For most workers and students, the celebration of Labor Day provides time to relax with friends and family in a reprieve from daily work or classes.
But the possibility of a new regulation may make next year's Labor Day less enjoyable. A proposed federal overtime regulation could take that privilege away from millions of workers.
The average work week is 40 hours. Most people cannot finish all their work in that allotted time. An extra day or few hours every pay period helps most families make utility or car payments. It also keeps most people from working an additional job. -á-á-á-á-á
Ross Eisenbrey, policy director and vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, gave a speech with the EPI's analysis of the bill to a United States Senate subcommittee July 31.
In his speech, Eisenbrey said the EPI found three major flaws with the Department of Labor's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in March. The notice claimed that 644,000 people would lose overtime compensation. The EPI argues that 8 million will lose compensation.
Somewhere, someone isn't doing the math.
According to the EPI, the new regulations would change the classification of certain workers. This change will increase the number of administrative, professional or executive workers and make them ineligible for overtime pay.
To have a person take a job and then change the qualities of their pay is ridiculous. Some workers take jobs if they feel secure that, if they need to work extra hours, they will be justly compensated. This may also give employers an incentive to switch workers from hourly to salaried wages, thus they will receive a set amount as opposed to compensation based on time working.
Worker considered managers who still complete the same tasks as the workers they supervise could lose their overtime compensation simply based on the fact that part of their duty requires overseeing the job performance of others.
"Hard work should be rewarded," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told the Gannett News Service. "I think this is the most anti-family policy I have seen in my years in Congress."
Senators like Harkin need to make their voices heard this week. With the economy in a slump and a high-unemployment rate, the Department of Labor should look elsewhere to generate revenue.
The hard-working Americans supporting families don't need a new job title. They need the extra seven or eight hours of time and a half pay so that they can afford to pay taxes and own a home. The extra day's work could mean the difference between a child having a parent home when they return from school or one who has to rush to another job so they can make ends meet.
If this regulation is passed, the same administration that professed honor to its laborers Monday will be considered hypocrites on Labor Day 2004.
Write to Lauren at
lmphillips@bsu.edu
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