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'Back off': Texas restaurateur fights Labor Department's new overtime rules
Fox Business ^ | 01 Nov 2024 | Hannah Ray Lambert

Posted on 11/01/2024 11:31:25 PM PDT by blueplum

,,,Mayfield's father gave up life as a struggling cowboy and opened the family's first Dairy Queen in the late 1940s. Now, the younger Mayfield is lauded as the "King of Queens" by the Austin-American Statesman.

And the King is taking on the federal government, accusing the Department of Labor of overstepping its authority by unilaterally raising the minimum salary employees must be paid to be exempt from overtime pay....

Mayfield has been locked in a battle with the Department of Labor for the last two years, suing for the right to offer his managers the compensation packages he sees fit. His lawyers at the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation argue any rule imposing a salary requirement exceeds the department's authority and violates the non-delegation doctrine, the principle that Congress cannot relinquish its lawmaking ability to other entities.

"This is free enterprise," Mayfield said, arguing that he should be able to set the wages that work for his business and "if people don't like it, they go somewhere else."...

Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Luke Wake said that if Congress wants a higher salary floor, they need to pass it themselves, rather than give DOL a "blank check."

"We have a fundamental breakdown in separation of powers," Wake told Fox News Digital. "Congress should be writing the law, not the secretary of labor."....

(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: despotism; dol; employment; jobs; labor; overtime; robertmayfield; separationofpowers; texas; wages
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current salary floor requiring mandatory overtime be paid to anyone making less than $43,888. Slated to increase Jan. 1, to $58,656 with Dems wanting the threshhold set at $82,732 by 2026 with automatic annual increases
1 posted on 11/01/2024 11:31:25 PM PDT by blueplum
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To: blueplum

Let’s be blunt: DoL is doing this because businesses are contravening the law by describing every worker as a salaried employee. “They can go work somewhere else”? The whole point is he wants to not pay them for the work they’re doing. Don’t let the description of “overtime” fool anyone; this isn’t about not paying them time and a half for working overtime; this is about not paying them AT ALL.

I hope he goes bankrupt and has to sell every franchise he owns.


2 posted on 11/02/2024 12:17:48 AM PDT by dangus
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To: dangus

You cannot describe every W-2 employee as Salaried. They’ve made it significantly harder to do so.

It appears he wishes to offer other options to compensation for his managers other then pay.

This is often times good for both businesses and their employees because other options are not taxed at the same rates as income is, such as retirement plans,insurance or Fringe benefits. You work 2 days a week to pay the damn government income taxes. sometimes more then that.

Most states require payment for salaried employees to equal expected average hours per week. if you work 50 avg, you get paid 50.


3 posted on 11/02/2024 12:31:26 AM PDT by SPDSHDW (Execute Order 66....)
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To: SPDSHDW

This is another case for Gorsuch and the rapidly disappearing Chevron Doctrine. DOL can’t make laws - only interpret the ones enacted by Congress and signed by the President.

DOL is nothing more than a super powered EPA in making laws. I hope the DQ franchisee cleans up.

Gwjack


4 posted on 11/02/2024 3:33:16 AM PDT by gwjack (May God give America His richest blessings.)
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To: gwjack

Given the chance, Clarence Thomas would disembowel the Administrative State.


5 posted on 11/02/2024 3:48:13 AM PDT by Jacquerie (ArticleVBlog.com)
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To: blueplum

And now cometh Loper Bright.

I would love to win a case like this on separation of powers. But the Supreme Court didn’t rule in Loper on that basis. Still Loper did say, “hey agencies, show us Congressional authority for your regs or it’s a no go and you get NO DEFERENCE to fill in the blanks.”


6 posted on 11/02/2024 3:48:59 AM PDT by FlipWilson
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To: dangus

The last people who need to be dictating how much money swaps hands and under what circumstances is broke, corrupt government. That’d be like Stacey Abrams telling gym owners how to run their weight loss programs programs.


7 posted on 11/02/2024 4:01:02 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Jacquerie

I agree Jacquerie. Many people missed the overruling of the Chevron doctrine by a 6-3 SCOTUS vote. Jusstice Gorsuch, in his 2024 book, “Overruled” talks about the vast dangers of the Chevron doctrine and the impact of allowing agencies to establish laws and their interpretations. I have a friend that believes that this book is “predicting” that SCOTUS will cause bureaucracy driven laws to be destroyed when the “right” case(s) get(s) s to SCOTUS. He says that lower courts, and even liberals are beginning to see the absolute merit in Gorsuch’s position.

The end (of the bureaucratic state) is upon us. I hope it occurs quickly and unexpectedly.

Gwjack


8 posted on 11/02/2024 4:09:42 AM PDT by gwjack (May God give America His richest blessings.)
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To: SPDSHDW

Since when were restaurant workers exempt?


9 posted on 11/02/2024 4:12:03 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker
Since when were restaurant workers exempt?

The store manager would be exempt, possibly shift managers if they aren't doing manual labor all the time.

10 posted on 11/02/2024 4:23:59 AM PDT by EVO X ( )
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To: EVO X

Then I could see 60-hour work weeks as a restaurant manager yielding less than the legal minimum hourly rate.


11 posted on 11/02/2024 4:28:52 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: dangus

Ummm - even if you were right (which you aren’t) the DOL doesn’t have the authority to take such actions - this is Congress shirking it’s duties because it doesn’t want to get blamed for even more inflation...


12 posted on 11/02/2024 4:50:48 AM PDT by trebb (So many fools - so little time...)
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To: 9YearLurker

In this case the owner is paying hourly workers at least $15 per hour. $7.25 is the Texas minimum wage. I would assume the manager is better paid than the hourly staff on a hourly basis.


13 posted on 11/02/2024 4:54:06 AM PDT by EVO X ( )
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To: blueplum

How many know that truckers paid by the hour aren’t entitled to overtime at all?


14 posted on 11/02/2024 5:20:48 AM PDT by VeniVidiVici (If you're Black don't Vote Blue cuz then you'll just be Black and Blue)
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To: blueplum

The guy is correct, his payment strategy is what works best in the restaurant business.

I wonder how many of us have worked at Dairy Queen, I have.


15 posted on 11/02/2024 5:49:40 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: 9YearLurker
I worked for less than minimum wage for at least two years in the oilfields as an engineer. It took years to make it up. Those were the terms I agreed to. 50 hours a week? In your dreams. In 42 years I never saw anything less and usually 60 or more. That was just the nature of that business.

DOL is likely out of bounds based on the overturn of the Chevron Deference this year. Hopefully this is a confirmation test case and DOL gets handed their head.

16 posted on 11/02/2024 6:11:21 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (More important than why there was nobody protecting the AGR roof, how did Crooks know that?)
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To: blueplum

Under the Chevron ruling, if Congress didn’t say it, it doesn’t exist.

If Trump gets in, this could be the hammer he needs to gut the agencies.


17 posted on 11/02/2024 6:15:04 AM PDT by lurk (u)
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To: gwjack

I recall that congress being too lazy to pass a finished environmental act dealing with point source pollution left it to alphabet agencies to
“promulgate” the regulations. Public hearings were just a motion for them to ram onerous things on us. Like natzi and reedoski wanted passing only a pesky formality, lead on paid slaves.


18 posted on 11/02/2024 6:15:15 AM PDT by Recompennation (Don’t blame me my vote didn’t count)
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To: Sequoyah101
DOL is likely out of bounds based on the overturn of the Chevron Deference this year. Hopefully this is a confirmation test case and DOL gets handed their head.

My memory is a bit foggy, but I remember DOL doing this sometime ago likely during the latter stages of the Obama administration. It was overturned by a district court. I don't remember what happened after that. Maybe the rules were rewritten during one of the massive covid spending packages or they are just ignoring previous court decisions..

19 posted on 11/02/2024 6:29:53 AM PDT by EVO X ( )
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To: Recompennation

Becompennation -

You “speak” the truth. Some say congresscritters are lazy, as you do. Others say it is because they have the fear of the electorate upon them. Some, like me, think both are in play.

My friend has suggested that SCOTUS is slowly poising itself to be able to rapidly reel in bureaucratic overreach, judicial overreach, and restoration to the Founders’ ideas of state’s rights. I hope my friend is right. He believes that the task of restoration is mammoth and small steps to enable have to be done in order to empower “strong” judges and leaders to return to the 18th Century ideals. Immediate, vast, lightning change would be more dangerous before the battlefield is shaped. So, Patriots like us, wait patiently for the stars to align. But we prepare for the order.

Stay strong in these turbulent times, my FRiend

Gwjack


20 posted on 11/02/2024 6:34:54 AM PDT by gwjack (May God give America His richest blessings.)
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