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Hundreds Rally For Overtime

July 1, 2003

Chanting and cheering, hooting and hollering, hundreds of workers rallied in front of the U.S. Department of Labor on Monday to protest the systematic unraveling of one of the most basic tenets of American workaday life: the 40-hour workweek.

IBEW members Don Hartley, left, Martha Pultar, International Officer staffer Carmen Marsans and member Alan Freeman participated in the Labor Department protest.

The agency charged with upholding labor laws and defending workers is planning to make it much harder for at least eight million workers to earn overtime pay by changing the eligibility requirements. Monday marked the final day of the public comment period for the new rules. In the past 10 days, said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, more than 50,000 people submitted comments to the Department of Labor.

The Labor Department auditorium, a public space available for reservation, was originally the venue for the rallyuntil officials there revoked permission to hold the event. So the protest moved outside the building, where busloads of union members picketed the agency.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka:  "The Bush administration is basically giving employers a manual on how to pay off workers and force the ones you keep to work double hours... FOR FREE."

"I guess they dont want us calling the publics attention to this Bush administration-sponsored pay cut," Trumka said. "But their plan to silent you didnt work. We still have the first amendment and we still have our right to free speech."

A report released last week that revealed millions more workers would lose overtime pay than the Labor Department predicted.

"The intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act is to make it more costly for employers to require workers to work overtime," said Communications Workers of America President Morton Bahr. "The Bush administration proposal does the opposite."

Judy Conti, co-founder of the D.C. Employment Justice Center accused the Bush administration of selling these proposed regulations as good for workers, when it would create a new class of low-paid executives.

The proposed regulations could threaten the paychecks of 8 million workers.

"Were going to see promotions and people with positions of increasing responsibility that do nothing more than amount to a pay cut," she said.

Two workers in the media industrywho directed their comments in part to reporters and photographers covering the eventspoke out against the proposal. "This is a travesty against working people and a crime against those who work in broadcast and media," said Moe Thomas of CWA.

Labor advocates have been fighting assaults to overtime on several fronts for months. Congressional supporters defeated a legislative attempt to erode overtime rules last month. The Labor Department rules could be implemented as early as September.

Above & Home Page: Hundreds picketed the Labor Department on Monday to protest overtime regulations.

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