[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 7 (Monday, January 31, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S673-S674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HARKIN (for himself, Mr. Specter, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Kerry, 
        Mr. Levin, Mr. Dayton, Mrs. Murray, Ms. Stabenow, Ms. Mikulski, 
        Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Rockefeller, and Mr. 
        Sarbanes):
  S. 223. A bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to 
repeal any weakening of overtime protections and to avoid future loss 
of overtime protections due to inflation; to the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am here to introduce legislation and to 
talk about an issue that my colleagues have heard me speak about on 
numerous occasions during the course of the past two years, frequently 
at some length. That issue is overtime pay for American workers.
  It is a subject I feel deeply about. It has become very clear to me 
that Iowans feel very deeply about it, as well. Working families across 
the country feel deeply about it.
  I know that is true because people approach me and tell me what 
overtime pay means to them and their families. I have become associated 
with this fight here in Congress over protecting overtime pay, so when 
people recognize me, they very often will approach me and tell me a 
little bit about themselves and why they support my efforts on this 
issue. Many of them even become emotional about it.
  Why is that? Why do people feel so strongly? For some, it is a simple 
matter of fairness and valuing work. They believe that receiving time-
and-a-half pay when they put in more than 40 hours of work in a week is 
fair because if they are going to give up their premium time--hours 
beyond a normal workweek--then their employer should provide them with 
premium pay. It is simple fairness. Of course, they might also rely on 
that premium pay as a substantial part of their income. That is a 
benefit of valuing work fairly. They make more money.
  Most people making overtime pay are not extremely affluent, so they 
are probably spending a lot of that extra income, putting it right into 
the local economy. That is therefore a further benefit to the economy.
  Other people, to tell the truth, would rather not work a lot of 
overtime hours. They believe a 40-hour workweek is a full workweek.
  That is what the Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA, did when we passed 
it in 1938. It established the principle of a 40-hour workweek in law 
by saying that employers need to pay extra when they work their 
employees longer than that. The time-and-a-half rule tends to 
discourage employers from requiring their employees to work longer than 
40 hours, and many people value the law for that reason. They want to 
keep their premium time for themselves. They want to spend their 
premium time doing leisure activities or performing important family 
duties.
  In 1938, our government decided that the 40-hour workweek was 
important to Americans. Look in any economic history book. It is 
treated as a fundamental and valuable principle in our economy. 
Overtime pay rewards work, and it reduces exploitation. It protects 
``premium time'' for working men and women.
  The 40-hour workweek says: Human beings are more than just the work 
they do. It says, the progress of technology can allow us to enjoy a 
good standard of living and quality of life without spending all of our 
hours toiling and laboring.
  The 40-hour workweek also creates jobs. Requiring time-and-a half pay 
for overtime work encourages employers to hire more workers, rather 
than requiring additional hours of work from existing employees. 
Franklin Roosevelt cited this as a rationale when he signed the FLSA 
into law.
  In 1933, probably for all the reasons I have just mentioned, the 
United States Senate voted 53 to 30 to set a cap for hours in a 
workweek. The number of hours was 30. The Senate voted to cap the 
workweek in the United States at 30 hours. Those were extremely 
difficult times economically, but the Senate of 70 years ago 
nonetheless placed a greater value on quality time spent off the job 
than they did increasing productivity with longer workweeks.
  The Bush rules are deeply flawed. They make millions of modest-income 
and moderate-income American workers vulnerable to losing their 
eligibility for overtime pay, broadening the categories of workers that 
are ineligible for overtime protections--often in response to specific 
requests from industries.
  If overtime is free to the employer, it is going to be overused. A 
study done by the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University 
showed that only 20 percent of the workers eligible for overtime work 
more than 40 hours a week, but 44 percent of workers who are exempt 
from overtime pay work overtime.
  Several months ago, three former career DoL officials released a 
report after having done an in-depth review of these rule changes. 
Their analysis should be read by all to whom the issue of overtime is 
important.
  These were not just any three former DoL officials. These were the 
top three people who administered these regulations over the course of 
the last two decades. They speak with enormous credibility on this 
issue.
  These career employees have said that ``in every instance where DoL 
has made substantive changes to the existing rules, it has weakened the 
criteria for overtime exemptions and thereby expanded the reach and 
scope of the exemptions.'' This comes from people who were elevated to 
their high positions within DoL during the Reagan administration. The 
fact that they say these new rules are bad for the American worker in 
all ways but one ought to tell us something.
  All of my colleagues are well aware that I led fights on the Senate 
floor during the last Congress to block or repeal the Department of 
Labor's FLSA overtime rule changes. Despite the fact that Congress 
voted 6 times during that period to protect workers' overtime by 
blocking the new rules, the administration insisted on ignoring the 
will of Congress. The new rules went into effect on August 23 of last 
year.
  The bill I am introducing today would simply allow any workers who 
were entitled to overtime before the new rules took effect last August 
to retain their overtime rights. It makes ineffective those portions of 
the new rules that allow employers to take overtime eligibility away 
from workers who were eligible before the new rules took effect.
  Secondly, my bill would also increase the minimum salary threshold. 
The minimum salary threshold that helps define overtime eligibility had 
not been raised since 1975 before the Bush administration raised it to 
$23,660. The administration did not raise it high enough, and millions 
of workers who should be covered are not covered due to this 
inadequacy. This bill will increase the number of workers covered by 
overtime protections by raising the minimum salary threshold to 
$30,712--to correspond with the increase in workers' wages since 1975. 
The bill also contains language that requires the salary threshold be 
adjusted annually to reflect and keep pace with increases in inflation.
  American workers deserve an iron-clad guarantee that their overtime 
rights are safe. That is what the bipartisan bill I am introducing 
today accomplishes. It repeals any provisions of the new rules that 
took effect last August that weaken overtime protections, and it 
indexes the minimum salary threshold annually to avoid future loss of 
overtime protections due to inflation. I thank the 13 of my colleagues 
who have agreed to cosponsor this for their support, and I look forward 
to adding more.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                 S. 223

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Overtime Rights Protection 
     Act''.

     SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938.

       Section 13 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 
     U.S.C. 213) is amended by adding at the end the following:

[[Page S674]]

       ``(k)(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subchapter II of 
     chapter 5 and chapter 7 of title 5, United States Code 
     (commonly referred to as the Administrative Procedures Act) 
     or any other provision of law, any portion of the final rule 
     promulgated on April 23, 2004, revising part 541 of title 29, 
     Code of Federal Regulations, that exempts from the overtime 
     pay provision of section 7 of this Act any employee who would 
     not otherwise be exempt if the regulations in effect on March 
     31, 2003 remained in effect, shall have no force or effect 
     and that portion of such regulations (as in effect on March 
     31, 2003) that would prevent such employee from being exempt 
     shall be reinstated.
       ``(2) The Secretary shall adjust the minimum salary level 
     for exemption under section 13(a)(1) in the following manner:
       ``(A) Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of 
     this subsection, the Secretary shall increase the minimum 
     salary level for exemption under subsection (a)(1) for 
     executive, administrative, and managerial occupations from 
     the level of $155 per week in 1975 to $591 per week (an 
     amount equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index 
     (published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) for executive, 
     administrative, and managerial occupations between 1975 and 
     2005).
       ``(B) Not later than December 31 of the calendar year 
     following the increase required in subparagraph (A), and each 
     December 31 thereafter, the Secretary shall increase the 
     minimum salary level for exemption under subsection (a)(1) by 
     an amount equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index 
     for executive, administrative, and managerial occupations for 
     the year involved.''.

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I commend Senator Harkin for introducing 
the Overtime Rights Protection Act to restore overtime protections for 
the more than 6 million Americans denied overtime pay and denied the 
guarantee of a 40-hour work week by the Republican anti-overtime 
regulation adopted in 2004. The bill will also provide overtime 
protections for additional deserving workers.
  In the last Congress, the Senate voted four times to block the 
Administration's overtime rule, and the House voted twice to block it. 
Yet, the Republican leadership refused to accept the will of Congress 
and the will of the American people. Instead, it blocked the enactment 
of this legislation and continued the unfair assault on America's 
workers and their right to overtime pay.
  In today's economy, workers are concerned about losing their jobs, 
their pay, their health benefits, and their retirement benefits. Now 
more than six million employees also have to worry about losing higher 
pay they've always earned for working overtime.
  These men and women are nurses. They are school teachers. They are 
long-term care workers. They are assistants in mental health 
facilities. They are countless men and women in many other fields.
  Make no mistake--overtime cuts are pay cuts. When workers lose their 
overtime pay, they still work longer hours. But they get no extra pay 
for doing so, even though they've had the right to time-and-a-half pay 
for overtime work ever since the 1930's.
  Clearly, we need a policy to create more jobs, not eliminate jobs. By 
taking away workers' right to overtime, the Administration's rule 
undermines job creation, since it allows businesses to require 
employees to work longer hours for no extra pay, rather than hire new 
workers to do the extra work.
  Denying overtime pay is a thinly veiled scheme to reduce workers' pay 
and raise employers' profits. In this troubled economy, it makes no 
sense to ask any workers anywhere in America to give up their overtime 
pay.
  Instead of making hard-working men and women work longer hours for 
less pay, businesses should create new jobs by hiring more employees to 
do the work.
  We know that employees across America are already struggling hard to 
balance their family needs and their work responsibilities. Requiring 
them to work longer hours for less pay will impose an even greater 
burden in this daily struggle.
  According to the Families and Work Institute, two of the most 
important things that children would most like to change about their 
parents are that they wish their parents were less stressed out by 
their work, and they wish they could spend more time with their 
parents.
  The Government Accountability Office says that employees without 
overtime protection are twice as likely to work overtime as employees 
covered by the protection. In other words, businesses don't hesitate to 
demand longer hours, as long as they don't have to pay higher wages for 
the extra work.
  Protecting the 40-hour work week is vital to protecting the work-
family balance for millions of Americans in communities in all parts of 
the nation. The last thing Congress should be doing is to allow the new 
anti-overtime rule to make the balance worse for workers than it 
already is.
  Under the overtime law, low-income workers are supposed to be 
automatically included. But today, millions who should be included are 
left out, since wages have increased, but the maximum earnings level 
for automatic coverage has remained the same for 30 years. The Bush 
Administration raised it to $23,660 in their new rule, but this level 
is still too low. The Harkin bill will cover more workers by raising 
the threshold to $30,712, and index it to keep pace with wage growth. 
This change will bring it to the level it would be if we'd made annual 
adjustments for wage inflation over the last 30 years.
  Congress cannot look the other way while more and more Americans lose 
their jobs, their livelihoods, their homes, and their dignity. Denying 
overtime pay rubs salt in the wounds of this troubled economy. Enacting 
the Overtime Rights Protection Act will end this injustice, and I urge 
my colleagues to support it.

                          ____________________