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WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented overhaul of the nation's overtime pay rules, the Bush administration is delivering to its business allies an election-year plum they've sought for decades.

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It looks like action from the Dems and the labour movement has made the changes less harsh, but still:

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Monday's change is the culmination of decades of lobbying by business groups representing retailers, restaurants, insurance companies, banks and others that have been hammered by workers' overtime lawsuits, many of them successful.

Wal-Mart is facing dozens of worker lawsuits claiming they were cheated out of overtime and worked off the clock.

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BTW, this summer I heard that New Brunswick has recently passed legislation preventing fast-food restaurants from requiring their employees to do off-the-clock "standby" work.

This has traditionally been used with management positions, where the people were well compensated. The new law would make a lot of lower paid positions like many clerical and retail postitions into "management".

As I understand it, the new rules allow employers to deny overtime to employees who make more than US$23,600/yr if they can designate those employees as administrative, executive or professional.

The new definitions make it easier to designate someone as "professional" or "executive." So, some employers may refuse to pay overtime to an assistant manager or "team leader" at a fast-food joint who spends 90% of her time doing what the two or more other people she supervises do: serving customers, flipping burgers, etc. They may do this provided her "most important" duties--a hard to define qualitative measure--are managerial.

For workers and the labour movement, the concern appears to be that employers will blur the line between managers and subordinates in order to pay low-level employees less. For the employers who hope to benefit from the changes, including big chains, the concern appears to be insulating themselves from lawsuits over who deserves overtime rights and who doesn't. This is what I gather, anyway.

Here's one analysis of the changes, from the Economic Policy Institute.

Melsky is probably right that much will depend on where you work. Further complicating matters is that about 18 states have their own overtime laws, and some of these require employers to give employees whatever deal--federal or state--is best for them.

FWIW, these people appear to be most at risk of losing overtime rights:

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Among the occupations most likely to be reclassified as exempt from overtime: restaurant chefs, licensed athletic trainers, nursery school teachers, beverage truck drivers with sales routes and funeral directors.

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Here's the source story, whose headline offers a more positive take on the changes.

[ 22 August 2004: Message edited by: sgm ]