Bushco Steals Over-Time Pay from Americans

[Octafish]

New regulations mean zero overtime for millions of US workers. Younger DUers may wonder where's a Union when you need one. Remember when Pruneface Reagan canned the Air Traffic Controllers? He started the overt effort to destroy organized labor. What gets me is how much of organized labor went along. — Octafish

COMMENT: Law steals overtime pay from Americans

August 19, 2004
BY ROSS EISENBREY

On Monday, the Bush administration will take away the right to receive overtime pay from millions of employees in a broad range of occupations, from office workers in financial services to embalmers, nursery school teachers and restaurant chefs and assistant managers. Despite four disapproving votes in Congress, the Bush administration is using its power and authority to accomplish the biggest rollback in employee rights in more than half a century.

The administration denies it is weakening overtime rights and claims to be taking overtime pay from workers earning $100,000 a year or more. But the new regulations have their biggest impact on employees earning far less. Salaried employees earning as little as $24,000 a year are subject to the new rules, which make it far easier for employers to deny overtime pay.

It might shock people to think the government would lie to them, but there is no nice way to describe the administration's campaign of disinformation around the new overtime regulations.

Secretary Elaine Chao's spin -- that she is only interested in clarity and helping low-wage workers -- is belied by the regulations themselves. According to three top experts on the Fair Labor Standards, virtually every change in the new regulations will weaken or eliminate the right to overtime pay. These nonpartisan experts, first appointed in the Reagan administration, include the Department's top two Fair Labor Standards lawyers for most of the last 20 years and the top career official responsible for enforcing the law during that same period. They also conclude the new regulations are so confusing and self-contradictory that they will provoke additional court litigation.

CONTINUED...

http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/eeisen19_20040819.htm

[Hubert Flottz]

1. Ouch, that's gonna' hurt the Bushco Campaign!

There goes 6 million votes!

[coloradodem2005]

2. you really think it will hurt them?

I hope so. I banged my hand on the desk reading this.

[DaveSZ]

3. Not if newspapers don't print this

Bush is against the working man.

[Skittles]

11. a lot of workers depend on overtime pay to make ends meet

they'll notice the hours they are working and the pay they receive without having to read this

[Octafish]

6. Loss of OT makes a great campaign issue.

Unfortunately, with all the side-shows like the Smear Boat Vets to Rove's War like the raid on Ali's shrine, issues can get lost. Let's keep this one in mind so the campaign can put things in a way that the average voter can understand:

"Bush stole your O.T."

[Deja Q]

4. Let them do what they want.

Eventually the people will wake up, and they won't be happy.

[Octafish]

8. Wake up to the nightmare that America's become.

Let's remind them of the dreamweaver.

[steely]

5. My eyes glaze over as I read this.

And this is good for the people - how?

Here's another article from Philly - Steve Law, the Deputy Labor Dept puts his spin on it too.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/9436599.htm

It will be interesting to see if I somehow get re-designated as a supervisor and lose my OT. We get some OT, but you have to work a minimum amount, it has to be pre-approved (frowned upon), but you can take it in time - but they don't track it for you to see how much you banked, and the time of has to be coordinated. Runor has it the company is throttling back on this "benefit".

This will be enough to push them over the top and stop it comepletely.

Does anyone know if they can inflate the worth of you benefits package and add that to your pay - in order to cut off your OT?

[Octafish]

9. Keep "Them" in Their Place

Great article, steely! Bushco is doing all it can to penure the middle class, an important step in their program for a New Feudalism. From the Inquirer:

...The threat worries Philadelphian Charles O'Donnell. He is a registered nurse and a single father of four who works 16 to 20 hours of overtime a week at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. The extra hours boost his annual earnings from $60,000-plus to more than $90,000.

He said he needs the extra money to pay $1,700 a month in child support for his four daughters, because the court based his payments on his overtime-fueled income from the last six years.

"It locks me into needing that overtime in order to live," O'Donnell, 44, said. "If I couldn't work that overtime and wasn't able to meet my bills and child support, I go to jail."

CONTINUED...

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/9436599.htm?1c

Well, it's too bad we can't all be born rich.

[tom_paine]

7. Imperial Fiat...why not just dissolved the Imperial Congress

Duh! I know the answer to that. Because the illusion of Totalitarian Bushevik "Freedom", a LIE, isd the only thing that keeps these MONSTERS from being tarred and feathered like the Dark Servants of the FIRST KING GEORGE back in 1776.

The worst attributes of the most slavish people through history (and their Slave Masters) from the last King george to Hitler, Stalin, and Ferdinand marcos...

..THAT is what we live with here in Imperial Amerika.

[Octafish]

10. Life's a beach, for da rich.

The BFEE works overtime to destroy the middle class, for the reasons you outlined. By penuring the very people that make a FREE America, the Busheviks can more easily introduce their New Feudalism. Meanwhile, we can spread the word. And the villagers will be enraged upon learning the Truth.