Listen to your corporate overlord. Overtime is bad!
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/10/22/team-obamas-new-overtime-rule-is-dehumanizing-economically-harmful-and-must-be-stopped.html

Texas and 20 other states have announced a lawsuit to block the Obama administration’s destructive overtime rules, which are slated to go into effect December 1, 2016. With less than 3-months to spare, victory in the case would save businesses and workers across the U.S. from this dehumanizing and economically damaging law.

According to the new rule, salaried workers earning below $47,476 per year must be paid time-and-a-half for work done in excess of forty hours per week. This is up from a previous salary threshold of $23,660.

The reality is corporate overlords are having a loophole closed upon them. They will now have to pay workers who do the work producing the product of the company for all hours worked or pay a managers salary.

Some states, Texas is one, want their citizens enslaved to the corporate overlord. Tandy, a Texas company, tried to impose Texas rules in all 50 states. They found out the hard way.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/17/business/fi-radio17
https://www.sommerspc.com/blog/2015/01/radioshack-settles-overtime-class-action-for-700000/
http://www.law360.com/articles/758041/radioshack-judge-oks-5-5m-deal-with-pa-store-managers
It isn't just Tandy.
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Starbucks-settles-suit-over-overtime-pay-1265295.php
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/employment-labor/4162-starbucks-to-pay-workers-3-million-class-action-settlement-over-missed-breaks/

I know, because I’m the person at the Leadership Institute who is responsible for implementing the changes. I see the real faces of those it will impact every day, and I am not looking forward to hurting our employees with a counterproductive rule that harms more workers than it helps.

Sound like very sour grapes from someone who has not been doing it right from the get go, trying desperately to return to his old way of wage theft.

The worst part of his sour grapes is the realization that all his employees may find out they were being paid incorrectly for years and years and he will be on the receiving end of a megabucks class action lawsuit alleging overtime violations for what he has already done.

He talks about taking work home. Employees should not take work home.

He talks about doctor visits. Companies are required to pay sick time.

The way he talks about his employees in the way a plantation owner talks about his employees, er slaves.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17a_overview.pdf

The employee’s primary duty must be managing the enterprise, or managing a customarily recognized department or subdivision of the enterprise;
The employee must customarily and regularly direct the work of at least two or more other full-time employees or their equivalent; and
The employee must have the authority to hire or fire other employees,

or

The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers;*

or

The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment; The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science**

To me is sounds like they already are in violation, but they just don't realize it!

I think his fear is his employees will read the regulations and realize what they have had stolen from them.

Wage theft is ugly and also more common than running a stop sign at 3AM



*management/general business is doing things that do not produce the product(s) of the company!

**https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17d_professional.pdf wrote:

Fields of science or learning include law, medicine, theology, accounting, actuarial computation, engineering, architecture, teaching, various types of physical, chemical and biological sciences, pharmacy and other occupations that have a recognized professional status and are distinguishable from the mechanical arts or skilled trades where the knowledge could be of a fairly
advanced type, but is not in a field of science or learning.

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Wage theft is ugly and also more common than running a stop sign at 3AM

+1

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Reality IS that any salaried employee has the full right and opportunity to negotiate a raise if they feel they deserve one, quit the job and get another with less hours or higher salary, or change careers to fit their needs.
I had a salaried job that had very erratic hours and a variety of job responsibilities. I liveed 400 miles away from the company. My job was not at the company location. Yes, I did plenty of work at home, in my hotel room, and while traveling. I had days on the job while traveling that were sometimes 18 hours a day for 3 or more days, (not including travel time). I sometimes put in well over 60 hours a week, (not including travel time). I had many other weeks that were less than 40 hours and plenty of weeks where I still received my monthly salary but did little or no work.
If my company had been forced to pay overtime to a salaried employee, they would have also needed to subtract pay from months where I did not work 40 hours per week. I would not have been happy to see subtractions from my supposed salary. I would have hated to be required to account for every minute of time I spent "on the job"; that in itself would have slowed me down and caused less productivity.
If you are only talking about a slim segment of desk jobs that are being subject to forced overtime rules dictated by government mandate then fine.
But unfortunately when the heavy hand of the Government gets involved in more and more of every aspect of our lives and work, the results are disasterous and "unintended consequences" become the real problem.
One size doesn't fit all. This overtime presidential edict only works in a positive way in certain situations. For everyone else, including those not directly effected, it is an extra unworkable interference in our lives.
Obama has never depended on a job for his existance and has never ran a company to generate money and opportunities for employees.
BOTTOM LINE IS: One size does NOT fit all. Government edicts like this one cause much more harm than good.

Johnny, the only item that is changing is the minimum wage to be called exempt. The rest of those rules have been in place since Reagan or earlier.

Recently some companies got a shock when they found out they owed wages for travel time. From home to airport, to jobsite, to hotel finally the work day ended. Then they owe for the return trip too. It wasn't a new rule, they just ignored it. There is a lot of that happening in the world. Ignore it and it goes away.

A lot of companies are getting a shock on reimbursements. BYOD is the prime example. The company has to prevent access to the company e-mail and data outside normal working hours or face overtime. The company has to reimburse the employee for their data use and minutes and cost of the phone. That is even if they are on an unlimited plan. They are also finding out if they have work at home employees they have to reimburse for home internet and phone and electricity and even rent the space for the desk. An employee should never pay anything to work at a company!

The only thing that is new is employees are becoming aware of what the laws say. Business with their lawyers should have always known and priced their goods accordingly.

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I was always reimbursed for everything. Except time.
Time was never considered.
I started at $32,000 in 1998 and only had the job for 5 years ending at $48,600.
Because I missed out on 5 years of my life spent mostly on the road instead of home, I left with a kind severance and on good terms.
I was never aware of any problems with anyone in the small company that had problems with salary vrs. hours.

The next work I had was as a subcontractor in a completely different industry.
I charged by the hour and was reimbursed for everything by weekly billing.
I felt the company was walking a very thin line using me as a subcontractor rather than employee. The owner agreed with me and after 3 years he hired me to work on an hourly rate as an employee for the remaining 4 years. Starting pay was quite a bit less than before, but I got raises quick enough to make a difference.
I have never worked for a huge megacorp like Tandy, IBM, etc.
My daughter works at home as an experiment for her company. She is paid hourly evidenced only by the time she is logged into their systems. Like so many hourly employees, she would never consider working for salary because of the likelyhood that her average pay per hour would decrease. i.e. increased workload for any and all salaried employees seems the norm in the world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2016/11/22/judge-halts-federal-rule-that-would-have-expanded-overtime-pay-to-millions-of-workers/?tid=pm_business_pop

Judge halts federal rule that would have expanded overtime pay to millions of workers.

A Texas judge ruled Tuesday to put the brakes on federal rules that would have expanded overtime pay to more than 4 million workers.

A rule from the Department of Labor that was supposed to take effect next week would have made overtime pay available to full-time salaried employees earning up to $47,476 a year, more than doubling the current threshold of $23,660 a year.

Employees earning below that threshold would qualify to earn one and a half times pay for any time worked beyond 40 hours a week. The rule was set to go into effect Dec. 1.

The injunction from U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant buys the court more time to come to a final decision on the overtime rule, which was challenged by a slew of business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, as well as 21 states. The states and the businesses are disputing the salary component of the rule, arguing that the Labor Department does not have the authority to require that employers offer overtime to workers who earn below a certain amount.

Can you imagine overtime going away. Trump down economics.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2016/11/22/judge-halts-federal-rule-that-would-have-expanded-overtime-pay-to-millions-of-workers/?tid=pm_business_pop

Judge halts federal rule that would have expanded overtime pay to millions of workers.

A Texas judge ruled Tuesday to put the brakes on federal rules that would have expanded overtime pay to more than 4 million workers.

A rule from the Department of Labor that was supposed to take effect next week would have made overtime pay available to full-time salaried employees earning up to $47,476 a year, more than doubling the current threshold of $23,660 a year.

Employees earning below that threshold would qualify to earn one and a half times pay for any time worked beyond 40 hours a week. The rule was set to go into effect Dec. 1.

The injunction from U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant buys the court more time to come to a final decision on the overtime rule, which was challenged by a slew of business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, as well as 21 states. The states and the businesses are disputing the salary component of the rule, arguing that the Labor Department does not have the authority to require that employers offer overtime to workers who earn below a certain amount.

Can you imagine overtime going away. Trump down economics.

You and the Washington Post are being a little misleading, Gary.

First, Judge Amos L. Mazzant is NOT a 'Texas judge' (implying State Court), but is a Federal Judge.

http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/page1.shtml?location=info:judge&judge=16

Second, Judge Mazzant was appointed by President Obama in 2014 to his position.

Third, this has to do ONLY with full-time, salaried employees getting overtime. Not to hourly wage-earners.

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https://youtu.be/iY57ErBkFFE

#Texit

Don't blame me, I voted for Johnson(L) in 2016.

Truth is dangerous... especially when it challenges those in power.

Third, this has to do ONLY with full-time, salaried employees getting overtime. Not to hourly wage-earners.

How long will there be hourly employees if all you have to do is pay salary and overtime goes away?

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Salaried employees want overtime, then become an hourly wage-earner.

Want OT, well then negotiate it in your salary. What a load of crap.

@Gary - never, get real.

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@Gary - never, get real.

Sorry, I only do HR so maybe I hear scuttlebutt you can't believe. Fiduciary duty to the shareholder fulfilled!

Of course if you work in a State that already had implemented the rules the DOL offered, nothing will change.

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article116765903.html

http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/09/news/nfl-cheerleaders-buffalo-bills-jills/

You have no idea how bad they rip you off. And you take it because you need a job.

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I'm sorry but I do not recognize any of your sources anymore.

What else you got?

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I'm sorry but I do not recognize any of your sources anymore.

So no source will make you happy.

What else you got?

See above.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17a_overview.pdf
Carefully read and understand the exemptions to FLSA. Especially understand the words "primary duty", "customarily and regularly", "non-manual work", "consistent exercise of discretion and judgment", "field of science or learning". You will have to spend time looking up the numerous court cases which interpret the meaning of these words. Until you do understand the highly specific meanings of the terms there is no point in discussing.

The bottom line is that a large measure of people who are classified as exempt are misclassified. Primary duty and customarily and regularly are taken to mean the employee spends over 50% of their work time doing that duty. So an example of the store manager at a coffee place who is the only employee there doing all the tasks for management, but spends most of the time making drinks is not exempt. It isn't about the highest thing an employee does, it is about what they spend the day actually doing. Another example an accountant who does exercise of discretion and judgment but spends most of the day doing data entry, again not exempt as they don't spend over 50% of the day doing the exempt function.

Now think about the employee who actually does spend over half the work day doing an exempt function. Just how much are they actually making? Double the minimum wage?

https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/federal-court-blocks-new-overtime-rule

The states and business associations' arguments focused on the new rule’s extreme deviation from Congress’s unambiguous intent to exempt executive, administrative and professional (EAP) employees from the FLSA by adopting a minimum salary level that would exclude millions of employees performing exempt EAP job duties based solely on their salary level. The court agreed, noting that although there is no mention of a salary threshold in the statute, the new rule made the salary threshold a center-point. Although there has been a salary requirement by regulation since 1940

A reading in legalese would be that any salary level is unenforceable.

Given that companies like to classify people as exempt even though they are not next thing you know everyone will be promoted to manager and they will be told your salary as a manager is $x and we expect you to put in a 60 hour week for it, and it works out to less than minimum wage.

Obviously union shops won't be able to pull this off, but non-union service shops will. There isn't any real penalty for them not to try. If you have been following all the many major companies who have recently been slapped with pocket change penalties for overtime violations you might realize it done all the time simply because companies can get away with it for many years until one employee gets the courage to take the company to court knowing they will get fired for doing so.

This court is seeming to accept the argument that the plaintiff's are making that everyone is correctly classified and the salary level is too high. The argument that the plaintiff's are making is disingenuous at best. The shear number of employees they say will be effected is such that it should be obvious they are not exempt to begin with unless they have incredible bloat and inefficiency in their organizations. Sometimes you have to fact check what is being fed in.

As to the consequences, if Sam Walton can get away with it, it is going to be copied by lots of companies who think he runs everything by lawyers. He may, their response might be you will have to pay a fine of $y if they catch you but you save 10 times $y every year they don't. Ask Warren Buffet about Wells Fargo and their commission scheme for cross linking accounts.

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Nice try, typical HR response but with the Liberal DOL's flawed statistics, who in their right mind would believe anything coming out of there. They do not even know how many people are unemployed. One of the many reasons this Liberal government is now a lame duck.

"cue mic drop"

You push labor and the labor force will push back. This last election is proof of that.

What else you got?

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Salaried employees want overtime, then become an hourly wage-earner.

Want OT, well then negotiate it in your salary. What a load of crap.

@Gary - never, get real.

J mercer, your comment totally gobsmacked me with hypocrisy.The IBEW did all your salary negotiations for you. You know damn well the wages and benefits you earned could not be achieved on a one to one basis.

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I went over to the dark side for my last six years and retired as an Management Analyst.

I spent time on and did research for both sides of negotiations table.

Next...

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I went over to the dark side for my last six years and retired as an Management Analyst.

I spent time on and did research for both sides of negotiations table.

Next...

I heard a wise person say " there are only 2 things that can't be taken from you, your education and your integrity."

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I went over to the dark side for my last six years and retired as an Management Analyst.

I spent time on and did research for both sides of negotiations table.

Next...

I heard a wise person say " there are only 2 things that can't be taken from you, your education and your integrity."

Only two?

Har! ;^)

There are three, combined with the other two, your experiences.

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There are three, combined with the other two, your experiences.

I consider experience to be part of education.

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Sometimes management, payroll, and accounting are too concerned with other things to think about than the hourly 3rd shifter who worked 97 nights straight without a night off. That employee was me, and it was gravy time. :~) Once the ball dropped, I never made that much again as a salaried manager, but I did get offered the company's health plan. ~Kind of funny since I probably should have dropped dead before then. ;~)

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

The IBEW

That explains it, he never worked for a large anti-union shop and felt the full force of management fury especially in a state that isn't a worker's paradise.

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