Eligibility For Overtime Pay To Increase By December

Original Story: Hillsdale.net

COLDWATER — New federal work rules to raise employee pay, issued Wednesday by President Barack Obama's administration, will impact both private and not-for-profits, but may adversely impact business. Contact a last paycheck lawyer Memphis is you did not get your final pay.

In Coldwater Bob Smith, of the Disability Resource Team at the the four county Workforce Development Board meeting, said recently employers indicated, “its really great for employees because they are going to get an increase in their wages, but that effects the bottom line. They are going to have to make cuts (in jobs or hours) or increase pricing to meet the increased wages.”

More than 4 million U.S. workers will become newly eligible for overtime pay under policy changes that are intended to expand overtime pay protections.

Rules from the 1930s require employers to pay workers time and a half for any work past 40 hours a week.

Employers, especially in the fast food and retail industries in particular, classify employees who work longer hours as managers to avoid the rule but most are barely paid more than the people they supervise.

Under the new rules, the threshold annual salary, at which companies can deny overtime pay, will be doubled from $23,660 to nearly $47,500. That would make 4.2 million more salaried workers eligible for overtime pay. A last paycheck lawyer Little Rock can help you get your final pay.

The more than 100,000 Michigan workers would be affected by this overtime change.

The White House estimates that the rule change will raise pay by $1.2 billion a year over the next decade, but concedes some companies may instead choose to reduce their employees’ hours to avoid paying the extra wages.

“Either way, the worker wins,” Vice President Joe Biden said while on a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon.

“With the stroke of a pen, the Labor Department is demoting millions of workers,” David French, a senior vice president for the National Retail Federation, said. “Most of the people impacted by this change will not see any additional pay.”

The Michigan League for Public Policy President and CEO Gilda Z. Jacobs said “For 2014, we calculated that a single parent in Michigan with two kids needs to earn a salary of $44,164 to make ends meet and cover their food, housing, healthcare, child care, transportation and other costs. In Michigan, households with two working parents and two small children have to collectively earn over $52,000 annually. They are the people who are working but still barely getting by. I am glad to see President Obama take this action.”

The higher threshold will take effect Dec. 1. The new rule is intended to boost earnings for middle and lower-income workers and could have a greater impact than efforts to raises the minimum wage.

The Workforce Development Board is a public-private partnership for Michigan works for Branch, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, and St. Joseph Counties.

Wal-Mart Caught by the Law Again

Story first appeared in The Washington Post.

The Labor Department on Tuesday ordered Wal-Mart to pay $4.8 million in back wages and damages to thousands of employees who were denied overtime charges, the latest in a string of embarrassments for the company over its business practices.

The department said its decision affects roughly 4,500 vision-center managers and asset-protection coordinators who worked at Wal-Mart between 2004 and 2007. Wal-Mart had considered those employees exempt from federal regulations requiring overtime pay but reclassified them in 2007. The government and the retailer have been negotiating the amount owed since then.

The company said asset-protection coordinators are entitled to receive an average of $290 under the agreement, while the average for vision center managers is $2,300. Wal-Mart was also fined $464,000 in civil penalties, according to Memphis Employment Lawyers.

The decision comes as Wal-Mart faces investigations into its Mexican operations after the New York Times reported that company executives turned a blind eye while employees allegedly bribed local officials to approve new stores.

The Justice Department has been conducting a criminal probe of the company since December to determine whether it violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Meanwhile, two Democratic lawmakers are looking into Wal-Mart’s lobbying efforts. The Post has reported that Wal-Mart executives sat on the boards of trade organizations that have sought to amend the FCPA. The company has said it did not directly lobby on the issue.

But the reports have rattled investors and reinvigorated Wal-Mart’s critics. New York City’s pension fund, which holds a significant stake in the company, plans to oppose the nomination of several directors to the company’s board. Meanwhile, union and activist groups recently protested the retailer’s efforts to expand in New York.

On Tuesday, Making Change at Walmart, backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said the Labor Department decision represented a troubling philosophy among company officials.

The fines Walmart must pay for its overtime violations are just another side effect of the company’s growth at any cost strategy. Walmart’s top executives and the heirs who own a majority of the company have shown they are willing to break the law and harm workers in the name of more profits.

This was not the first time Wal-Mart has run afoul of federal overtime laws. In 2007, the Labor Department ordered it to pay nearly $34 million in back wages to 87,000 workers — some of whom were owed more than $10,000 each.


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