News from the
Committee on Education and the Workforce
John Boehner, Chairman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Workforce Committee Republicans today announced the Committee will hold a hearing on April 28, with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao scheduled to testify, to evaluate the Labor Department’s final regulation on overtime pay and its impact on workers and employers. The Department’s economic analysis indicates that few, if any, workers making less than $100,000 per year will be adversely affected by the final regulation. The Department estimates that the only workers who will likely be affected are those making more than $100,000 annually, whose white-collar job responsibilities qualify them as exempt from overtime. According to the Department, no more than 107,000 workers nationwide fall into this highly-compensated category.

The Department’s final rule protects the overtime rights of blue-collar workers, union workers, nurses, veterans, firefighters, policemen and similar public safety workers, and responds to concerns raised with earlier proposed regulations during the comment period by clarifying that the overtime rights of these workers are not affected under the final rule. Committee Republicans commended the Department for its willingness to listen and make adjustments to the final regulation to give new overtime pay rights to millions of low-income workers.

“I’m pleased that the Department has listened to public comments and taken into account those concerns in updating its final regulation,” said Education & the Workforce Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-OH). “I look forward to reviewing the proposal in depth and hearing more specifics from Secretary Chao at our Committee hearing next week.”

After reviewing more than 75,000 public comments on draft regulations proposed in March 2003, the Labor Department today announced an updated final regulation that is intended to simplify and modernize decades-old regulations addressing overtime exemptions for certain employees, including low-income workers that are unfairly denied overtime pay under current law. Current rules allow a worker earning as little as $8,060 to qualify as a ‘white collar’ employee, therefore preventing the worker from receiving overtime pay. The overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act have not been substantially changed in 54 years.

“Today’s overtime regulations are complex, confusing, and often lead to needless litigation, so the Department should be commended for its efforts to modernize these outdate regulations and provide new overtime protections and greater overtime pay to working Americans,” added Boehner.

Under the regulations issued today by the Department, which are scheduled to go into effect at the end of the summer, any worker making less than $23,660 annually will automatically become entitled to overtime pay. According to the Department’s analysis, the final regulation will extend new overtime rights to an estimated 1.3 million workers, and strengthens existing overtime protections for 5.4 million working Americans.

“These outdated regulations are so complex that it is next to impossible for workers to know whether they are entitled to overtime, for employers to know how to pay their employees, and for DOL to enforce these workplace protections,” said Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Charlie Norwood (R-GA). “I am pleased that the Department’s proposal will provide additional protections to low-income workers and ensure that they are entitled to overtime pay, and I look forward to hearing more about the Department’s new proposal at our upcoming Committee hearing.”

# # # # #