AMES, Iowa (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry criticized the Labor Department on Tuesday for publishing tips for businesses to avoid paying overtime.þþKerry said the tips characterize the Bush administration's attitude toward workers.þþ``We don't have a broken budget in the United States of America,'' the Massachusetts senator said. ``We've got a broken set of values at the head of our government, and we need to stand up and undo it.''þþKerry is working to build momentum in the remaining two weeks before Iowa's kickoff presidential caucus on Jan. 19, attempting an upset that would place him ahead of at least one of the favorites, Howard Dean or Dick Gephardt.þþThe Labor Department published the suggestions in a summary of its revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which will define what jobs are eligible for overtime.þþAmong other tips, businesses were advised they could hold workers to a 40-hour week, raise their salaries high enough to make them ineligible for overtime, or cut their base salaries and give them enough regular overtime to equal previous pay.þþ``They're putting out a guideline to employers for the ways in which those employers can actually avoid their responsibility to workers -- even as they are prepared to give people earning more than $200,000 a year another tax cut,'' Kerry said while campaigning in this college town.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
