Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Tell Congress: Bring back overtime pay.

Petition to Congress:
"Expand overtime pay and restore overtime protections to the millions of workers hurt by the Trump administration and conservative business lawsuits. Support the Restoring Overtime Pay Act."
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►

Tell Congress: Trump is costing workers overtime pay. Sign the petition to fight back.
Donald Trump and his big business cronies have cost American workers more than $646 million in overtime pay.1
One of the biggest achievements of the Obama administration was new, modernized overtime rules that would have produced new eligibility for overtime or more take-home pay for 12.5 million Americans. But conservative business interests sued to stop the rule and the Trump administration has abandoned the fight – costing workers more than $3 million in wages each and every day since last summer.2
Progressive champion Rep. Mark Takano and Sens. Sherrod Brown and Patty Murray have introduced a bill that would give legislative force to the Obama administration rules.3 Every bit of support for this fix exposes Trump's hypocrisy and shines a spotlight on the way he is hurting working people.
Donald Trump's Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta made the Trump position very clear: he said paying people for their labor would “create a stress on the system.”4 No wonder the Trump administration quit when conservative business interests won a stay in the rule from a federal judge who is now considering proposing a far weaker version.
Between 1975 and today the number of salaried employees who received overtime pay for working 40+ hours a week dropped from 65 percent to 11 percent.5 If the threshold had risen with inflation it would be around $58,000 today, and a threshold that once more covered 65 percent of the workforce would have to be $69,000.6 The old overtime pay threshold, $23,660, in contrast, is below the poverty level for a family of four.7
On top of it all, businesses routinely use loopholes to deny employees pay: Some fast food companies call workers 'managers' to exempt them from overtime pay even while they work 60 or more hours a week and spend 95 percent of their time at the register or sweeping floors.8
The Restoring Overtime Pay Act would take the carefully constructed Obama overtime rule and make it law – closing loopholes and setting an overtime threshold of $47,476. It's such a measured step that opposing it openly exposes Trump and Republicans as the party of greedy executives. We need to make sure Congress knows how much Trump has already cost us.
Tell Congress: Trump is costing workers overtime pay. Pass legislation to expand overtime. Click below to sign the petition:
- Josh Nelson, CREDO Action
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►
References:
  1. Center for American Progress, "Tracking the Cost of Trump’s Overtime Pay Cut," Dec. 20, 2017.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Sen. Sherrod Brown, "Brown, Murray, Scott, Takano Introduce Bill to Expand Overtime Pay for Millions of Workers," Nov. 30, 2017.
  4. Amy Held, “Labor Department Rethinking Obama-Era Overtime Pay Rule,” NPR, June 27, 2017.
  5. Rep. Mark Takano, “Rep. Mark Takano and 31 House Democrats Call for Expanded Overtime Pay,” January 19, 2015.
  6. Dave Jamieson, “Obama Is Bringing Overtime Pay To Millions Of Workers,” HuffPost, May 17, 2016.
  7. Ross Eisenbrey, “Where Should the Overtime Salary Threshold Be Set? A Comparison of Four Proposals to Increase Overtime Coverage,” Economic Policy Institute, Dec. 23, 2014.
  8. Economic Policy Institute, “Why It’s Time to Update Overtime Pay Rules: Frequently Asked Questions,” Aug. 4, 2015.

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