Administration's New Overtime Rules Would Pick The Pockets Of Workers
The following is a press release from October 2, 2003, by Kucinich's office in Congress
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Kucinich: Administration's New Overtime Rules Would Pick The Pockets Of Workers
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, gave the following floor speech on the Administration proposed overtime rule change:
"It's been a very tough year for the American worker. Astonishingly, it appears the Administration is attempting to make things even tougher. Already the median unemployment duration of 12.3 weeks is the greatest length it has been since July of 1967. And already, 2.7 million private sector jobs have vanished since the recession began in March 2001.
"The Administration's three pronged response to this jobs crisis has been to allow millions of working Americans to remain in poverty by refusing to raise the minimum wage, to deny unemployment benefits to millions of Americans who have exhausted their benefits because of the severity of this recession, and to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax giveaways for the richest Americans.
"As if all of this was not enough, the Administration now seems intent on literally picking the pockets of workers. First we saw an attempt to give workers a pay cut by giving them comp time instead of overtime. The real meaning of comp time, of course, is unpaid time off -- at the employer's discretion. Now through administrative action and without the input of elected representatives, the Administration seeks to enact the most significant change to overtime rules since the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938.
"The result of these changes is that least 8 million workers will no longer be eligible for overtime. Among the unlucky 8 million are paramedics, firefighters, air traffic controllers, social workers, and architects. In 2000 overtime pay accounted for about 25 percent of the income for these workers. Their families will now have much less money to pay the bills, while their employers will have a great incentive to make them work longer hours.
"The Obey/Miller Motion to Instruct will stop the rollback of overtime pay. The Motion to Instruct will protect the wages of America's working people. Stop the legalized pick-pocketing of America’s workers by voting for the Motion to Instruct."
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