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Labor rights advocates within and beyond Congress celebrated on Wednesday after the Biden administration proposed a federal rule to restore and extend overtime protections to 3.6 million more salaried workers earning up to about $55,000 a year.
“For over 80 years, a cornerstone of workers’ rights in this country is the right to a 40-hour workweek, the promise that you get to go home after 40 hours or you get higher pay for each extra hour that you spend laboring away from your loved ones,” said Julie Su, who is acting secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) because her nomination is stalled in the U.S. Senate.
“I’ve heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don’t come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices,” she said. “Today, the Biden-Harris administration is proposing a rule that would help restore workers’ economic security by […]
More Good News! We have long operated under the fiction that low wage employees having some measure of autonomy are classified as “Professionals” and do not deserve over time. This practice has structurally encoded wasteful and inefficient labor practices in many industries, mostly in the form of chronic under staffing. What difference does it make if the employer demands 45 hours worth of work in a 40 hour week? There is no penalty to the employer for the structural overtime. The costs are shifted to the worker. At least this has been the case since COVID. Now, workers are obtaining some level of bargaining power within this neo-liberal framework. The Federal Reserve, of course, is doing all in its power to destroy this leverage in its war on the working class. We will see if this labor rule fairs any better than the previous one under the Obama Administration. If enacted it will revolutionize the workplace for thousands upon thousands of workers.
I’m thinking that perhaps the Democrats don’t fully advertise their commitment to the general welfare of society because they are being careful not to alienate their corporate donors
I agree.