Columnist Molly Ivins’ recent attack on the Department of Labor’s new overtime security rule misstates what the new overtime standards are (Commentary, Aug. 26). Had Ivins done minimal research on the new rule, rather than recycle false and discredited claims by partisan political activists, she would have discovered that the rule extends overtime protection to millions of additional workers. Under the old law, only workers earning less than $8,060 per year were guaranteed overtime. The new rule raises this threshold to $23,660, meaning that an additional 6.7 million workers now have an unambiguous right to overtime.
But it’s not just lower-income workers who benefit. For the first time ever, the new overtime security rule provides an iron-clad overtime guarantee to many workers earning above the $23,660 threshold, including blue-collar workers, licensed practical nurses and first responders, such as police officers, firefighters and EMTs. Under the new rule, workers who are paid by the hour are guaranteed overtime protection no matter how much they earn or what they do–as are workers who get overtime under collective bargaining agreements.
Ivins wrongly claims that employers can simply change a worker’s job title to deny him or her overtime. This is false, and it’s sloppy of Ivins to make such an assertion when the new rule states explicitly that job titles alone don’t determine overtime eligibility. It is what workers actually do, the so-called “duties tests,” that really matters. There are new provisions in the duties tests that make it tougher for employers to deny workers overtime.
Ivins states, “Under the old rules, a salaried worker was not entitled to overtime–but now `salary’ can be defined as an hourly wage.” In fact, under the old regulation, many salaried workers were entitled to overtime. Not only do these workers remain eligible for overtime today, but the new rule actually makes it more difficult to define “salary” as an hourly wage.
