TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE
Dear Senator:
On behalf of the 1.4 million members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), I strongly urge your vote for the Harkin amendment to S. 1637, the Foreign Sales Corporation/Extraterritorial Income (FSC/ETI) legislation pending before the Senate. The Harkin amendment will protect workers from the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) recent proposal to change the Part 541 regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
For more than 60 years, the FLSA has provided important income protection to workers. In spite of the DOL’s attempt to portray this final proposal as a strengthening of wage protection, it is the clearest and most direct elimination of wage protections for workers in the history of the FLSA.
The strengthening that the Department refers to is the raising of the salary threshold so that workers making up to $23,660 a year would be guaranteed overtime protections. While we question the number of workers that the DOL is claiming to protect, raising the threshold was the least controversial change that the regulation made. In fact, passing the Harkin amendment would have no effect on the part of the regulation which expands overtime protection to these low-wage workers, and would permit these changes to go forward as proposed.
What the Harkin amendment WOULD change is the elimination of overtime—both direct and indirect—that would affect many workers due to DOL’s proposal. Numerous categories of workers not explicitly mentioned in the final regulation would find themselves disadvantaged by this regulation, including registered nurses, nursery school teachers, chefs, working foremen, assistant managers, working supervisors, computer employees, financial services employees, and others. One of the most distressing changes is the creation of the "team leader" position. This concept gives broad authority to employers to re-categorize workers, and reduce their overtime obligations by designating employees as "team leaders."
The final, proposed regulation is complicated, confusing, and controversial. It will spawn a legion of new litigation. It will also bring an additional issue to the collective bargaining process as employers attempt to reduce overtime to unionized workers as DOL is proposing to do to non-unionized workers. The uncertainty that this proposal has engendered will be replaced by resentment as the changes are adopted by the nation’s employers.
Enactment of the Harkin amendment will preserve the best part of DOL’s proposal while protecting the overtime rights of those who are threatened by DOL. It would affirm the role of the Senate in this important policy-making arena, and protect the overtime rights of America’s working families.
This will be a historic vote. It will have an impact on the wages of millions of American workers, both directly and indirectly. We strongly urge your support for the Harkin amendment.
Thank you for your consideration of this important message. Please feel free to contact our Legislative and Political Affairs Department for more information.
Sincerely,
Joe Hansen, International President
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