Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity Co-Chair Lisa Horn had the following statement on the House Small Business Committee’s hearing, “Damaging Repercussions: DOL’s Overtime Rule, Small Employers, and their Employees:”

We commend Chairman Chabot and the members of the House Small Business Committee for holding today’s hearing to highlight the overwhelming negative consequences of the Department of Labor’s recently issued overtime regulation.  The Committee’s interest is most welcome, as this regulation has quickly become the overriding concern of small businesses, nonprofits, public sector employers, and educational institutions across the country.

These employers are facing challenging and painful decisions as they try to meet the extraordinary demands of the new regulation.  The new salary threshold for determining overtime pay eligibility is more than double the previous level ($47,476 from $23,660), and employers are struggling to absorb such a drastic increase.

As a result of this misguided regulation, many currently exempt, salaried professional employees will have to be reclassified as hourly wage earners–a change that is frequently considered a demotion. Employers will have no choice but to limit employees’ hours to less than 40 per week and reduce access to training opportunities and workplace flexibility. In many cases, employers will be forced to cut critical programming, staffing, and services. In the nonprofit sector, this could mean providing fewer life-saving and other desperately needed services for vulnerable populations.

We are pleased that today’s hearing will shed light on the serious hardships the new overtime regulation imposes on employers, their employees, and the people and communities that they serve.

On June 9, 2016, the Partnership for Workplace Opportunity submitted a letter for the record to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for the hearing entitled “The Administration’s Overtime Rule and Its Consequences for Workers, Students, Nonprofits, and Small Businesses.”

The letter asks all the members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce to cosponsor H.R. 4773, the “Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act”, which would require the Labor Department to conduct a detailed economic analysis before making dramatic changes to federal overtime pay requirements, and would prohibit any automatic increases.

You can read the letter here: PPWO Letter to House Education and Workforce Committee

A statement from the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO) about the Labor Department’s final overtime rule:

The public record surrounding the rule is filled with comments, economic analysis, letters from Congress, and meetings and phone calls urging the administration to reconsider its proposal and more carefully examine the potential impact before proceeding. We are deeply disappointed that the Labor Department largely ignored the concerns of tens of thousands of individuals and organizations across this country that expressed concern with the proposal. The final rule increases the salary threshold for overtime eligibility to $47,476 – instead of the $50,440 figure originally proposed. However, this token reduction in the salary threshold is still a 100% increase that will take place all at once in December. Employers will not be able to absorb this increase, particularly in such a short time frame, and DOL’s token reduction will not alleviate the harm this rule will do to these small businesses, nonprofits, colleges and universities, and local governments across the country, their employees and the people and communities that they serve.

Employees and employers – many of which are still unaware of this rule – will be hit hard when it is implemented. Costs will soon increase for organizations operating on fixed budgets, forcing them to cut critical programming, staffing, and services. Millions of employees across the country will be reclassified from salaried to hourly workers and begin experiencing reduced opportunity and flexibility in the workplace. Further, the rule’s automatic increases ignore wider economic variables or the reality of organizations and their specific budgetary constraints. These automatic updates threaten to impose serious hardships on public and private sector employers and employees without regard to economic circumstance of the time, which will have damaging consequences for the communities they serve.

While the nation’s overtime rules should be updated, today’s final rule will do serious damage to people’s careers and workplace flexibility, new job opportunities and essential community services. We will continue to advocate for a regulation that is considerate of all stakeholder and economic realities facing employers and employees across the country. We urge Members of Congress to support the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act.

–        Lisa Horn, PPWO spokesperson and director of congressional affairs at the Society for Human Resource Management.

 

This is still a 99% increase. A token reduction will not alleviate the harm this rule will do to nonprofits, colleges, and small businesses and their employees. Moreover, the salary threshold must take into account regional differences in cost of living, which the current Labor Department approach does not. We’re encouraged by reports that the Labor Department is beginning to listen to the outcry from the nonprofit, higher education, and small business communities, but this rule needs a comprehensive reevaluation before it is released, else we risk doing serious damage to precisely the organizations and workers we all want to thrive,” said Lisa Horn, spokeswoman for the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO), a coalition of more than 70 organizations representing the broad employer community. 

Today, the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity released a new video featuring the voices of non-profits, higher education, small businesses, and employees who would be adversely affected by the Department of Labor’s proposed rule change for overtime.

Watch the video below:

Today, 139 national organizations and 201 regional, state, and local organizations joined letters urging Members of Congress to support legislation that would require the Labor Department to conduct a detailed economic analysis before making dramatic changes to federal overtime pay requirements. The letters, which were spearheaded by the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO), ask members of congress to cosponsor S. 2707/ H.R. 4773, the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act. The legislation would require that the department conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impact on career development and workplace flexibility and on small businesses, nonprofits, and local governments before moving forward with its proposed changes. The letters are supported and co-signed by representatives of nonprofits, institutions of higher education, schools, cities and counties and small and large businesses across the country, all of which are concerned about the unintentional damage DOL’s proposal would cause to workers, employers, and the U.S. economy.

“Labor Department’s proposal would not only result in an estimated cost of $8.4 billion per year, but will reduce opportunity and flexibility for millions of executive, professional, and administrative employees—particularly those at the beginning of their career. Statements by DOL officials suggest the Department plans to ignore the tens of thousands of comments asking it to reconsider the proposal. As a result, Congress must act and force the department to examine more closely the impact of the drastic and immediate increase and consider less harmful alternatives,” said Lisa Horn, a spokeswoman for the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO).

Read the full letters here (supporting H.R. 4773 and a letter to the Senate in support of S. 2707).

While the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity is not taking a position on Chairman Rob Bishop’s discussion draft of the legislation to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt, PPWO released the following statement in reaction to section 410 (p. 87) of the legislation, which would exempt the territory from the Department of Labor’s proposed 113% increase to the salary threshold for exemptions to overtime pay requirements for white collar employees:

The recently released draft debt restructuring package for Puerto Rico contains a provision exempting the government and businesses operating in the territory from the Department of Labor’s pending overtime rule. The exemption highlights the significant consequences the rule will have on employees and employers in lower cost-of-living regions of the country and in many sectors of the economy. The DOL overtime rule will significantly and negatively impact not only Puerto Rico, but also nonprofits, local governments, institutions of higher education, small businesses, and others operating around the United States. It is imperative that DOL reconsider its overtime proposal before it is put into law, which is why PPWO supports this exemption requested by the Puerto Rican government and employers from a wide range of industries operating in the territory.  PPWO urges the Administration and Labor Department to re-examine the overtime proposal in light of the tens of thousands of comments asking them to do so.  We also ask Members of Congress to support the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act (S.2707/H.R.4773), which would require the Department of Labor to more closely examine the impact of changes to the overtime regulations before moving forward with a rule.

The exemption was requested in the comments to DOL on the proposed increase to the salary threshold filed by the Puerto Rican government, the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, associations representing hotels and tourism, manufacturers, bankers, HR professionals as well as local restaurants and cleaners operating in the territory.

March 17, 2016 (Washington D.C.) – The introduction today of legislation halting the U.S. Department of Labor’s anticipated overtime rule reflects mounting and widespread concerns of public-sector, nonprofit, and private-sector employers about the unintentional damage to workers and the U.S. economy such a rule would inflict.

“If these rules go into effect as proposed, we would need to reduce staff and programming,” said Elizabeth Hays, director of human resources at MHY Family Services in Mars, Pa. “And we would need to eliminate the flexible schedules that our employees value. We attract a diverse team of competent people primarily because we offer meaningful work, adequate benefits, and flexible schedules, despite lower salaries.”

The Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act, introduced in the Senate and House by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and cosponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), would delay publication of the Labor Department’s expected regulation, dramatically expanding mandatory federal overtime pay, despite widespread opposition from stakeholders. The bill would require the department to first conduct a comprehensive economic analysis on the impact of mandatory overtime expansion to small businesses, nonprofits, and public employers.

“We are pleased Senators Alexander and Scott and Representatives Walberg and Kline have recognized the burden that this proposed rule will exact on our country’s employers and employees, and we urge Congress to delay the final rule until the Labor Department comprehensively examines its economic impact, as recommended by the Obama Administration’s Small Business Administration,” said Lisa Horn, a spokeswoman for the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO).

PPWO is a group of more than 60 employer organizations and companies representing the broad employer community’s response to the proposed overtime rule changes.

The bill was introduced in response to grassroots concern among small and large businesses, nonprofits, municipalities, and schools that the dramatic changes proposed by the Labor Department will not only result in an estimated cost of $8.4 billion per year, but will reduce opportunity and flexibility for millions of executive, professional, and administrative employees.

“Our members believe that employees and employers alike are best served with a system that promotes maximum flexibility in structuring employee hours, career advancement opportunities for employees, and clarity for employers when classifying employees,” said Horn, who is also director of congressional affairs at the Society for Human Resource Management, which co-chairs PPWO along with the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.

PPWO expects many more lawmakers to sign onto the bill as they hear from their constituents in coming days.

 

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About PPWO: The Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity consists of a diverse group of associations, businesses, and other stakeholders representing employers with millions of employees across the country in almost every industry. The Partnership is dedicated to advocating the interests of its members in the expected regulatory debate on potential changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime regulations. For more information: www.protectingopportunity.org

Today, the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity submitted PPWO Comments on behalf of 133 organizations to the U.S. Department of Labor in response to recently proposed regulations dramatically changing the criteria for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and computer employee exemptions to the federal overtime pay requirements.

The Partnership is extremely concerned that the Administration’s proposal to increase the minimum salary level by over 100 percent will force employers to reclassify millions of salaried employees in managerial and other traditional white collar positions to hourly jobs, leading to fewer opportunities for workplace flexibility and career advancement and diminished employee morale. Furthermore, the Partnership expressed concern that the proposal to automatically index the salary level creates enormous uncertainty for employers and fails to account for changes in economic conditions in the future.

The Partnership, alongside over 600 employers large and small, members of Congress and the Small Business Administration requested an extension to the comment period to allow a greater number of employers and employees to weigh in on this proposal. The Department unfortunately ignored the requests for an extension. The Department’s minimal comment period limits debate and public feedback on this important issue and contrasts sharply with previous updates to the overtime regulations in 2004.

Many members of the Partnership also met with the Secretary of Labor at the outset of the process to express concerns with possible approaches the Department might take. The proposed regulation shows no indication that the Department listened during those meetings.

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The PPWO consists of a diverse group of associations, businesses, non-profits and other stakeholders representing employers with millions of “white-collar” employees, across the country in almost every industry who will be affected by the proposed changes.  The PPWO’s members believe that employees and employers alike are best served with a system that promotes maximum flexibility in structuring employee hours, career advancement opportunities for employees, and clarity for employers when classifying employees.

For more information: www.protectingopportunity.org