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Senate Panel Also Rejects Bush Overtime Rules
A powerful Senate committee has joined the U.S. House in dealing a blow to the White House, voting in favor of an amendment to scrap the new Bush administration rules taking overtime rights away from millions of workers.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-13 against the rules, with Republican Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania - who has opposed the rules from the beginning - joining 14 Democrats. The vote came on an amendment to the $142 million funding bill for labor, education and health and human services.
President Bush has threatened to veto the spending bill if the language protecting workers' rights is included. Republican leaders are expected to try to keep the amendment out of the final version of the bill.
"Could the president's contempt for workers possibly be any clearer?" CWA President Morton Bahr said. "He's actually willing to kill a critical funding bill in order to ensure that workers no longer have a right to overtime pay."
The rules went into effect Aug. 23, barely a year after the U.S. Department of Labor proposed the changes, fundamentally rewriting the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that created the 40-hour workweek. An outcry by labor unions and other opponents forced the DOL to make some changes in the original proposal, but at least 6 million workers are still at risk of losing overtime pay under the rules in their present form.
The amendment doesn't affect the smaller number of workers who stand to gain overtime rights under the new rules. Managers, supervisors and others who were exempt from overtime in the past must now be paid time-and-a-half if their salary is lower than $23,660 a year.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-13 against the rules, with Republican Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania - who has opposed the rules from the beginning - joining 14 Democrats. The vote came on an amendment to the $142 million funding bill for labor, education and health and human services.
President Bush has threatened to veto the spending bill if the language protecting workers' rights is included. Republican leaders are expected to try to keep the amendment out of the final version of the bill.
"Could the president's contempt for workers possibly be any clearer?" CWA President Morton Bahr said. "He's actually willing to kill a critical funding bill in order to ensure that workers no longer have a right to overtime pay."
The rules went into effect Aug. 23, barely a year after the U.S. Department of Labor proposed the changes, fundamentally rewriting the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that created the 40-hour workweek. An outcry by labor unions and other opponents forced the DOL to make some changes in the original proposal, but at least 6 million workers are still at risk of losing overtime pay under the rules in their present form.
The amendment doesn't affect the smaller number of workers who stand to gain overtime rights under the new rules. Managers, supervisors and others who were exempt from overtime in the past must now be paid time-and-a-half if their salary is lower than $23,660 a year.