Workers brought boxes of postcards to Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Detroit, asking President Bush to take back his overtime pay cut. Posted on 10/12/2004 12:03:05 AM PDT by O.C. - Old Cracker
Thousands of workers in 17 cities across the country protested President George W. Bush’s overtime pay take-away today. Bush’s new overtime pay rules, which took effect Aug. 23, will take overtime pay from a projected 6 million workers.
Workers brought boxes of postcards to Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Detroit, asking President Bush to take back his overtime pay cut.
“The Bush administration is taking food from our families by taking our overtime pay,” says John Goldstein, president of the Milwaukee County Labor Council, which organized a rally of more than 200 people outside the Bush–Cheney headquarters in West Allis, Wis. “We wanted to send a clear message to President Bush that thousands of workers and voters don’t want him to take their overtime pay.”
The workers delivered some 200,000 postcards to Bush–Cheney campaign headquarters, federal buildings and U.S. Department of Labor offices in the various cities. The postcards called on Bush to withdraw his overtime pay take-away in the face of overwhelming public opposition and repeated votes in Congress to protect workers overtime pay.
Several Bush–Cheney headquarter operations refused to let the workers inside to deliver the postcards.
Bush has ignored two votes in the U.S. House of Representatives and three in the U.S. Senate to stop the administration from cutting workers’ paychecks. Since the Bush administration announced the overtime pay cuts in March 2003—the first major rollback of worker pay protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) since it was passed in 1938—workers have sent more than 1.6 million letters, e-mails and faxes in protest.
As a U.S. senator, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry voted to protect workers’ overtime rights in the face of the Bush administration’s assault on the FLSA.
Still Time to Block Overtime Pay Take-Away
Although the new overtime pay rules are now in effect, they can be blocked or repealed by Congress. Most recently, the House, in a bipartisan 223–193 vote, passed an amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education appropriations bill Sept. 9 that would force the Labor Department to repeal the new overtime pay cuts.
The Senate Appropriations Committee Sept. 15 also passed an amendment to the same appropriations bill forcing the Labor Department to repeal its new overtime pay cuts. Both the Senate and House versions of the bill now include identical language on overtime. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who authored three amendments to block Bush’s overtime pay grab, is working with Democrats and moderate Republicans to make sure this overtime protection stays in the final version of the bill.
Meanwhile, thousands of workers have sought advice from Ask a Lawyer About Overtime Pay, an online feature giving website visitors the opportunity to e-mail questions concerning the new overtime pay regulations and read answers from a wage-and-hour attorney. Launched in August by WORKING AMERICA, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, the site also includes an overtime pay survey enabling workers to see whether their overtime pay could be at risk under Bush’s new regulations.
Take Action!
Tell President Bush to take back his overtime pay cut.
More
Read the Economic Policy Institute’s report Longer Hours, Less Pay on the impact of the overtime rules. Read how John Kerry has stood up for workers’ rights, including his efforts to stop the Bush administration’s overtime pay take-away. See how John Kerry and George W. Bush compare on working family issues. Read a report by former Labor Department officials that confirm “large numbers of workers” will lose their overtime pay protections and the report’s executive summary. Examine the myths and facts about the Bush overtime pay take-away.
Find out if you could lose your overtime pay under the Bush administration rules.
Ask a lawyer if your overtime pay is at risk.
Updated: October 07, 2004
I though this died or was reversed. I was mistaken?
communists
All these coordinated invasions of Bush/Cheney offices have been happening during the past week. Makes you wonder if the AFL-CIO has figured out that Kerry/Edwards is in bad shape and now they're demanding attention from the GOP. Now if these same kind of tactics are tried at the polls, it could get ugly.
I saw the numbers on this and when I figured it up you would have to make $43 an hour for this to effect you. These morons can spare me the crocodile tears.
They can take the day or week off to go protest that they are not getting paid overtime. Who's paying them for their time or do they not need the extra money?
Here's how it probably works. A shop steward gets a call from the local lieutenant who got a call from the home office. "Hey, Jim, I need you to round up ten or so of your best folks to do a short march at the Bush/Cheney headquarters. Huh? No, can't spare any dollars but we'll have a keg at the office for afterwards."
Stupidest thing is that these people make enough money that kerry is definitly going to raise their taxes.
This is not so simple as the AFL/CIO would have us believe.
Here is a US Department of labor web site with a different take on this
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/main.htm
I don't give labor unions much credibility for fair presentation of issues, especially during this presidential campaign.
What's just about as dumb is that every union member is protected by a contract - their overtime is part of the agreement and won't be taken away anyways.
Dumb overload here. any question as to why they vote democrat.
Agreed. Organized labor is the bane of the entrepreneur. It's structure provides perfect cover for gangsters and thugs. Much like the federal government.
"Overtime" rules are just as stupid as any other kind of wage-price controls. When we do things by bureaucratic rules instead of a free market, somebody always loses.
You should warn everyone in your title that doesn't have cookies turned off that the AFL-CIO cookies their computer.
NOT dumb; SMART!
Scare the pee-ons into joining the unions, to bolster their sagging memberships, by using this as a scare-tactic.
Convince the workers that they will lose their overtime by utilizing the union thugs to perform a bit of 'street theater' in solidarity with the unorganized workers, and demonstrate that "we're all in this together against those eeeevil rich Republican Capitalists."
....just another dummie tactic to scare voters.
The over time rules don't effect many workers ( maybe the ones making over $120.000)and like most rules like this..it still requires individual state laws to change to have any sort of effect.
Evil slaves. Don't they know it's a privilage just WORKING for us rich folks?
How can all these people be working overtime if this is the worst economy since Herbert Hoover?
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