Tagged as Bush administration

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Economic Justice, Press Releases, UFCW Values

White House Dishes Up Pay Cuts For American Workers

Apr 23, 2004

George W. Bush’s new overtime rules pick up his pace for lowering living standards for American workers and putting more dollars into the bank accounts of his corporate campaign donors. The most anti-worker White House in the modern political era just gave workers their biggest pay cut in history. Millions of workers could potentially lose thousands of dollars each year as a result of the Bush Administrations actions.

Bush shoved the pay cut through over the objections of both Houses of Congress and millions of workers. The rewritten overtime rules open the door for employers to reclassify jobs so that workers who’ve always earned overtime would now become exempt. Lead workers in grocery store deli, dairy, produce, and meat departments could now be classified as managers and have their pay slashed under the new Department of Labor (DOL) regulations. Health care industry technicians and nurses, among millions of other workers, could also be reclassified out of overtime pay.

“American workers have received nothing but double dealing and disappointment from the Bush White House,” said United Food and Commercial Workers International (UFCW) President Joe Hansen. “That’s precisely the case with the DOL’s 500 pages of “clarifying” regulations on overtime—the only thing they clarify is how completely special corporate interests dominate the Bush Administration.”

Under George W. Bush’s leadership, the US economy has lost more jobs than at any period since the Great Depression. Forty-four million people—the overwhelming majority of them from working families—have no health insurance. Health care costs are skyrocketing. Millions of jobs are being shipped overseas while the number of working poor in this country, struggling in low-wage, no-benefit jobs, is increasing.

“Obviously, George W. Bush surveyed the state of working America and concluded it was time for a pay cut,” Hansen added.

The UFCW is mobilizing a worker-to-worker movement to inform UFCW members about the President’s pay cut. Working people will hold the Bush Administration accountable this November for four years of hostile policies aimed at lowering working family living standards.

Economic Justice, Press Releases, Retail, UFCW Industries, UFCW Values, Walmart

Working America Wants Answers

Apr 13, 2004

(Washington, DC) At tonight’s prime time press conference, President George Bush claims to be prepared to address the important issues facing Americans.  But working families won’t be in that room.  President Bush won’t be facing the tough questions that most Americans deserve to have answered, such as:

  • You are the first President since Herbert Hoover to preside over a period of job loss.    Among the few parts of our economy where jobs are growing, they are by and large, part-time, low-wage, no benefit service jobs — Wal-Mart jobs.  How do you plan to turn around the US economy and create jobs that can support families?
  • Your administration has been attempting to rewrite overtime regulations which could cause the largest pay cut in American history and cut overtime for 8 million workers.   Both the House and Senate are on record in opposition to this regulation.  Will you be going forward with this regulation before the November election?
  • 44 million Americans are uninsured, with that number growing every day.   More large companies are cutting benefits for workers.  Supermarket workers in Southern California were forced to strike for five months to protect their families’ health benefits – costing the companies billions of dollars in lost sales.  What are you planning to do to make sure health insurance is available and affordable for all Americans?
  • The minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 1996.   Do you favor raising the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7 an hour as proposed in the Senate?
  • Your Administration claimed hundreds of thousands of new jobs were created in March.   Tens of thousands of those jobs were striking supermarket workers returning to work.  How can you take credit for this as job growth when it was simply the end of a strike?

Working Americans deserve answers from their President.   It is time for the Bush Administration to offer up a real plan for economic recovery.

Economic Justice, Press Releases, UFCW Values

Bush Advising Employers How to Cheat Low Wage Workers Out of Earned Pay

Jan 08, 2004
Working families are under attack by the Bush Administration yet again. Throughout his term, George W. Bush has consistently attacked workers by allowing federal contracts to go to companies that broke labor laws, easing enforcement of workplace laws, and proposing changes in overtime rules to drop 8 million workers from overtime eligibility – his latest attack on working America.  And for those left, Bush is telling employers how to cut overtime even further.
For almost a year, Bush claimed his overtime proposals would result in 1.3 million new workers eligible to receive overtime pay.  But with the date fast approaching when the new rules are expected to be issued, the Administration is undermining its own proposal by advising employers how to avoid it.
Buried in the proposed new regulations are suggestions for how companies can avoid overtime by “”payroll adjustments”" such as cutting base worker salaries so the additional overtime payments would bring their total pay to their old salaries, or raising salaries just to the $22,100 threshold so the workers are not overtime-eligible.
Doug Dority, UFCW International President, accused Bush of using the overtime proposals to “”feed the greed of corporate America”" and said the proposal would result in the “”largest, single pay cut for workers in history.”"  Bush used the 1.3 million low-income workers as justification for forcing pay cuts on over 8 million workers whose jobs will be reclassified, making them ineligible for overtime.
The Department of Labor advice means employers are cutting pay or cutting hours.
Over 50,000 UFCW members working in retail, food processing, health care and manufacturing will suddenly be exempt from overtime if the final rule is passed in March.  In a statement before a hearing on the proposed rule changes on overtime pay eligibility, Dority said, “”While these are skilled and valuable workers, they do not have the income level or the personal control of their work to equate them for overtime pay eligibility with a supermarket executive or a medical doctor.”"
By advocating pay cuts and reclassifying workers the Bush administration cheats low- wage workers out of earned pay.  “”All of them would be surprised to find that they are now ‘executives’ or ‘professionals,’ and all of them would be outraged to find out that their newly ordained status comes with a pay cut,”" said Dority.