文章基本信息

标题：Officials, HR pros discuss altered FLSA: overtime rule revisions battle far from over
作者：Bill Leonard
期刊名称：HR Magazine
印刷版ISSN：1047-3149
出版年度：2004
卷号：April 2004
出版社：Society for Human Resource Management

Officials, HR pros discuss altered FLSA: overtime rule revisions battle far from over

Bill Leonard

After nearly a year of heated debate in Congress, the path appears to be clear for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to issue the final revisions to the rules defining the white-collar exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). But even though a proposal to block funding to enforce the new regulations was stripped from the DOL appropriations bill in January, opponents of the revised rules have vowed to fight on and stop the changes from taking effect.

Officials in the Wage and Hour Division of the DOL said that they planned to release the final version of the revised overtime exemption rules sometime in March. Many political analysts and business advocates who track this issue predicted that the regulations would be finalized and ready for publication in the Federal Register on March 31.

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Michael P. Aitken, director of governmental affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), said he believes that the DOL will choose an effective data of 90 or 120 days from the date of the regulations' release, mainly because that has been the department's pattern. In either case, the DOL most likely will offer employers a compliance grace period of six months or a year.

The rules would establish revised definitions of who is an executive, administrative or professional employee and thus not eligible for overtime pay for work beyond 40 hours in a week.

Employers and business advocacy groups aren't the only ones keeping a close eye on when the DOL will release the final rules and what the effective date would be. The Democratic leadership in the Congress is preparing for a new round of political battles once the regulations are issued.

"Democrats will continue to fight to protect overtime rights for workers," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and a staunch opponent of the revised overtime regulations.

The Democrats plan to offer amendments to several pieces of legislation that are pending in the Senate in the effort to prohibit the DOL from enacting the new rules.