Employers Unexpected Heat Over OT (From those now getting OT)

[Khephra]

The complaints began even before University of Missouri administrators e-mailed more than 400 employees to confirm what might seem a harmless change -- soon, the memo said, they'd be eligible for overtime pay.

It was not what Mary Porter wanted to hear. It had taken Porter 35 years to climb the university's ladder, from the copy machine operator's job she started just out of high school, to a position with the salary, benefits and responsibility certifying her as a professional. Now the grandmother of three saw the university, armed with new government rules on overtime pay, pulling the ladder's top rungs out from under her.

"It just feels like, in a sense, I've had something taken away from me," said Porter, an administrative associate who half-jokes that she's "trained" the last four chairmen of the university's anthropology department. "I had that (salaried) status because I worked my way up. ... It made me feel personally like I had accomplished something."

The Bush administration's new rules on overtime pay have been at the center of a furious, and still unresolved, debate over charges they will cost millions of workers the right to overtime pay. But some employers are catching flak of a variety few expected -- not from workers angry about losing overtime pay, but from some irritated about a change that gives them the right to receive it.

http://www.newsday.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-overtime-headaches,0,6915189.story?coll=sns-ap-business-headlines

[lanparty]

1. Pure thinktank spin ...

... reminds me about the yarn they spun of a family who gave their only nickel to the church fund for a POOR family, then the pastor showed up with the turkey and gifts because they were poor. Boo ... hoo, the family fretted because they were poor and were accepting charity.

Ya know, I've actually gone on trips to deliver Christmas packages to families in distress, I didn't get that response from a single mother. Mostly just tears and "god bless you", etc...

Same story, different day. A little fairy tale from the right wing about people complaining about losing their "exempt" status. Now there just like blue collar workers who get paid for the number of hours they work instead of working 60 hours a week for the same salary.

[belle]

2. WEll, another way to look at it, i suppose...

is that NOBODY is happy with this legislation.

[Robbien]

3. Yes, I believe you are right

If the lady in this piece now qualifies for overtime, she is making about $10-12 dollars an hour. It is hard to believe that someone at that pay level will be upset to be getting overtime.

[Nordic]

6. you got it

That's how it works.

The republican machine has been working on this for 30 years now, the control of the media. They will go out of their way to find someone who will give them a "story".

And they will be highly paid for it.

Read the new Harper's. There's a terrific article on it.

[Ms. Clio]

4. Well, maybe they will give her some new title

and raise her pay to just above $24,000, and she can be satisfied with her "status" again.

Dumbass.

[PATRICK]

5. The law is an employer's law

THAT is the point. This law puts them in the driver's seat however it is interpreted. It can be spun against an employee different ways. if it turns out to help some employees it can only be due to extreme good will, whim or the advantage of the employer.

Even if you think YOU are safe every bad and many good management people are slavering over payroll tinkering privileges dangled in front of them as a new Bush entitlement. My job for instance is completely beyond the pale of the law and we have a strong union. It did not stop one blankety blank smoothie from openly intimidating and discouraging workers by saying it will be "our turn" because the law gives them that power.

The way this WHOLE debate was framed was deliberately conducted not to insult management with an accurate description of what would ensue in a law framed to toss them red meat with no enforcement to tell them lines can't be crossed. The media basically is management tilted media because journalists are workers, not independents, also a simple point that only is a problem in extremist private sector management government.