WASHINGTON -- The Republican-controlled Senate bucked the Bush administration Tuesday when it voted to require that new Labor Department regulations safeguard overtime pay for all workers who were in danger of losing it.þþAn amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) would protect overtime pay for workers who get it now and allow the government to implement rules that would extend overtime eligibility to more low-income workers and to those making up to $100,000 a year.þþThe measure passed 52-47.þþÿThis is a clear message to the administration that this final rule should not be published and they should go back to the drawing board,ÿ said Harkin.þþLabor Secretary Elaine Chao said the Senate's action ÿputs at risk the new, stronger overtime protections for ... millions of Americans. As the issue moves to the House, we will continue to expose the misinformation campaign against the rules and strengthen overtime rights for workers.ÿþþThe measure, which was attached to a jobs bill dealing with manufacturing tariffs, now must go to the House. Last fall, the House joined the Senate in support of the Harkin amendment, but it was stripped from a spending bill in conference committee after the White House threatened to veto it.þþRepublicans sought to head off the challenge from Democrats with a separate amendment proposed by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) that would guarantee overtime pay for workers in 55 occupations, including law enforcement, nursing and teaching.þþThat measure passed 99-0, but Democrats pressed their case for Harkin's amendment, which extends protection to workers in nearly 900 occupations.þþOn the floor Tuesday, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) made an impassioned plea to his colleagues to protect overtime pay for working families who are struggling financially.þþÿOvertime pay represents a quarter of pay to those who get it,ÿ he said. ÿThirty-three thousand dollars [a year] is the average income to someone who gets $161 a week in overtime. I don't know what the average worker making $33,000 did to the Bush administration to make them go against them earning overtime.ÿþþSome Republicans, including Gregg, acknowledged that the updates to the white-collar overtime exemptions are ambiguous and even unfair in places, but Gregg said the Harkin amendment would amount to a ÿglass ceilingÿ for employees.þþÿEmployers will be afraid to promote them and remove overtime and will hire a new management employee to do that job,ÿ Gregg said.þþHarkin called that a ÿbogus argument,ÿ saying most workers who are promoted to management expect to be exempt from overtime.þþBefore the department issued its final rules last month, critics said the government's proposal to update the rules for three categories of workers--executive, administrative and professional--would have stripped more than 8 million of overtime pay.þþLabor estimates lossesþþThe Labor Department had said 644,000 would lose overtime under its proposal. After the final rules were released last month, Chao said no more than 107,000 workers who make more than $100,000 a year were expected to lose overtime.þþOpponents said the final rules were a major improvement over the government's proposal in March 2003. Some praised the decision to raise the salary threshold below which workers automatically qualify for overtime to $23,660 from $8,060.þþThe Labor Department also extended the salary ceiling beyond which workers are likely ineligible to receive overtime to $100,000 from $65,000 and removed language that would have made military service equivalent to a college degree.þþSome expect a backlashþþOpponents of the rules braced for a White House backlash, but Ross Eisenbrey, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, was optimistic that the vote would stick.þþÿThis time, the conferees have two amendments that have passed,ÿ he said. ÿHow will they say they won't take one or another of them? I can't see them cutting both.ÿþþFive Republicans, including two facing difficult re-election campaigns--Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska--sided with Democrats. They were joined by Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia was the only Democrat opposed.þþ
Source: Chicago Tribune
