning more than $23,660, Hughey had been carved out of U.S. overtime protections, like thousands of other workers in supervisory roles in the retail sector. Her company therefore had an incentive to pile work onto Hughey, rather than onto her hourly employees, since they weren't paying anything extra for it.



.....................SNIP"