Today the AP and Washington Post printed stories indicating that Bush was reconsidering his stance on overtime pay. I just received an e-mail from MoveOn.org indicating this is a sham and that the press, as usual are not bothering to question the official White House story.
Here's the substance of the e-mail:
--
Today, the Bush administration is formally introducing new rules that will make millions of people ineligible for overtime protection when they work more than 40 hours per week.
This change has been in the works for months, and thousands of MoveOn members have called on Congress to oppose the new rules. Congress has responded -- bipartisan majorities in both houses have voted against rolling back overtime.
Bush is feeling the heat, but his corporate-CEO backers are determined to fatten their profits by shortchanging working people, so the White House is pushing ahead with the new rules, accompanied by an aggressive spin campaign. Already, stories in the AP
(1) and the Washington Post
(2) have suggested that Bush had a last-minute change of heart, and acted to extend overtime protections to more people, rather than gutting them.
II. Talking points.
The media have it wrong -- Bush is cutting overtime pay
The Bush Administration has said that only workers earning less than $23,660 a year would be guaranteed the right to overtime pay. Everybody earning more than that amount could be caught up in several other changes to eligibility rules that take away overtime pay. For nine months, the Administration has been fighting tooth and nail to kill legislation approved by both houses of Congress that would do nothing more than prohibit overtime cuts. The Senate and House already voted once last year to prohibit overtime cuts, but the White House strong-armed Congress to prevent that overtime protection from becoming law.
Low-income workers
The Bush Administration has been loudly exaggerating the benefits of a helpful but woefully inadequate change that would expand overtime coverage for some workers. This group is extremely small because most workers who might be helped don't need the help. They are already guaranteed overtime pay through other criteria, based on their job responsibilities.
Overtime cuts kill jobs
The Bush overtime cuts will hurt the economy. By taking away workers’ overtime rights, President Bush is discouraging job creation. He is encouraging businesses to overwork their existing staff (for no extra pay) rather than hire new workers. The overtime statute was originally intended to encourage job creation.
Overtime cuts are pay cuts
The new Bush overtime regulation is a pay cut for American workers. When workers are stripped of their overtime rights, their employers can now force them to work overtime for no extra pay. Overtime pay makes up one-fourth of the weekly earnings of workers who earn overtime, an average of $161 per week.
Bush has a credibility gap on overtime.
Over the past year, Administration officials have repeatedly misrepresented their proposal and its effects on workers. The Department of Labor (DOL) routinely claimed that only 644,000 people would lose overtime protection, when its own economic analysis concluded that an additional 1.5 to 2.7 million people would be affected. We also know that DOL inflated the number of low-income workers who would benefit, and in fact DOL admits it has no way of knowing how many would benefit, if any.
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