Utah attorney general, US businesses applaud court for halting new overtime rules

Photo by Pilin_Petunyia / iStock, Getty Images Plus; composite by St. George News

ST. GEORGE — Utah’s attorney general lauded and businesses around the country cheered a federal court decision issued Tuesday blocking the Obama administration’s sweeping new overtime rules.

An injunction issued Tuesday in the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of Texas prevents the Department of Labor’s new rule that would mandate overtime pay for salaried employees who make less than about $47,500 a year — a dramatic jump from the old threshold of $23,660.

Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are among a coalition of 21 states and state representatives as well as numerous chambers of commerce, both national and regional, that asked the court to block the new rule.

See the ruling here: Memorandum Opinion and Order granting preliminary injunction against the U.S. Labor Department’s rules for changes in overtime pay requirements and other things. Nevada and other states v Labor Department. Order Nov. 22, 2016, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas. Order has nationwide effect.

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes joined the 21-state coalition that successfully challenged the rule. 

“This rule has been touted as worker friendly but is just the opposite,” Reyes said in a news release issued Wednesday. “Unfortunately, this kind of federal and bureaucratic overreach has been all too frequent under the current administration, which has allowed the Department of Labor to effectively rewrite the Fair Labor Standards Act. In particular, the administration assumes that through force of will alone, it could order a new economic reality into existence. The finalized overtime rule harms local businesses, slows the economy, and hurts American workers. It limits workplace flexibility without a corresponding increase in pay, forcing employers to cut their workers hours. All in all, it exchanges the advantages of negotiated benefits, personal to each worker, with a one-size-fits-all standard that looks good only in press statements. We can do better than this for American workers.”

More than 4 million workers would have been newly eligible for time-and-a-half pay under the rule beginning Dec. 1, the Associated Press reported. But the injunction means 2004 labor law regulations remain in effect for now. The enjoined overtime rule’s future is uncertain in light of the a new incoming administration and Congress.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, employees are entitled to overtime pay at one-and-a-half times their regular hourly rate for all hours worked above 40 per week.  But certain kinds of employees – including “white collar” employees or executive, administrative and professional employees – have long been exempt from that overtime requirement. Three criteria qualify an employee for the exemption: The employee must be paid on a salary basis, must be paid at least the minimum salary level established by the regulations ($23,660) and must perform executive, administrative or professional duties.

Whether employees qualify as “white collar” employees turns in part on their salary, Reyes’ news release states, so the new overtime rule more than doubled the salary threshold at which employees would qualify for that exemption. The U.S. District Court, however, found the new rule unlawful because Congress intended the “white collar” exemption “to depend on an employee’s duties rather than an employee’s salary.”

The Associated Press reported Wednesday:

Many businesses had already raised salaries or ordered managers to stick to a strict 40-hour workweek to avoid costs they expected to incur starting next week.

The injunctive ruling giving businesses a reprieve “is a little late for a lot of people’s taste,” said Tom Gimbel of Chicago-based LaSalle Network, a staffing firm that advised companies on how to prepare for the new rule. “A lot of companies had already rolled it out.”

Wal-Mart, for example, raised entry-level managers’ starting salaries by $3,500 in September to stay above the threshold. But there were also raises among clerical workers for Opportunity Village in Las Vegas, a nonprofit that teaches vocational skills to people with disabilities and raises its money through private donations and running a thrift store.

Opportunity president Bob Brown said he couldn’t bear to backtrack on the decision.

“It’s put us in a difficult situation — you’re spending money you wouldn’t have been spending,” he said.

In Colorado, some restaurant owners operating on thin margins shifted salaried managers to hourly pay so they could better track their hours and cap them at 40.

“That was demoralizing for managers who felt they were being demoted,” said Sonia Riggs, CEO of the Colorado Restaurant Association.

The Department of Labor last May ordered the changes to give overtime to many more American workers, saying they would “go a long way toward realizing President Obama’s commitment to ensuring every worker is compensated fairly for their hard work.”

Inflation had weakened the U.S. overtime law passed decades ago. Overtime provisions applied to 62 percent of U.S. full-time salaried workers in 1975 but just 7 percent today.

The court agreed with the rule’s opponents that the Labor Department overstepped the authority it has from Congress and that the rule could cause irreparable harm if it took effect Dec. 1 as scheduled. The department is now considering its legal options, but Trump will be in charge of the department after taking office on Jan. 20.

Trump told the news website Circa in August that he hoped small businesses would get an exception from the overtime rule, although the issue was not a prominent presidential campaign theme.

The rule’s supporters are now grappling with implications for workers who were expecting more overtime pay just as the holiday shopping rush gets underway.

“This is about the worst news they could get heading into Thanksgiving and the holiday season,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes workplace fairness.

Workers who want to make a good impression on their employers, feel compelled to cover for absent co-workers or are passionate about their jobs often put in far more than 40 hours a week and end up making a sub-minimum wage. Advocacy groups say employees who work for free are giving up time they could be spending with their families or advancing their education to get better paying jobs.

But businesses said the rules would have created an overly restrictive environment that would have penalized younger and slower workers.

“We were going to have to send them home at times,” said Jose Villa, president of the Los Angeles-based ad agency Sensis. “Say, ‘You’re done for the day, you have to go,’ even though we’re working on some important stuff that’s going to be very educational for them.”

With the overtime pay order suspended, Trump’s administration could choose to make its own rule changes through a lengthy administrative process.

The Republican-controlled Congress could change the country’s labor laws, although House Speaker Paul Ryan had decried the overtime plan “an absolute disaster” that Obama rushed through to boost his political legacy.

If the Labor Department lawyers appeal Tuesday’s ruling, they could end up facing a Supreme Court that includes some Trump appointees.

The injunction takes political pressure off Trump at a good time, said labor law professor Ruben Garcia of the University Nevada Las Vegas’ Boyd School of Law.

With no new overtime changes kicking in next week, Trump can accept the status quo and does not risk angering workers by revoking the new overtime benefits shortly after employees start receiving them, Garcia said.

Portions of this report were written by MICHELLE RINDELS,  Associated Press, with contributions from AP writers Jim Anderson in Denver and Jonathan Cooper in Sacramento, California.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @STGnews

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2016, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

1 Comment

  • .... November 25, 2016 at 8:16 am

    This doesn’t effect me in anyway whatsoever because I don’t have to work for a living ! well I’m off to the golf course. Oh by the way I don’t have to pay to golf ! I golf for free ! well have a nice day !

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.