Obama’s Overtime Rule
Blocked by Federal Judge, 11/24/16, Conservative Tribune
President Barack Obama’s Department of
Labor put forward a new rule in 2015 targeting small businesses that
essentially doubled the minimum threshold by which salaried workers would be
exempt from overtime pay.
Like many new rules put forward by the administration, it was challenged in the
courts.
According to The New York Times, judge Amos Mazzant III of the Eastern
District of Texas, an Obama appointee to the federal bench, issued a nationwide
injunction against the rule Tuesday that effectively prevented it from being
implemented on Dec. 1 as planned.
The rule, which would have mostly
affected white-collar workers in salaried managerial or supervisory
positions, would have
raised the threshold by which those workers would be exempt from hourly worker
overtime rules from $23,660 to $47,476 per year, meaning more of these workers
would have to be paid overtime for extra hours worked, which would have had
a huge negative economic impact.
A coalition of small business groups and
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed suit, claiming the new rule would cost small
businesses upwards of $12 billion in additional overtime pay per year.
Their suit was combined with one filed by a coalition of 21 states arguing that
the Obama administration had overstepped its bounds yet again, according to The Washington Times.
“The Labor Department’s overtime changes
are a reckless and aggressive overreach of executive power, and retailers are
pleased with the judge’s decision,” said David French of the National Retail
Federation.
Judge Mazzant agreed that the Labor
Department had exceeded the authority granted it by Congress and issued the
temporary injunction pending a future final decision on the merits of the case.
“Congress defined the … exemption with
regard to duties, which does not include a minimum salary level,” wrote Judge
Mazzant in his decision. “The department’s role is to carry out Congress’
intent. If Congress intended the salary requirement to supplant the duties
test, then Congress, and not the department, should make that change.”
Another argument against the
broadly sweeping rule was that it didn’t take into consideration regional
differences in cost of living or pay standards, setting up a one-size-fits-all
yardstick more suitable for New York or Los Angeles than for small cities and
rural areas.
“I am pleased that a federal district
judge has, yet again, pumped the brakes on another harmful regulation from the
Obama administration,” Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said. “This federal
overtime rule is devastating … but particularly in states with a low cost of
living.”
“The economic realities and regional
cost-of-living differences that exist throughout the country were completely
ignored by the Department of Labor on this proposal,” Lankford added. “I am
hopeful that this rule can be brought back to the drawing board for a new
rule-making process that works for the entire nation.”
To be sure, any such changes should be something for
Congress to work out legislatively in a manner that takes regional differences
and varying standards into consideration, not for a group of un-elected and
unaccountable bureaucrats to decide on their own.
http://conservativetribune.com/judge-obamas-overtime-rule/
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