How would this new rule change for overtime affects the statistics?
New rules preserve overtime for more workers
By Marilyn Geewax
marilyng@coxnews.com
Cox News Service
WASHINGTON -- In a major retreat, the Bush administration unveiled new overtime rules Tuesday that will let police officers, firefighters and many other hourly employees continue to earn extra wages.
But the revised overtime proposal was generally dismissed as inadequate by labor unions and their Democratic allies, while business groups and Republicans welcomed it.
Last year, the Labor Department proposed rules that guaranteed time-and-a-half pay for lower-paid employees working more than 40 hours in a week, but made most people earning $65,000 or more ineligible.
Critics of the plan said the rules would make millions of employees work extra hours without extra pay, while formerly eligible workers would be shut out of overtime.
The critics also pointed to rules that kept even low-paid workers from getting overtime if they were classed as supervisors or if they had specialized education or training -- even in the military.
Amid polls that showed the rules were unpopular, the Bush administration sharply revised the final rules before issuing them Tuesday. Workers on both ends of the pay spectrum benefited.
The new rules would guarantee overtime pay to an estimated 1.3 workers earning less than $23,660 a year, up from $8,060 currently and $22,100 in the original proposal.
At the same time, the new rules would ensure that many hourly workers earning up to $100,000 could continue to collect an overtime premium.
The new rules specifically ensure overtime pay protections for police officers, correctional officers, fire fighters and other emergency workers such as paramedics and hazardous materials workers.
The new plan also spells out protections for military veterans to keep their training from disqualifying them from overtime pay.
The rules will "guarantee and strengthen overtime rights for more American workers than ever before," Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said.
...
coxnews.com
========================================
But the new rule exclude high-tech workers |
