Happy Labor Day
In celebration of the working person’s holiday, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has announced the Bush Administration’s plan to end the 60-year-old law which requires employers to pay time-and-a-half for overtime. […] President Bush announced in his convention acceptance speech this week that he was changing overtime rules to give workers “comp time” off instead of pay. He forgot to mention that a couple of days before, on August 23, his Labor Department had already put in half the plan — eliminating overtime pay for millions — while failing to put into the regs one word about comp time. In the pre-September 11 days, we used to call that, “lying.”
(via Funferal)
This is a deeply shitty issue, of course, but I'm somewhat puzzled as to why you are posting a two-year-old article (note that it's from 2003) it as if it's new or a revelation, and not publically announced as the desire of the Bush Administration a couple of years ago (as noted in the piece, even then Bush was giving speeches about it). The rule went into effect a year ago, so discussing it as a "plan" for the future is just wrong. Here's a piece from a year and three-quarters ago. Another from the same time on a tv ad about this not-obscure or little-known issue. Now, if you want to campaign against the rules-change, I'[m 100% with you. Not that I see any hope about either the Administration suddenly being persuaded to change their mind, or much hope that the Republican Congress will before 2006, myself. Of course, you never know. (I mentioned the issue in passing as one of many abuses in January of 2004.)
Posted by Gary Farber on September 30 2005 08:54
Uh, mostly because I'm lame and paid more attention to the posting date of 9/5/2005 at the top of the article than the "reprinted from 2003" at the bottom. Especially considering it did all sound familiar...
Posted by Zed on September 30 2005 10:44