New overtime laws take effect

All you blue collar nascar dads that are voting for Bush 2.0....this affects YOU! Remember that when you are in the voting booth.

What's your point? This sounds like a good thing to me. Vague and subjective wording in overtime laws were clarified to reduce unnecessary litigations. In the end, nobody who was eligible for overtime before is going to lose out on it now. If anything, businesses will be paying out more overtime because the law is more clearly stated, but they will save money on court costs because this will reduce the number of claims.

Also, as far as a campaign issue, this is additional reason to vote for Bush. But I imagine there will be plenty of people like yourself who want to twist the meanings to make it another reason to be anti-Bush.

You just watch Bush's corporate buddies exploit any loopholes in the law to cheat working people out of money.

And i dont have to add any reasons for people not to vote for Bush 2.0 He's doing a pretty good job of that on his own!

Vague and subjective wording in overtime laws were clarified to reduce unnecessary litigations. In the end, nobody who was eligible for overtime before is going to lose out on it now

hows this for vague and subjective?  if you're a non-degreed worker performing substantially similar duties and possessing substantially similar knowledge (let's say you key data into excel templates all day and your title is cost analyst assistant) as a degreed analyst who is also keying in data--only you make $10k a year less but have been collecting overtime--you can now be reclassified.   there's no provision for 'substantially similar' paygrade--even though exempt employee salaries have traditionally been calculated higher to compensate for the extra hours such a job often entails.  

if youre a 'team leader' at a place like wal-mart (doing the same work only a little better than the 5 members of your team), you are now also exempt.    sous-chef? fry cook?  same duties, same knowledge?  asst shift manager atta burger joint?  sure you got a title...but no office.  and youre right there flippin burgers and supersizing stuff like the other lops.  only now youll be working every hour over 40 for free.

amazing how many big-hearted  industry lobbyists and business groups fell all over themselves to testify in order to  help their formerly non-exempt employees cut through all that vague and subjective stuff that had them confused huh?

Good example kingbee! Here's mine...

I work in IT. I'm on salary. My assistant is not. He works as hard as i do and is always willing to put in as much time as is needed so we can get the job done. Now he will not be compensated for going the extra mile by putting in the OT. So who could blame him for not wanting to maintain the same level of performance? Not me!

In the end, this law is going to bite the corporate world in the ass because nobody will be willing to go the extra mile for free. It takes money out of peoples pockets who desperately need every penny they can get to feed their families, pay their bills, educate their children,and have a shot at living the american dream.

I don't know Tyveil's situation. So i'm not even going to try to assume what his or her logic is here. I just know that i don't understand why anybody who works on the blue collar end of the spectrum would vote for this guy. He does not have their best interests at heart. He's paying back the guys who helped get him into office in the first place.

I don't know Tyveil's situation. So i'm not even going to try to assume what his or her logic is here. I just know that i don't understand why anybody who works on the blue collar end of the spectrum would vote for this guy. He does not have their best interests at heart. He's paying back the guys who helped get him into office in the first place.

I read the entire article, word for word, very carefully.. that is what I based my logic on. I don't want corporate america getting more breaks than the blue-collar worker. I'm even against personal income tax which is clearly illegal and unconstitutional. Income tax was suppose to be taxation of corporate profit. By the definition of the word, our salary is NOT income. Anyways, that's another subject entirely. My point is just that I think people are reading too much into this law change and in the end it will not result in the blue-collar worker losing overtime. Quite to the contrary, I think they will be able to get their overtime now without having to sue to get it.

No offense, but that is a large part of what is wrong with this country...

People who really don't read, nor watch the news, nor do any research of their own, and so therefore are largely clueless about what they are actually talking about, still form and propogate opinions.

It takes a 5 minute google search to clear up all the questions posted in this thread and to see that labor organizations nationwide, including the US Department of labor (who might know a little more about it that you or I), plus the majority of Americans (who the president is supposed to be working for right?) in every poll conducted, think this policy is a bad idea, and more people stand to loose money than be protected.

Now, maybe you are right, and they are all wrong. It could be. I kind of doubt it though.

As long as people of this nation who are otherwise very reasonable dont start thinking for themselves and instead make far reaching decisions based off of reading one or two articles in some bones news outlet (yes cnn counts) you will all continue to be spoon fed your opinions for you.

Wake up.

It takes a 5 minute google search to clear up all the questions posted in this thread and to see that labor organizations nationwide, including the US Department of labor (who might know a little more about it that you or I), plus the majority of Americans (who the president is supposed to be working for right?) in every poll conducted, think this policy is a bad idea, and more people stand to loose money than be protected.

The Labor Department (news - web sites) says as many as 107,000 workers could lose overtime eligibility under its new rules, but about 1.3 million will gain it.

So the US Department of Labor says this will cause 107k workers to lose eligibility, but 1.3 million will GAIN it. Either this is a misquote by the person who wrote the article or you are misinformed. Basing logic on an opinionated article is one thing.. taking facts into consideration is another.

It sounds as though the new laws benefit workers and cuts litigation.

You just watch Bush's corporate buddies exploit any loopholes in the law to cheat working people out of money.

Have they not been exploiting the loopholes that were already in place? Does clarity result in more exploitation than vagueness?

It takes a 5 minute google search to clear up all the questions posted in this thread and to see that labor organizations nationwide, including the US Department of labor (who might know a little more about it that you or I), plus the majority of Americans (who the president is supposed to be working for right?) in every poll conducted, think this policy is a bad idea, and more people stand to loose money than be protected.

True, people are still probably going to lose eligibility, but according to the US Department of Labor, more people are going to be eligible for it now. Would it be better if they repealed the law and made ineligible the million or two workers covered by the new law for the sake of a hundred thousand workers?

I personally don't understand overtime laws, and happen to know that they hurt more people than they help. For example, a friend of mine works at a job where she recieves an hourly wage plus a commission related to sales. Commissions make up about a third of what she makes total, so its not one of those jobs where comissions are 95% ofyour total salary. Anyway, because law states that you have to be paid time and a half for every hour after 40 that you work each week, the company that she works for simply refuses to allow her to work more than 40 hours even if she wanted to. They figure its cheaper to have an extra employee at the store to make up the hours than it would be to pay time and a half to a few employees that might want to work 50 hours a week. Besides, a 40 hour workweek is pretty low. Most salaried people I know work at least 8 to 6, which is a 50 hour week, and I'm not including time that they may spend extra doing special projects.

All this law does is hurt the low and low middle class. Maybe you want to work 50 or 60 hours one week because you have to pay your bills or you're saving for a house or you want to buy a car, whatever- your employer probably won't let you because they are forced by law to pay you time and a half past 40, so now you have to add the complication of working 2 jobs to pay your bills. Hasn't anyone every though about that? Asked themselves, why do people work 2 jobs, can't they just work more hours on one job? Its almost always because neither job is willing to paying 50% more than what the persons labor is worth.

Hell i work 70 hours a week easy. My assistant works as much as me..do the math. He makes 15 bucks an hour. Muliply the thirty hours by 1.5 times 15 bucks.= $675.00

Now you tell me if you would want to lose that chunk of change every week so the bosses can stick it in their pockets. You bet your ass you wouldn't.

And Buu? in this case clarity just makes it easier to fuck the little guy. Mark my words...the law will be abused by corporate america.