NOW Applauds Harkin-Kennedy Bill to Safeguard Vital Overtime Protections For Working Families

July 24, 2003

NOW President Kim Gandy salutes Senators Harkin (D-Iowa) and Kennedy (D-Mass.) for their introduction of legislation today that will counteract the Department of Labor's proposal to eliminate overtime pay for a select group of employees. Their bill will protect overtime pay guarantees currently enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of our nation's valuable workers and is a desperately needed step to safeguard millions of working families from future workplace abuses.

"The Bush administration is prepared to sacrifice working families on the altar of corporate greed," said Gandy. "We are witnessing a concerted and interconnected campaign to undermine 65 years of fair labor law and worker protections. Bush and conservative leaders in Congress have set out on a course to save their large, corporate donors millions of dollars by removing troublesome workers from overtime coverage; cutting down on expensive lawsuits with stricter 'class action' requirements; adding 'new' workers eligible for overtime to cover their tracks; and then supporting Congressional efforts to pull the rug out from under these 'new' overtime workers and everyone else by replacing current overtime guarantees with bogus 'comp time' that will be controlled by the employer."

"In their effort to help large companies such as Wal-mart and Clear Channel avoid paying overtime as well as expensive lawsuits, the Department of Labor is proposing to remove the overtime protections from the very workers who have been filing lawsuits when they have been illegally denied their time and a half overtime pay," Gandy said. "The Harkin-Kennedy bill is the only way to prevent the Department of Labor from using this sneak tactic to put more money in the pockets of corporations and deprive a potential eight million workers* and their families of the overtime pay that is their compensation for working above and beyond the normal work week. NOW calls on Democratic and Republican Senators alike to support this critical bill."

Hardest hit by the overtime pay cuts would be nurses, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, cooks, secretaries, dentists, computer technicians, surveyors, designers, graphic artists, health technicians and paralegals—workers who do not have managerial or supervisory duties. Under the Department of Labor's proposal, these workers would lose thousands of dollars a year in overtime pay while still working long hours at the employer's request. Workers often welcome the overtime if it allows them to pay for healthcare, childcare, housing and transportation costs. In addition, without overtime pay protection, these workers will have no defense against excessive work hours that can be demanded of them by their employer.

"The Harkin-Kennedy bill will not inhibit the Department of Labor from including more low-income workers in the category of those who can receive overtime pay," said Gandy. "While on the surface we are pleased that 1.3 million more low-income workers will be eligible for overtime pay, we're skeptical that they may ever see this coverage, since Congress is simultaneously floating bills to do away with overtime altogether and force workers to take bogus comp time at the employer's discretion instead. We're holding our judgment until these bills that erode critical overtime protections are tabled."

*Eisenbrey, Ross and Jared Bernstein. "Eliminating the right to overtime pay: Department of Labor proposal means lower pay, longer hours for millions of workers." EPI Briefing Paper. June 26, 2003.

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