New Overtime Rules to Take Effect Monday(per hour RN's may lose)

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Overtime-Politics.html

New Overtime Rules to Take Effect Monday
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an unprecedented overhaul of the nation's overtime pay rules, the Bush administration is delivering to its business allies an election-year plum they've sought for decades.

The new rules take effect Monday after surviving many efforts by Democrats, labor unions and worker advocates to block them in Congress and kill them through public and political pressure.

The Labor Department says as many as 107,000 workers could lose overtime eligibility under its new rules, but about 1.3 million will gain it (The draft had said 1.5 million to 2.7 million workers ``will be more readily identified as exempt.'' The new analysis says: ``It is impossible to quantitatively estimate the number of exempt workers.''). The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington think tank, says 6 million will lose, and only a few will get new rights to premium pay for working more than 40 hours a week.<snip>

Language was removed suggesting employers could avoid extra overtime costs by cutting the hourly wages of newly eligible workers and adding back the overtime to equal the original salary.<snip>

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Will RN's lose OT pay, comp time, or just have a new 45-50 hour workweek for current 40 hr week pay? Does this endorse the 12 hour shifts that become 14 hour, the mandatory overtime of 8 hours a week? Does this eliminate the current dodge of Hospitals declaring nurses "management" via supervising nursing assistants, or putting RN's on "salary" so 72 hours a week can be demanded with no overtime?

http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/overtimepay/mythsfactsheet.cfm

Myths and Facts on the Bush Administration’s New Overtime Regulation


MYTH: Under the Bush Administration’s new overtime laws, very few if any workers making between $23,660 and $100,000 a year will lose overtime eligibility.

FACT: The new Bush Administration overtime laws are written such that many workers who currently earn overtime pay in this pay range are likely to lose it. For example:

Concurrent Duties—Under the old rule, an employee who spent a substantial amount of his or her time on nonexempt work but who also performed some exempt supervisory duties generally remained eligible for overtime pay (under old rule 541.116). Under the new rule, that person will generally be an exempt executive, and not eligible for overtime pay. (New section 541.106)

EXAMPLE—An assistant manager in fast-food, grocery or retail may spend most of his or her time performing “line” duties, like burger flipping or ringing up customers, but still be “in charge” of other workers at the same time. Under the old rule, many of these workers still received overtime pay. Under the new rule, they may very well lose their overtime pay, even if they make as little as $23,660 a year—a wage that qualifies a family for food stamps.
Salary Basis Test—The old rule required an employer to pay a worker a salary in order to deprive the worker of the right to overtime pay. The new rule (541.604) defines salary as an hourly wage, so long as the employer guarantees a minimum wage that bear a loose relationship to hourly compensation.

EXAMPLE—Registered nurses (RNs) are very likely to lose their overtime pay rights. RNs’ work satisfies the duties test for professionals, but they are paid hourly, and they don’t have much freedom to come and go. If they come in to work late, they are docked an hour’s pay, for example. They used to receive overtime pay for the many hours of overtime they are required to perform. Under the new rule, they are likely to lose that right.
There are many other examples of how workers in this salary range are likely to lose overtime pay rights. In general, the final overtime regulation will have an especially large impact on workers with minimal supervisory or “leadership” responsibilities, workers who perform minimal amounts of administrative work, workers with special skills, and certain kinds of employees in the computer field.
MYTH: The new Bush Administration overtime law merely clarifies murky law, thus eliminating unnecessary lawsuits. The law is part of its “proven commitment to protecting workers’ rights.”

FACT: The new Bush Administration overtime law, in fact, lays out in the regulation exemptions which corporations have not been able to win in the courts. For example:

Journalists—There has been a lot of litigation over whether journalists have the right to receive overtime pay. Courts ruled both ways, based on the facts of each case, and many decisions prohibited journalists from losing the right to overtime. The Bush Administration points to the cases in which journalists have lost the right to overtime as the basis for their new rule, which now makes it much harder for journalists to get overtime pay. In fact, there’s a big difference between court cases in a limited number of jurisdictions and the new Bush Administration federal rule, which broadens the exemption nationwide for all journalists. (New section 541.302) Insurance claims adjusters—Again, court cases on whether insurance claims employees receive overtime pay have gone both ways—some courts have said they are exempt and other have said they should receive overtime pay. This is a very heavily-litigated field, and corporations have not been able to win a blanket victory. The Bush Administration has handed them that victory by changing the nationwide regulation to specify that these employees are generally disqualified from receiving overtime pay. (New Section 541.203(a)) A quarter of insurance claims adjusters make less than $35,000 a year.

MYTH: The Bush Administration merely updated the rules to reflect today’s modern workplace, but did not strip workers of overtime pay rights.

FACT: The Bush Administration could have supported the Harkin Amendment which allows them to make any updates to the rules, as long as no worker loses overtime pay. In fact, the Bush Administration has made it MORE difficult for many workers in the structure of today’s workplace to receive overtime pay.

Team leaders—Many workplaces are moving toward having a team leader structure under which co-workers oversee one another’s work. In the old overtime law, the only people disqualified from receiving overtime pay were “staff” who oversaw “special projects.” The new Bush Administration overtime law changes that language so that people who do “line” work—whether it’s turning out hamburgers or ringing up sales—and who oversee “major projects” will be likely to lose overtime pay rights. “Special projects” implied that there was a definite start and end to the project, whereas the new “major projects” could go on indefinitely, thus knocking many team leaders out of overtime pay rights. <snip>

[liberalnurse]

1. Yea....

one out of every 5 registered voters is a nurse!I've been fighting this .....taking the lead by Senator Harkins....but folks, nurses to be specific, just didn't listen.......Well, now they may be aroused.

[papau]

2. I hope so - RN's are the focus of "health care savings" under Bush

:-(

[Warpy]

3. Nurses aren't listening because they're exhausted

Most hospitals have responded to the nursing shortage by insisting on mandatory overtime, and that's 12 hours of it at a time. Since the average nurse is a woman in her late 40s and since the job is so physically, emotionally, and intellectually demanding, nurses are burning out and leaving.

Hospitals are now switching RNS to salaried positions, which means the longer hours will be set into stone with no overtime. As the hours inevitably increase beyond 48 per week, the pace at which nurses leave will undoubtedly accelerate.

Hospitals have traditionally cut costs on the backs of the nursing staff, then they moan about a nursing shortage. They've only succeeded in making the profession unattractive to young women who realize they can take a less demanding course of college work, graduate, and make more money working fewer hours in better working conditions.

The system is going to melt down at some point. These new rules may just do the job.

[liberalnurse]

4. Patient load assignments have been unsafe as well.

I have a recent horror story that I won't go into here but the patient load is like I said....completely unsafe. I'm going into critical care again just so my patient load is tolerable.


I speak of democratic issues all the time. Now, with this overtime thing kicking in....I might be getting more calls.....

Ohio is enacting the no mamdatory overtime rule. Thats good but the staffing ratio is the real killer.


Additionally, the American Nurses Association, ANA has submitted clarification language to define "charge nurse"; wherein not every day is a nurse the charge nurse; that can vary from day to day which may help minimize the "management title".

[Warpy]

5. I don't think the "charge nurse" thing will help

After all, they pretend that we are supervising LPNs and CNAs, as well as housekeeping staff. That is what they're going to us to label all RNS as managerial staff. I think you can take that one to the bank.

I agree about unsafe patient loads. Patients are the sickest of the sick, and there are more of them every year as hospitals fiddle with staffing ratios to conpensate for the fact that they've made the job too unnattractive to bring in more help.

In any case, the days of eight hour shifts five days a week are over, and nurses are burning out. I don't see any of this stuff improving the situation.

[sam sarrha]

6. if i have the math right.. everyone under $15 an hour is screwed,,?

what percentage of the workforce is that...

I just moved out of El Paso, TX area half a million+ population..and the MEAN..1/2 make more/1/2 make less is $14,000 a year.

the Mexicans migrants are really fucked over by this one, i worked at Boeing space and communications in El Paso for 3 years as a specialist and only made $15,820..and considered myself lucky ..plus some rare overtime.. once they got behind because they didn't listen to my raving about bad parts and they told us we had to work 12/7 and day for maybe 3 months to not lose the contract..

a woman said she had to pick up her children after school...[shift ended 4.. the supervisor said, "then check in your tool box before you leave.. because you wont have a job tomorrow." people lost their prepaid vacation excursions.. to keep their job..

[wishlist]

7. Some companies are lowering hourly pay rates to be able to pay OT!

My local N.C. paper reported that Citizens Fuel Company here with about 25 employees who regularly work OT and would now qualify for OT pay have been notified that in order to implement the change, their hourly pay rate was being reduced so that in effect their paychecks will not change (of course that forces them to have to continue the same level of OT in order to continue getting their same pay!)

The Chief financial officer confirmed that he had explained this pay change to the employees already. Paper did not do a very good job of conveying that this is a very cynical calculated move that thwarts any benefits of the new law and if this is going to be a widespread practice, very few lower paid employees will really get any benefit from OT pay.

[ensemble]

8. Overtime Rules...

If the Kerry campaign has half a clue they can really take this issue in and run with it... potentially reducing the pay of people in the $23K - $100K range is an attack on the middle class if I've ever heard one. If you want to piss people off, their pocketbooks are a great place to start.