The guarantee that workers have the right to overtime pay if they work more than a 40-hour a week is a foundation of American law and is the proud legacy of generations of workers who fought to earn decent wages. The Bush administration’s effort to cut overtime pay is backward economic policy that takes money straight out of workers’ paychecks to enrich giant corporations.
As unemployment soars and America’s workers struggle in a faltering economy, the Bush proposal would encourage employers to cut hiring and instead rely on fewer workers to do more work for less money. The proposal is an unjustified scorched earth strategy to decrease workers’ paychecks and rights in the name of “updating” rules for the modern workplace.
When the overtime law was passed in 1938, workers needed it to protect them from employer abuses like being forced to work overtime without extra pay. The exact same protection is needed for workers today. The union movement calls on the Department of Labor to drop these devastating rules and instead to focus on guaranteeing that the broadest majority of workers benefit from good, basic laws like the 40-hour work week and overtime pay.
Contact: Kathy Roeder (202) 637-5018
