New overtime rules? Fuck that, apparently.
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http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/22/judge-blocks-obama-administration-rule-extending-overtime-pay.html
I'm torn between laughing and facepalming because this week was the first week I have to be hourly instead of salaried-exempt in preparation for that. I wonder how much time and effort went into preparing places for this overall.
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Seems like a pretty straightforward ruling:
Mazzant, who was appointed by President Obama, held that the rule runs counter to the federal law that governs who is eligible for overtime. The law does not allow the Labor Department to determine eligibility based only on salary levels, Mazzant said.
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On that note, now I'm hearing rumors that HR is just going to "roll back" the changes that converted my position to hourly and put us back to salaried. Which should mean that I'll get back the 5 days of PTO I had to burn because of the change in pay period coverage, but that will probably fuck me because the only realistic time I have left to use that will be next week, when I have to be updating a report, since the week of the 5th there's a project I have to be here for, and I have the last 2 weeks of December booked off already and they really frown on taking 3+ full weeks of a month off at once...
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Slightly more comprehensive article. It looks like the judge isn't necessarily ruling against them determining salary levels overall, just this specific increase.
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@e4tmyl33t said in New overtime rules? Fuck that, apparently.:
It looks like the judge isn't necessarily ruling against them determining salary levels overall, just this specific increase.
I think that's only because he was simply ruling on the matter at hand, which judges are supposed to do:
Tuesday’s ruling arose from a case filed by a coalition of 21 states, who argued that the administration had exceeded its statutory authority in raising the overtime salary limit so significantly. A large number of business groups filed a similar lawsuit, and the suits were later consolidated.
In his ruling, Judge Mazzant, whom President Obama appointed, agreed with that logic and appeared to go even further, suggesting that the administration lacked the authority even to establish a salary limit — which the Labor Department has raised repeatedly since Congress enacted the underlying legislation in 1938.
“The court’s decision suggests that the Department of Labor has no authority whatsoever to regulate a salary minimum,” said Allan S. Bloom, of the law firm Proskauer Rose. (Judge Mazzant pointed out in a footnote that he was not commenting generally on the legality of establishing a salary limit, however, only the particular increase that the plaintiffs had challenged.)
But it sounds like any change would face the same fate, which makes sense. Here's the ruling and some key quotes:
The plain meanings of the terms in Section 213(a)(1), as well as Supreme Court precedent, affirms the Court’s conclusion that Congress intended the EAP exemption to depend on an employee’s duties rather than an employee’s salary.
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The Department’s role is to carry out Congress’s intent. If Congress intended the salary requirement to supplant the duties test, then Congress, and not the Department, should make that change.
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The Department has admitted that it cannot create an evaluation “based on salary alone.” Id. at 23. But this significant increase to the salary level creates essentially a de facto salary-only test. For instance, the Department estimates 4.2 million workers currently ineligible for overtime, and who fall below the minimum salary level, will automatically become eligible under the Final Rule without a change to their duties. Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees, 81 Fed. Reg. 32,391, 32,405 (May 23, 2016). Congress did not intend salary to categorically exclude an employee with EAP duties from the exemptionI think a minor tweak to salary might pass this test, but it might not. According to this ruling. Appeals / SCOTUS could obviously look at this differently.
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@boomzilla So we have a minimum salary rule now. And they increased the minimum. That apparently falls afoul of the intent of the law. But... we already have a minimum.
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@Yamikuronue said in New overtime rules? Fuck that, apparently.:
@boomzilla So we have a minimum salary rule now. And they increased the minimum. That apparently falls afoul of the intent of the law. But... we already have a minimum.
Bet I know how I can increase my billable hours!
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@Yamikuronue said in New overtime rules? Fuck that, apparently.:
@boomzilla So we have a minimum salary rule now. And they increased the minimum. That apparently falls afoul of the intent of the law. But... we already have a minimum.
And you thought node.js was weird!
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Hm.
That's interesting. Most of the WtfFramework team would have become OT eligible and therefore it would have become more economical to hire people who actually don't suck shit than to hire losers and run them ragged with OT.
Of course, it's already more economical if you care about quality measures. Which we very carefully do not measure.
That said, no effort was made to prepare for implementation.
