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AFL-CIO Ads Target
Overtime Pay The Senate passed an amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill that bars the president from stripping overtime protections away from workers. The House is expected to vote on the measure next week. The Bush plan would eliminate overtime pay for firefighters, police officers, secretaries, cooks, paralegals, administrative workers, journalists, dental hygienists and others, according to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute. Since the 40-hour work week became law in 1938, many American workers have come to depend on overtime pay. Overtime pay accounts for as much 25% of the income for workers who worked overtime in 2000.
If the overtime rule change
is implemented, many employers will force their employees to work longer hours,
rather than hire new employees, a practice that will further weaken the nation’s
already anemic job market. |