Something Useful! Obama Wants Overtime Pay for More Salaried Workers

[Brainonska511]

Increase the pay; increase the costs to the consumer. A company is not going to eat the cost.

Fuck the companies. They've been screwing us for years by stealing our labor. It's about time we start pushing back on what basically amounts to wage theft.

And they may very well have to eat the cost. If their products are already at their market-optimal price, there won't be any flexibility to really change it, but it's highly dependent on the industry, the product, price elasticity, etc... Economics isn't as simple as increase cost $X, product increases $Y.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Increase the pay; increase the costs to the consumer. A company is not going to eat the cost.

Why aren't the companies raising their prices right now if they expect people will still buy their products at the higher price?

 

[glenn1]

Why aren't the companies raising their prices right now if they expect people will still buy their products at the higher price?

Basic game theory answers this for you. The competitor which eats the cost instead of passing it to the customer will gain market share, and having an industry collectively agree to pass it on is price fixing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

 

[OutHouse]

salaried people will be forced to clock in/out now, so companies can keep track and pay accordingly. I wonder what loopholes will be found to get around this.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

salaried people will be forced to clock in/out now, so companies can keep track and pay accordingly. I wonder what loopholes will be found to get around this.

.... Why can't they just trust what you input?

I see it like this: Employer wants you to work 40 hours. If you "require" more than 40 hours you need to ask your boss/manager for approval to work the overtime before doing so.

Simple, no?


One disadvantage to this? Outsourcing is bad enough as it is, this might push a lot of employers over the edge to try and do it even more. Thoughts?

 

[ivwshane]

Basic game theory answers this for you. The competitor which eats the cost instead of passing it to the customer will gain market share, and having an industry collectively agree to pass it on is price fixing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

The question then becomes; how much will prices rise due to this?

My guess is it would be less than 1%. What would the typical gain be in pay? Or would it result in hiring more people?

 

[Ackmed]

salaried people will be forced to clock in/out now, so companies can keep track and pay accordingly. I wonder what loopholes will be found to get around this.

My GF already clocks in and out, just gets paid salary.

What is worse, she will work over her 44 hours all the damn time with no extra pay. But if for whatever reason (like last year snow) made the stores close, she had to make up the hours and get to 44. Heaven forbid she work under her 44, that is not fair to the company. I get more upset about it than she does, really pisses me off.

 

[DrDoug]

salaried people will be forced to clock in/out now, so companies can keep track and pay accordingly. I wonder what loopholes will be found to get around this.

At my wife's big box job everyone swipes in and out when they come and go. They say it's for tracking the number of employees in case of a big emergency (fire, etc). The hourly employees have another clock they swipe to clock in that is inside the store. The swipe for all employees is right at the front door.

It wouldn't take much change at all for them to track salaried hours.

My GF already clocks in and out, just gets paid salary.

What is worse, she will work over her 44 hours all the damn time with no extra pay. But if for whatever reason (like last year snow) made the stores close, she had to make up the hours and get to 44. Heaven forbid she work under her 44, that is not fair to the company. I get more upset about it than she does, really pisses me off.

Same here, it pisses me off more than her. One 'perk' they do get is that they can take a sick day and get paid without having to provide a note from a doctor that they were actually sick. Hourly employees have to go to a doc if they want to be paid for their sick days. She was pissed when she found that out as she doesn't think it's fair to the hourly employees. As a result of this policy, hourly people come to work sick all of the time.

In their opinion it's better to have a sick employee working than one sitting at home getting paid for being sick, right? Assholes...

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

My GF already clocks in and out, just gets paid salary.

What is worse, she will work over her 44 hours all the damn time with no extra pay. But if for whatever reason (like last year snow) made the stores close, she had to make up the hours and get to 44. Heaven forbid she work under her 44, that is not fair to the company. I get more upset about it than she does, really pisses me off.

Dude, what the fuck is she getting paid to do something like take a salary for a retail job and work overtime? She has to be getting paid SOMETHING decent to not warrant leaving IMMEDIATELY for many other retail jobs since positions open all the time.

Are you nuts? I didn't even know this shit went on from a retail perspective.

Don't get me wrong, I'm burned badly too since I work anywhere from 45-60 to sometimes 80 hour weeks, but at least the salary amount mostly compensates for it (as well as future prospective promotions). But a retail job doing it too?

 

[Ackmed]

She gets paid very well, which is why the $970 a week limit applies to her. She makes more than that. But she is also supposed to work 44 hours a week, and routinely works more with no extra money. I'm not nuts... I don't like it an complain about it all the time. But she's there for now.

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

I work as an engineer in the defense industry. I almost guarantee the government will find an exemption for us.

 

[DrDoug]

Dude, what the fuck is she getting paid to do something like take a salary for a retail job and work overtime? She has to be getting paid SOMETHING decent to not warrant leaving IMMEDIATELY for many other retail jobs since positions open all the time.

Are you nuts? I didn't even know this shit went on from a retail perspective.

Don't get me wrong, I'm burned badly too since I work anywhere from 45-60 to sometimes 80 hour weeks, but at least the salary amount mostly compensates for it (as well as future prospective promotions). But a retail job doing it too?

In my wife's case, her job is at the only large store within 30 miles as we live in a small coastal town. Not a whole lot of choice in jobs as far as anything goes really. If you want a job with health insurance that's not with the city, county, cops or in healthcare itself, it's about all you have to choose here.

 

[Brainonska511]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...re-top-stories_overtime-0920pm:homepage/story

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 buys the judge 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.

 

[351Cleveland]

But the rule faced stiff opposition from small businesses, states, universities and other groups who said the higher threshold would raise costs. Instead of offering bigger paychecks, some groups predicted that they would have to switch employees from salaried jobs to hourly positions. Others said that some workers would be assigned fewer hours.

I can tell you that is EXACTLY how management at my company was prepared to act if/when this regulation takes effect. Everyone affected was getting changed over to hourly, and that hourly rate was figured by assuming their salary was based on 40 hours regular, and 5 hours overtime. So if you made $40,000 a year, you were going to be switched to an hourly rate of $16.19, and could expect approximately 5 hours a week in overtime (no more). Now, instead of a base salary of $40,000 a year, your base is around $33,000 a year. You would likely make LESS than that because now your pay isn't fixed... hell, it could go below 40 hours a week. There was no upside here for the employee.

 

[Brainonska511]

I can tell you that is EXACTLY how management at my company was prepared to act if/when this regulation takes effect. Everyone affected was getting changed over to hourly, and that hourly rate was figured by assuming their salary was based on 40 hours regular, and 5 hours overtime. So if you made $40,000 a year, you were going to be switched to an hourly rate of $16.19, and could expect approximately 5 hours a week in overtime (no more). Now, instead of a base salary of $40,000 a year, your base is around $33,000 a year. You would likely make LESS than that because now your pay isn't fixed... hell, it could go below 40 hours a week. There was no upside here for the employee.

There was plenty of upside for employees. I know of a large swath of people who got pay raises because of the rule (postdocs, aka, people in sciences with PhDs working in academic labs). These people routinely work way more than 40 hours/week and are severely underpaid.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I can tell you that is EXACTLY how management at my company was prepared to act if/when this regulation takes effect. Everyone affected was getting changed over to hourly, and that hourly rate was figured by assuming their salary was based on 40 hours regular, and 5 hours overtime. So if you made $40,000 a year, you were going to be switched to an hourly rate of $16.19, and could expect approximately 5 hours a week in overtime (no more). Now, instead of a base salary of $40,000 a year, your base is around $33,000 a year. You would likely make LESS than that because now your pay isn't fixed... hell, it could go below 40 hours a week. There was no upside here for the employee.

I don't see the point. Why don't they just keep people salaried and simply say "You can only work 40 hours. If you work more without prior authorization you will not be compensated". Either way, my industry of consulting would be utterly screwed if we enacted overtime pay with no salary cap. I still think they should implement it. If people aren't working 50-60 hour weeks, they are going to utilize the extra time to enjoy life more which is better for the economy.

I get home from work most days at 7:00PM. At that point, I don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to go out to eat. I don't want to get back into traffic at all. I don't want to go to the grocery store and I don't want to go shopping. If I got off of work at 5:00 every day, I would definitely feel more upbeat to do other things in life.

 

[fskimospy]

There was plenty of upside for employees. I know of a large swath of people who got pay raises because of the rule (postdocs, aka, people in sciences with PhDs working in academic labs). These people routinely work way more than 40 hours/week and are severely underpaid.

Yeah, I mean I would think that was obvious and the upside to employees could be huge. I know tons of people who work at nonprofits, labs, etc, who work way more than 40 hours a week and get no overtime. They would LOVE to be capped at 40 hours a week. Even an hour a day of extra free time is a huge quality of life improvement.

 

[Jhhnn]

I don't see the point. Why don't they just keep people salaried and simply say "You can only work 40 hours. If you work more without prior authorization you will not be compensated". Either way, my industry of consulting would be utterly screwed if we enacted overtime pay with no salary cap. I still think they should implement it. If people aren't working 50-60 hour weeks, they are going to utilize the extra time to enjoy life more which is better for the economy.

I get home from work most days at 7:00PM. At that point, I don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to go out to eat. I don't want to get back into traffic at all. I don't want to go to the grocery store and I don't want to go shopping. If I got off of work at 5:00 every day, I would definitely feel more upbeat to do other things in life.

Well, yeh, but what about the sacred Free Market!?

 

[glenn1]

Yeah, I mean I would think that was obvious and the upside to employees could be huge. I know tons of people who work at nonprofits, labs, etc, who work way more than 40 hours a week and get no overtime. They would LOVE to be capped at 40 hours a week. Even an hour a day of extra free time is a huge quality of life improvement.

I don't think anyone is arguing that no one will benefit. What some folks (like Cleveland351) are saying is that it won't benefit everyone universally, and some might even be negatively impacted by it due to changes their employers make. I have no concerns if you support a policy decision like this but you should recognize there are some tradeoff considerations and unintended consequences involved.

 

[Homerboy]

Middle class!