I have glazed through the document once (I will delve more deeply into it at a later time) and immediately I, as a currently exempt employee, like what I am reading. I will now address some of Sparx’s earlier claims of adverse impact upon workers.
After patrolling the streets of Toledo, Ohio, police officer Tim Steedman looks forward to spending his time off with his two sons. Because the proposed Department of Labor rules change could mean the city won’t have to pay time-and-a-half for more than 40 hours, Steedman, a single father, worries his employer might start demanding he work overtime. “We’re at least 70 officers short now,” he explains. “If the city doesn’t have to pay time-and-half, it’ll force us in to work all the time.”
New section 541.3(b) states that the exemptions do not apply to police officers, fire fighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians and similar public safety employees who perform work such as preventing, controlling or extinguishing fires of any type; rescuing fire, crime or accident victims; preventing or detecting crimes; conducting investigations or inspections for violations of law; performing surveillance; interviewing witnesses; interrogating and fingerprinting suspects; preparing investigative reports; and similar work.
As an employee of a Norwalk, Ohio, auto parts manufacturer that often does not allow workers to take earned vacation time, UNITE member Robert Kurtycz has circulated a petition among co-workers and neighbors opposing congressional legislation that would encourage employers to offer compensatory time instead of overtime pay, plus give them control over when workers take that time.
“If the Republicans were really concerned about giving families flexibility, they’d say employees can take their comp time whenever they want—but that’s not the way the bills are written,” says Kurtycz, 25, the father of two small children.
A proposed change in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations could immediately hurt household finances for Kurtycz. His wife, Holley, a full-time nurse at a nonunion workplace, would become exempt from federal overtime pay protections under a Bush administration proposal and might lose as much as 25 percent of her income if it goes into effect. “This would greatly affect our household finances,” says Kurtycz.
For the coming five years, Kurtycz’s contract protects his rights to overtime pay. “But when our contract comes up the next time, my employer will probably argue that in order to compete with nonunion employers that give comp time rather than overtime, it’s going to have to give comp time, too,” he explains. “Another major problem is that if a company goes bankrupt, everything workers are owed is not protected by anything.”
The final section 541.301(e)(2) states that licensed practical nurses and other similar health care employees do not qualify as exempt professionals. The final rule retains the provisions of the existing regulations regarding registered nurses.
If proposed Bush administration changes to overtime regulations go through, Sheila Perez, a highly trained federal government employee who tests and maintains submarine systems at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, might be reclassified as “exempt” from those overtime rules. In that case, her pay for more than 40 hours of work a week would go from time-and-a-half to less than straight time. Now facing a transfer to a job that may require up to 500 hours of annual mandatory overtime and 10-hour, 7-day weeks, Perez is concerned a pay cut may accompany this strenuous new schedule. “Many of us are 45 and older, and you’re talking about a lot of stress on the body,” she says. “After 40 hours a week, why should we make less than straight time? It makes no sense to me.”
The ‘‘highly compensated’’ test in the final rule applies only to employees who earn at least $100,000 per year, a $35,000 increase over the proposal. The ‘‘highly compensated’’ test in the final rule applies only to employees who receive at least $455 per week on a salary basis. The final regulation adds a new requirement that exempt highly compensated employees also must ‘‘customarily and regularly’’ perform exempt duties.
As a member of PACE International Union Local 8-675, David Taylor, a highly skilled refinery worker at Lyondell-Citgo Refining LP (LCR) in Houston, is covered by a union contract that protects his overtime pay. But if proposed Bush administration changes in overtime regulations take effect, he and other oil industry workers in similar jobs could be reclassified as “exempt” from laws requiring pay for overtime work. If that happens, the nonunion workers could lose their legal rights to time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours of work a week. And in future contract negotiations, union employers like LCR probably would try to take back overtime pay, says Taylor. “In bargaining, their statements are always laced with what other companies are doing and how they have to do the same,” explains Taylor, who estimates his gross income would fall by about 25 percent without overtime pay. But employer demands for more than 40 hours of work a week likely would continue, he predicts, resulting in a pay cut.
“When my co-workers were hired, they were asked if they had any problem with mandatory overtime, and then they based their futures and standard of living on that overtime,” Taylor says. “The house you buy, whether your wife has to work, whether you can send your kids to Texas A&M or they have to attend the community college—for many of us, it’s all been determined by overtime, and now they want to change the rules in the middle of the game.”
New section 541.4 clarifies that the FLSA provides minimum standards that may be exceeded, but cannot be waived or reduced. Employers must comply with State laws providing additional worker protections (a higher minimum wage, for example), and the Act does not preclude employers from entering into collective bargaining agreements providing wages higher than the statutory minimum, a shorter workweek than the statutory maximum, or a higher overtime premium (double time, for example).
Engineering technician Robert Gaudette performs industrial safety and testing work on submarines for the federal Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. “It’s dirty and demanding industrial work, and the schedule is unforgiving,” he says. Because Gaudette is highly skilled, a Bush administration proposal could, if enacted, reclassify him as exempt from FLSA’s overtime pay protections. He would be paid straight time rather than time-and-a-half for working more than 40 hours weekly—causing him to lose about 9 percent of his current annual income. But, like his co-workers, Gaudette still would be expected to work overtime, between 500 and 700 hours annually—some of them aboard submarines at sea for days at a time. And according to the federal government’s pay schedule, he could earn nothing for every hour after 49 hours of overtime per each two-week pay period. Gaudette took his current position in 1991 largely because the mandatory overtime at time-and-a-half looked like the best way to eventually finance college education for his then-young sons, Jeffrey and James. They’ll both be in college next year and he’ll need $39,000 toward their tuitions—money he won’t have if his income goes down. His only solution, if the Bush administration proposal goes through, is to ask for a demotion to a lower-paying job with no overtime, so he can work elsewhere nights and weekends as an electrician.
Thus, for example, non-management production-line employees and non- management employees in maintenance, construction and similar occupations such as carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, iron workers, craftsmen, operating engineers, longshoremen, construction workers and laborers are entitled to minimum wage and overtime premium pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and are not exempt under the regulations in this part no matter how highly paid they might be.’’
Patrolman Tim Schortgen in Defiance, Ohio, says he’ll lose about $2,000 annually in overtime pay if the proposed Department of Labor changes to overtime rules go through. “That’s a big reduction,” he says. “Money I can’t put toward my daughter Adrian’s college education. This comes down to protecting the 40-hour workweek. With homeland security needs increasing demands on state and local security, we’re being asked to work longer, for less.”
Again a police officer so the new exemptions would not apply.
Now why in the world would anyone get mad about an issue, write about it and send a carbon copy to the AFL-CIO? 
I also think that unions should not endorse candidates. I'm all for unions educating their members on how various policies and candidates could affect their jobs. I don't think they should tell the members how to vote and that's what an endorsement does.
