The Senate voted 54-45 to block a Bush administration proposal that could make millions of U.S. workers ineligible for overtime pay.
As I mentioned back in July, the Bush/GOP plan, if adopted, could make more than 8 million American workers ineligible for overtime pay.
It appears the Senate Dems had a field day on this one and see this as a salient campaign issue going into ’04. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said, “This was perhaps the most important victory that we have had for working families in some time.”
There were even some members who broke with party ranks. Six Republicans — Campbell (Colo.), Chafee (R.I.), Murkowski (Alaska), Snowe (Maine), Specter (Pa.), and Stevens (Alaska) — joined 48 Democrats (literally 47 Dems and Jim Jeffords) in approving the measure to block the president’s proposal. Predictably, DINO Zell Miller (Ga.) joined with 44 Republicans on the other side.
The overtime debate is part of a broader spending bill that includes appropriations for health, labor, and education programs. The White House, meanwhile, has said that the president is prepared to veto the entire package unless his changes to overtime rules are included in the final bill. (The House passed the spending bill with Bush’s proposal in tact by a slim 213-210 margin in July.)
I’ll admit that the details of this can get pretty confusing. The debate is over how (and whether) to revise standards originally set in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Republicans in Congress and the White House are arguing that the standards are out-of-date and badly in need of modern revisions, a point which few appear to disagree with.
According to critics of the proposed changes, however, the Bush overtime measure would make it easy for employers to reclassify employees and make them exempt for overtime pay. The administration says the change would affect less than a million white-collar workers, but several competing reports have drawn vastly different conclusions and believe the changes could affect millions of low-income and middle-income workers.
The best, and most thorough, report I’ve seen on this was published by the Economic Policy Institute, which is admittedly closely aligned with Labor but nevertheless a respected source for policy analysis on economic, employment, and trade issues. EPI acknowledged that the “salary-level” test to be applied under the Bush standards would improve compensation for workers at the very bottom of the income scale, but EPI researchers also concluded that about 8 million more would lose compensation they currently receive by working beyond their 40 hours.
This debate is far from over. House Dems will now work to get a resolution to endorse the Senate version, there will be a conference committee, intense White House lobbying, a possible veto, and a potential effort to override that veto.
I’ll keep you posted.