Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2004

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the amendment offered by my colleague, Senator Harkin. The Harkin amendment would prohibit the Department of Labor from pursuing a proposed rule to modernize the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime regulations.

In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect the lowest paid of our nations working population. The Fair Labor Standards Act guarantees overtime pay for all employees who work over 40 hours in one week, except for those employed in certain "white collar" jobs. Unfortunately, the current regulations have not been revised since the 1950s and employers face serious challenges in trying to interpret this law and classify modern jobs into categories created in a different era. Consequently, what should be a simple test, has become a very complex one with little certainty.

Thankfully, this past March, the Department of Labor proposed changes that would update the regulations to reflect the realities of our 21st century workplace. The purpose of these new regulations is not, as many claim, to take away overtime pay from hardworking Americans; nobody wants that to occur. The purpose of these new regulations is to bring up to date overtime regulations so that employers will be better able to understand their obligations and comply with the law, and the Department of Labor will be better equipped to more vigorously enforce the law.

If adopted, the Department of Labor proposal will guarantee overtime pay for any employee making less than $22,100 per year ($425 per week) regardless of the person's job duties. Current regulations only provide guaranteed overtime for those making less than $8,060 per year ($155 per week). This is almost a 175 percent increase and will mean that an additional 1.3 million employees nationwide will be guaranteed overtime pay under the proposed changes. In my home state of New Mexico, the Department of Labor estimates that enactment of this proposal would automatically guarantee overtime pay for 10,000 additional workers, and that these workers would receive $3,878,398 every year in additional overtime pay.

The proposed regulations will not deny overtime pay to any workers based on salary alone; in fact, they will make it easier to determine which employees meet specific tests and thus qualify for "exempt" status. These exempt employees will continue to qualify for overtime pay.

The proposed regulations will not affect employees paid pursuant to the terms of collective bargaining agreements, thus unionized employees will continue to have the right to bargain for overtime pay, regardless of salary or job duties.

The proposed regulations will not affect the right to overtime for non-white-collar workers such as police officers, firefighters or other first responders. This fact has been acknowledged in a recent press release from the Fraternal Order of Police.

Modernization and reform of the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations has been on the Labor Department's regulatory agenda since the 1970s, and both Republican and Democratic administrations have recognized that the existing regulations simply do not comport with the realities of the modern workplace. I therefore encourage my colleagues to vote against this amendment, and support the modernization of the Fair Labor Standards Act.