Democrats Push Trump to Extend Overtime Pay to Millions of Americans

WASHINGTON – Today, Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Ranking Member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led a group of 16 Congressional Democrats in sending a bicameral letter to President-elect Donald Trump urging the incoming Administration to act to implement the Department of Labor (DOL)’s overtime rule which would ensure workers who earn less than $47,476 are eligible to get paid time-and-a-half for the extra hours they work.

“During your campaign you promised that, ‘under a Trump presidency, the American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.’  We are asking you to make good on that promise by ensuring that the overtime rule takes effect without any further delay,” the Members wrote. “We ask you to announce your intention to stand up for hardworking Americans by vigorously pursuing the Department’s appeal and squarely rejecting the Republican-controlled Congress’s planned attempts to eviscerate this rule in favor of protecting near-record-high profits for millionaires and billionaires. The economic security of four million Americans and their families depends on it.”

Last month, a federal judge in Texas placed an emergency injunction on the DOL’s overtime rule, preventing it going into effect nationwide on December 1. The salary threshold has been raised seven times since the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was enacted in 1938. Yet, the Texas court ignored this precedent when it ruled that this update to the salary threshold exceeded the agency's authority. The FLSA explicitly delegates to DOL the authority to “define and delimit” the scope of overtime protections. The DOL's authority to set a salary threshold has been widely accepted for more than three-quarters of a century.

In addition to Ranking Members Scott and Murray, the letter was signed by Reps. Wilson, Polis, Takano, Grijalva, Courtney, Fudge, Bonamici, Pocan, Jeffries, Clark, Adams, DeSaulnier and Sens. Warren, Franken, Casey and Sanders.

Full text of the letter can be found here and below:

Dear President-elect Trump:

On December 1, 2016, more than four million people were slated to become eligible for overtime pay, thanks to the Department of Labor’s overtime rule. This rule restores the 40-hour workweek by ensuring that people who earn less than $47,476 each year either get to go home to their families after putting in 40 hours of work or get paid time-and-a-half for the extra hours they work.

In 1975, the overtime threshold below which most salaried workers were automatically eligible for overtime pay covered more than 60 percent of full time salaried workers. Today it covers only seven percent. The failure to update the overtime rule means that too many low-level workers are deemed ‘salaried’ and then work 50, 60, or even 70 hours a week—working the last 10, 20, or 30 hours for no pay at all. The overtime threshold has been allowed to erode so badly that today a worker with earnings below the poverty line for a family of four makes too much to automatically qualify for overtime.

On December 1, about 33 percent of the full time salaried workforce would have been covered by the new overtime rule. Unfortunately, a federal district court in Texas dealt a devastating blow to workers on November 22, 2016, when it temporarily blocked the rule from taking effect.

The court asserted that raising the salary threshold exceeded the Department of Labor’s authority – an assertion that was entirely without merit. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) gives the Department of Labor explicit statutory authority to “define and delimit” exemptions to the overtime rule. And, the Secretary of Labor has used a salary threshold as part of the test for exemption since 1938, when the FLSA was enacted. Since then, the salary threshold has been raised by both Republican and Democratic administrations seven times.

The DOL’s authority to set a salary threshold has been widely accepted for more than three-quarters of a century. Yet the federal court chose to ignore this precedent, including the precedent from its own circuit, when it ruled that the update to the rule exceeded the agency’s authority.  On December 1, the day on which the Department of Labor’s overtime rule was scheduled to go into effect, the Department of Justice appealed the court’s ruling.

The court’s ruling comes on the heels of months of steadfast opposition to the rule by Republicans, who have unfortunately chosen to stand with big business instead of helping workers get the pay they have earned.

During your campaign you promised that, “Under a Trump presidency, the American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.” We are asking you to make good on that promise by ensuring that the overtime rule takes effect without any further delay. We ask you to announce your intention to stand up for hardworking Americans by vigorously pursuing the Department’s appeal and squarely rejecting the Republican-controlled Congress’s planned attempts to eviscerate this rule in favor of protecting near-record-high profits for millionaires and billionaires. The economic security of four million Americans and their families depends on it.