Pacific Views

Going, going, gone?

Inter Press Service has a good update on Washington's plans to gut the federal rules on overtime pay. Currently, hourly workers must be paid time-and-a-half for any time worked over 40 hours a week. The new rules would reclassify 8 million workers as executives, professionals, and administrators — making them inelegible for overtime pay. Anyone making over US $65,000 per year would also lose their right to overtime.

Dubya's administration had previously tried to get these changes through Congress, but failed as even many Republicans voted against the new overtime rules. Now the Labor department has incorporated those rejected overtime rules into an 'administrative rule change' that doesn't need congressional approval. Unless the Senate acts later this month, the new overtime rules will take effect in March.

The National Organisation of Women (NOW) has also opposed the changes, noting that many of those affected would be women working in middle-income jobs, like nurses, secretaries, cooks and paralegals.

"Think about a working mom whose boss requires her to work an extra four hours one night," said NOW President Kim Gandy in a statement. "Without the guarantee of overtime, she has to pay the babysitter while she's doing work for which she isn't getting paid extra."

The AFL-CIO's Working Families e-Activist Network has an online letter that you can edit and then email to your US senator, asking them to vote to save the current overtime rules. You'll find the letter here.