White House Unveils New Overtime Rule
The White House on May 18 unveiled a rule that raises the overtime pay exemption threshold nationwide, a move many businesses and industries have criticized.
The Department of Labor’s rule sets at $47,476 the minimum salary for overtime exemption from the current threshold of $23,660. More than 4 million more workers would be eligible to earn time-and-a-half wage for every hour they clock in after 40 per week. The rule doesn’t impact hourly workers that already must be paid overtime.
“We’re making it simpler for employers to identify which white-collar workers are covered and owed time-and-a-half for work beyond 40 hours in a week,” Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said.
American Trucking Associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Retail Federation are among the dozens of groups to have expressed concerns about a rule the Obama administration has been crafting for several months.
In an interview with Transport Topics in April, ATA's acting general counsel, Richard Pianka, said it is unclear yet how industries will respond to the new rule.
“There are any number of ways they could respond, but it’s going to be disruptive and we’re going to have to wait and see,” Pianka said.
Much of the business sector also has argued the rule would potentially eliminate jobs, prevent upward mobility for junior executives and result in downsizing. Business executives also argued the changes would significantly raise labor costs.
“This new rule adds yet another government-created burden on the trucking industry, 97% of which are small businesses. While ATA appreciates the DOL’s bonus-related provisions and that it adopted a salary threshold modesty lower than it contemplated in the proposed rule, we are very disappointed that it chose to reject our industry’s request to clarify that dispatchers meet the requirements of the administrative exemption. With this decision and the more than 100% increase in the salary threshold, the new rule means that tens of thousands of salaried professionals in trucking operations will likely be reclassified as hourly wage workers,” said ATA spokesman Sean McNally.
.@POTUS is taking action to make 4.2 million more Americans eligible for #overtime pay: https://t.co/J4K6m3jvBx pic.twitter.com/acNZFJTGb6 — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 18, 2016
