On June 18th, 2014, Senator Tom Harkin along with 8 other Senate Democrats launched the Restoring Overtime Pay for Working Americans Act in order to protect low and mid-wage salaried workers. As our outdated overtime laws deny many Americans nationwide pay that reflect their hours worked, this legislation would help employees achieve the simple right of being adequately compensated for a long days work.
Changes would be gradual and would look to raise the overtime salary threshold for executive, administrative and professional workers from $455 a week to $1,090 a week and the threshold for “highly compensated employees” would aim to be raised from $100,000 to $125,000. This legislation would also help easily identify if a worker’s “primary duty” would classify them as exempt from receiving overtime or not. This Act would restore the 50% threshold regulation that states if an employee spends more than 50% of his/her time completing tasks that were not considered exempt they would then be entitled to overtime pay. Finally, this bill would look to pursue penalties from employers for violating recordkeeping laws of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which will in turn serve as a strong incentive for companies to maintain adequate records of hours, wages, bonuses and commissions.
If pro business republicans can get on board, this legislation could be instrumental in guaranteeing restored overtime protections to cover about 47 percent of current salaried workers ultimately increasing incomes for those working longer hours.