[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 18, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E903]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 MILLER MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON FY04 LABOR-HHS BILL, H.R. 2660

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 18, 2004

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I support the Miller motion to instruct 
conferees because it ensures that those making as little as $23,660 a 
year are able to retain the overtime privileges they currently receive.
  Mr. Speaker, I was a human resources professional for ten years in a 
manufacturing company, and then for ten more years, I had my own 
company, advising high tech companies on their personnel policies and 
practices . . . including wage and salary structures. I know a thing or 
two about work structures.
  Under the new overtime rules a ``team leader'' would be ineligible 
for overtime. I'm going to tell you what a team leader is: first of 
all, a team leader is not a professional that has a whole group of 
professional people working as a team negotiating for some grand 
project in some community. That team leader is a professional period, 
not a person paid on an hourly rate or a salaried nonexempt person.
  In reality a team leader is a senior employee who has the background 
and the experience to earn the top of their pay rate. And because 
they've been around, because they know something, they've been asked to 
show more junior workers how to do the work, and to give them 
confidence and to give them guidance.
  But they're doing the work right alongside of the worker they are 
mentoring. Today this person earns the top of their pay grade plus 
overtime. Under the new rules, without that overtime, that ``Team 
Leader'' is probably going to earn less than the person that they're 
working and guiding. The person the ``Team Leader'' guides will still 
qualify for overtime for the same hours worked.
  So what are we talking about here? We're talking about people at the 
top of their pay grade getting less because they happen to have 
institutional knowledge, even though they are doing the same job. And I 
just don't see how anybody here in this chamber believes that any new 
rules that impact workers like these are good for most Americans.
  These rules help big business plain and simple, such as the newspaper 
publishers who were standing up and cheering Secretary Chao when she 
announced how these rules would allow them to stop paying overtime to 
journalists. They knew they were going to save money, lots of money.
  Well, a rule that works for a handful of business owners and against 
most of the workers can't be the rule that works for the people of this 
country.
  That's why I urge my colleagues to support the Miller motion to 
instruct conferees and prevent our hard working Americans from losing 
the overtime they have come to depend on.

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