Obama Will Seek Broad Expansion of Overtime Pay

[agentsculder]

WASHINGTON - President Obama this week will seek to force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated.

On Thursday, the president will direct the Labor Department to revamp its regulations to require

Comments

[lied_ohne_worte]

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” said Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, who warned that employers might cut pay or use fewer workers.

Hm, here I am thinking that making workers work for free means forcing those workers to give you a free lunch... particularly if they work in fast food. Pretending that people being paid for work they are required do is some form of charity they don't deserve is really rather disgusting.

[lithiumflower]

Using fewer workers seems counter-intuitive, though. If they use fewer workers, they'll have to work longer to fill in the gap so they'll have to pay overtime. They could try to squeeze more productivity out of fewer hours by working their employees to the bone, but I imagine people would either quit or end up being less productive or accurate and get fired, so they'd have a higher turnover rate and the associated training costs. If they don't try to squeeze out more productivity, taking more time to do the same amount of work would also hurt their bottom line.

But I don't doubt they would find someway to screw over the grunts to make their CEOs even richer.

[lied_ohne_worte]

I don't see the logic behind employing fewer people either - that doesn't seem like a solution if the work still needs to be done, and there is a limit to how much work people can do in a set time period.

[shortsweetcynic]

Using fewer workers seems counter-intuitive, though. If they use fewer workers, they'll have to work longer to fill in the gap so they'll have to pay overtime.

you get out of here with your logic.

[cindyanne1]

[cindyanne1]

Where I used to work would push "comp time." As in, you work some extra time, you get time off instead of getting paid overtime. However, I would bring up I should get time and a half off for it to be equal... if I worked six hours overtime, I should get nine hours off. They'd never agree to that, so I would always take the overtime pay.

[shipperx]

and others whom many businesses currently classify as “executive or professional” employees to avoid paying them overtime, according to White House officials briefed on the announcement.

If they include architects in this the architecture industry will be sooooo screwed.

[jamesalesto]

Good now pay farm workers ot. There should be no reason my guys can work 14 hours a day 7 days a week and never see overtime. I have guys who beg for 50 hours a week just so they can get by.