Texas and 20 Other States File Suit Against New Overtime, Salary Regulations
Texas is one of 21 states whose Attorneys General have banded together to file suit against the Obama administration in an attempt to block changes to the overtime rule.
Under the new rule, the number of workers eligible for overtime pay would double. No longer would there be a "white-collar exemption" to the rule, because the threshold of workers eligible for claiming overtime would rise to $47,476 from the current level of $23,660.
The Attorneys General say the change in the rule was made unilaterally by the Obama administration. They say the president and his people are making laws without legislative consent.
According to reports, Nevada's Attorney General Adam Laxalt traveled to Texas to file the suit Tuesday but I don't know if this is a gesture of support or not. This district of the federal court system may be more sympathetic to this cause politically, which is why Nevada may have chosen to file the suit in Texas.
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin are the plaintiffs in the case.
The Administration is always trying to make these bold gestures to say it backs the working man and woman. The truth is, such a change in the policy would hurt workers and businesses. More workers would go to a full-time hourly status as opposed to a straight salary. On the surface this sounds great, but employers are going to make certain no one goes over forty hours. Ever.
At the same time, businesses are going to lose productivity because workers won't feel they need to work beyond forty hours and go the extra mile to get ahead. Anyone making under $48,000 a year is automatically designated a clock-watcher. In the end, these changes could force employers to keep a smaller workforce at higher salaries and lay off the rest. It could also force employers to hire more part-time workers and cap their hours each week, thus limiting the path for advancement for millions. And by millions I'm talking about many more then the 4.2 million that might get a bump in pay from this change.
The cynic in me thinks that the Democrats want a bunch of angry, underpaid people on the low-end of the economic spectrum - Lumpen Proletariat as Karl Marx would call them - who can neither advance to full time or even get close to forty hours per week. In their frustration, these workers will look to these Democrats and their party's rhetoric of taking down rich people and class warfare. By implementing this rule they're breeding people just like that.
Regardless of the change, the fact that Congress didn't have a say in such a sweeping adjustment seems downright crazy.