Dems win dispute on overtime pay rules

[TacticalPeek]

Posted 3/25/2004 12:02 AM

Dems win dispute on overtime pay rules

By James Cox, USA TODAY

Senate Democrats delivered a victory Wednesday to white-collar workers fearful of losing overtime pay, at the same time delaying relief for manufacturers hit with trade sanctions by Europe.

Democratic senators defeated Republican efforts to block legislative consideration of the Bush administration's proposed changes to rules for overtime pay.

In a 51-47 vote, Republicans failed to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a vote on a Democratic overtime proposal to amend a corporate tax and trade bill.

more
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2004-03-24-corptax_x.htm

[JaySherman]

1. YES!

Score one for the good guys! :party: :toast:

Wonder what the Repugs next move will be, and how they'll try to spin this.

[icymist]

2. I have a question.

I thought that the new overtime rules were already a done deal and were to go into effect in May. I pray I'm wrong for I work in nursing. Did I miss something?

[Zhade]

3. Good question.

I was also under the assumption that b*sh could exec-order this without the consent of Congress. Am I wrong?

[icymist]

4. Nobody else has this question?

All the nurses I work with are asking this. Hello! You people who are awake in the morning on the east coast! We nurses(west coast nurses) await what you have to say!

[Robbien]

5. What is happening

The overtime bill which cut overtime was attached to another bill during the wee hours of the morning and signed into law sometime last month. Democrats are now trying to stop that overtime bill from going into effect and that is what they attached to the trade bill now.

Since the Republicans could not detach the Democrats protection of overtime bill from their trade bill, both sides now have to go into negotiation.

So, the vote today was only a small victory because overtime is still in danger.

[neverborn]

6. Sounds like a Kerry ad

to me :)

[eablair3]

7. It does seem CONFUSING and not a huge victory

"Senate Democrats delivered a victory Wednesday to white-collar workers fearful of losing overtime pay, at the same time delaying relief for manufacturers hit with trade sanctions by Europe.

Democratic senators defeated Republican efforts to block legislative consideration of the Bush administration's proposed changes to rules for overtime pay."

So, ... somebody (I assume the Dems) has some legislation that will consider or modify in some way the BushCo's proposed changes to rules for OT pay. And, the Repugs were trying to block that legislation, but they couldn't? I guess that's the deal.

And, because the WTO ruled that the U.S. is violating trade rules by giving U.S. businesses subsidies or advantages, and thus the U.S. businesses have to pay penalties and/or tariffs. And, now Congress wants to give tax cuts because of these extra penalties and/or tariffs that U.S. businesses will have to pay.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, ... by giving a tax cut to these businesses and corporations in these circumstances, isn't Congress looking to the U.S. taxpayers that do pay taxes as essentially having to subidize this violation of the "free trade" rules by U.S. business?

There will be no extra cost to U.S. businesses for these violations. They pay the penalties, but get their taxes reduced. No net increase in their expenses. But, tax revenue to the U.S. decreases. The rest of the taxpayers have to pay the taxes. Sounds very Republicanish.

[pinto]

8. Dems added the overtime as a rider to the Repub tax bait and switch

common practice to "protect" legislation or force a compromise on one of the bills or both.

[Robbien]

9. Right

So in addition to giving all the previous credits to companies who do business offshore, we will now be paying them even more to offshore.

Since the bill has not passed yesterday, these business have to pay the fines right now. And I say good.

We should not be giving credits to these companies, we should be taxing them.

By the way, many Democrats are in favor of this trade bill.

[eablair3]

11. violate "free trade" rules & get a tax cut to pay the fines

"By the way, many Democrats are in favor of this trade bill."

That doesn't surprise me in the least. It just seems like the common ordinary working American is getting screwed once again.

Congress is under pressure to replace a tax break for U.S. exporters that has been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. The WTO ruled that the tax break is an illegal export subsidy.

So, businesses violate the "free trade" rules (that business pushed for in the first place) by receiving illegal subsidies (corporate handouts by gov't), and now the congress is looking to give them tax cuts (another type of corporate handout by gov't) to pay for their violations.

And, no way does the media or anyone explain it to the public in these terms, or even cover this at all.

[Robbien]

12. Media explain something good for business but bad for middle America?

Ha!

Look at all the confusion about overtime in this thread. Very few of us are even aware that overtime has been cut. It is gone for many workers. The bill has been signed and unless a protection bill gets passed, overtime for the majority of workers is a thing of the past. Why did the media not get this word out?

Right now businesses do not have to pay overtime. Our Congresscritters thinks that is a good thing and our media is mum.

[icymist]

13. Get the word out, indeed!

Some of the nurses I work with think this legislation never passed. "It'll never happen" is what I hear all the time. A lot of good people are going to get financially broken if (when) these new overtime pay rules go into effect. Because of the sneaky way this was done I'd bet that you'll see a bunch of very unhappy people working in the hospitals!

[Supormom]

10. Good news.

Hope they continue to fight until relief comes after the November election!

[Disturbed]

14. The Media

This isn't a sexy story. It's only about worker's pay. Who cares? the Media people aren't Middle Class so they don't worry about OT. Bushco is trying to destroy the MC and make them the Working Poor.

"So in addition to giving all the previous credits to companies who do business offshore, we will now be paying them even more to offshore."

Kerry says that he will change the off shoring and outsourcing so ti won't be so favorable to Corps. to do this. We shall see if he does this if he is elected, which is going to be a real crap shoot.

[0007]

15. About time we won one - and it was a big one, 'eh?