Every Child Achieves Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, American workers have fought long and hard to improve their lot--banning child labor, better safety on the job, minimum wage, and an 8-hour workday. Unions often led these fights, but their efforts also helped tens of millions of workers who often had no union representation.
In 1868, Congress passed its first 8-hour workday law, and by 1975 rules protecting the 8-hour workday covered about 65 percent of all workers. Of course, those workers might work longer--might be required to work longer--but if they did, they got time and a half for their extra hours. Managers were exempt from those rules, but they were paid more to offset the lost overtime.
To be sure, American workers did their part too. Year over year, decade over decade, workers increased output so that today American workers are among the most productive in the world. The basic 8-hour day, with overtime for extra hours, was a godsend to families, and, in a larger sense, it was a core part of the deal that American workers could count on. From the 1930s through the 1970s, as American workers' productivity increased, GDP went up and so did wages for the average worker. In other words, as companies got richer, their workers got richer too. This was the America that built the great middle class, the America that created opportunity and protected that opportunity for nearly two-thirds of all workers.
But over time, that basic deal quietly vanished because we haven't meaningfully updated these rules since the 1970s. Instead of two-thirds of the workforce being protected, today only 8 percent of all salaried workers are covered. That means that only the lowest paid workers, workers whose salaries are so low that they are below the poverty line for a family of four, are legally entitled to be paid anything for their overtime. Today, a fast-food worker or a janitor or a grocery store clerk making a little over $23,000 can be classified as a manager and be required to work 10, 12, 14 hours a day, 5, 6 or 7 days a week, with no overtime pay of any kind.
Today, the productivity of American workers continues to rise, but the gains go to Wall Street and to CEOs and are no longer shared with the people doing much of the back-breaking work to make it all happen. That is a broken system.
Two weeks ago, the President announced he is going to fix these broken overtime rules. The administration's new proposal would raise the salary threshold under which a worker is guaranteed overtime pay to just over $50,000, more than double the current threshold and roughly back to the 1975 level, when both corporations and workers benefited from a growing economy.
This matters. According to the White House, nearly 5 million Americans--including over 100,000 people in Massachusetts alone--will get a raise. They estimate that workers will see an additional $1.4 billion in wages in just the first year alone.
But make no mistake, it will be a fight. Some businesses are used to getting an extra 5, 10, 20 hours for free from their employees--and they are just fine keeping the rules just the way they are. They will claim that fixing overtime will hurt businesses. Well, don't believe it. History shows that increases in overtime pay are actually good for the economy.
Employers usually respond to increases in the overtime threshold in one of three ways. Some will actually pay existing employees overtime for the extra work. Others will avoid overtime costs by hiring more workers to get the job done, and some will increase the hours of part-time workers. That is what we are likely to get: higher wages, more jobs or more hours for part-time workers. Even the National Retail Federation, which has lobbied hard against fixing the overtime rules, admits this proposal will add tens of thousands of jobs to this economy. We need those jobs.
But this issue is about more than jobs. This issue is also about fairness. If a worker puts in more time and produces more for the company, the worker should get a chance to share in its benefit. No more free work. Economic growth over the past three decades has been built on the backs of hard-working people, and it is time those hard-working people get a little bit more of all they have produced.
Fixing our outdated overtime rules will not end inequality. It is time to raise the minimum wage. Women should get equal pay for equal work. Workers deserve paid sick leave and paid family leave. Social Security should be expanded. But this is an important step forward, a vital piece of the puzzle that will increase wages, increase hours, and increase employment for millions of Americans, and it is a step that will show that the government can be made to help working people. There are plenty of examples of Washington writing rules that favor the rich and the powerful, but this time we have an overtime rule that will give working families a fighting chance to build some security for themselves. The President has proposed a new rule to benefit working families, and the rest of us are here today ready to fight for that rule.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
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