In March 2003, when the U.S. Department of Labor proposed vast changes that could take away overtime pay protection from 8 million private-sector workers, the department also advised employers how to avoid paying overtime to low-income workers who may gain eligibility under the rule, according to the Associated Press.

In promoting its scheme to change the nation’s Fair Labor Standards Act to make millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay protection, the Bush administration has stressed that the proposal would enable some low-income workers to receive overtime pay protections for the first time. Yet a summary of the Bush overtime pay elimination plan published by the Labor Department last year outlines several options for employers to avoid paying overtime to those low-income workers, according to the Associated Press.

“The Labor Department’s proposal to strengthen overtime protections will automatically guarantee overtime for an additional 1.3 million low-wage workers,” said Labor Secretary Elaine Chao in July 2003.

The options the department suggests include cutting workers’ hourly wages to make regular and overtime pay equal to the original salary. Such a “payroll adjustment,” the summary says, would result in “virtually no, or only a minimal increase, in labor costs.”

The department summary also states: “Most employers affected by the proposed rule would be expected to choose the most cost-effective compensation adjustment method.”

Working families continue to voice their outrage at President Bush’s battle to slash their overtime pay. Several hundred thousand have signed either online or on-paper petitions urging Bush to withdraw his overtime scheme and to back off his threats to veto any legislation that would block the new rule.

In late December, the Labor Department said it expected to issue the overtime rule in March, but Democratic Senate leaders say they will push to include an overtime pay protection guarantee in an omnibus spending bill due for a vote when the Senate reconvenes this month. In December, Senate Democrats blocked a vote on the bill because it did not include such a guarantee.

The bill combines several appropriation bills into one. Earlier, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate voted in favor of an amendment by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that would have guaranteed overtime pay protection while allowing the Labor Department to expand overtime pay to cover more low-income workers. But Republican leaders, strong-armed by Bush, stripped the amendment from the omnibus bill.

Source: AFL-CIO