President Obama’s expansion of overtime pay goes into effect on December 1. But what happens if it gets rolled back in 2017? Here are some of the Department of Labor’s takeaways from a Congressional Budget Office report:
- CBO finds that reversing the rule would strip nearly 4 million workers of overtime protections. According to the report, there are nearly 4 million workers whose employers will be required to pay them overtime when they work more than 40 hours a week when the rule goes into effect.
- CBO finds that reversing the rule would reduce workers’ earnings while increasing the hours they work. The report finds that if the rule is reversed, the total annual earnings of all affected workers would decrease by more than $500 million in 2017. Further, these workers would earn less money while working more hours.
- At a time when income inequality is already of great concern, CBO finds that reversing the rule would primarily benefit people with high incomes. If the rule were reversed, affected workers, most of whom have moderate incomes, would experience a loss in earnings. These losses would be accompanied by an increase in firms’ profits, of which the vast majority (CBO estimates 85 percent) would accrue to people in the top income quintile.
- CBO finds that reversing the rule would not create or save jobs. The report finds no significant impact on the number of jobs in the economy.
Nearly 4 million workers.
● One reason the tip system needs to go:
When Marie Billiel was a food server, sexual harassment was part of the job. She was locked in the walk-in cooler with male co-workers, whistled at, and touched and kissed against her will, she said. She endured comments about her body and persistent requests for dates.
Such behavior is widespread in the Greater Boston restaurant industry, according to a new report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, occurring at a much higher rate than in any of the 11 other major cities studied by the New York-based worker advocacy group. One in three tipped workers surveyed in Boston — servers, bartenders, bussers, and food runners — said they have been sexually harassed at work, compared with no more than one in five in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.
(Also, jeez, Boston, get your act together.)
● Your union-made in America Thanksgiving shopping list.
● A hefty dose of oh sweet cheeses make it stop.
● Fascinating interview about organizing online media, with Hamilton Nolan and organizer Megan McRobert.
● Union decline and Trump's rise.
● It's not the skills gap: Why so many jobs are going unfilled.
● UPS air maintenance workers vote 98 percent to authorize a strike. That said, they still have time to work out a deal that will avert the strike.
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