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Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Judge blocks Obama overtime rule

A Texas judge on Tuesday blocked President Obama's new rule intended to force companies to pay workers more overtime, agreeing with businesses that the administration overstepped its authority and that only Congress could approve such an expansion of the federal overtime law.

Business groups cheered the emergency injunction for the expansion, which was scheduled to start Dec. 1. "This is a victory for small business owners and should give them some breathing room until the case can be properly adjudicated," said Juanita Duggan, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business trade group that opposed the rule.

Federal law says employees must be paid time-and-a-half once they work more than 40 hours in a week. However, businesses may exempt workers from the requirement if their duties are "managerial" in nature and they reach a certain salary threshold.

In May, the Labor Department announced that that threshold, previously $23,000 annually, would rise to more than $47,000 on Dec. 1, and would be updated every three years to reflect wage growth. The administration's rule change would have meant that 4 million more workers would be eligible for overtime. Because it was an administrative reinterpretation of the existing Fair Labor Standards Act, the White House said that the change did not require congressional approval.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

We saw this coming. It was ham-fisted and poorly conceived.

Anonymous said...

9:16 just like healthcare.

Anonymous said...

our HR girl is going to have a fit after all the hoops and paperwork she has been having to do because of this. Hours of wasted work. And i have no idea what she if going to have to do with the payroll company to unravel it all.

Anonymous said...

And it's not even January.

Anonymous said...

This was great news. This was a small business killer.

Anonymous said...

It was due to start Dec 1st.

Terrible government. Just terrible.
They actually thought businesses would simply pay salary workers more money to reach the new threshold. Most businesses intended to place those employees on hourly pay instead.

The government is trying desperately to increase TAX REVENUE.
That is the agenda for the minimum wage hikes.
They don't care about workers.
They need the tax revenue.