Rochelle Hartman writes “The Department of Labor is proposing changes to the creaky Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938. The plan would make 1.3 million additional low-wage workers eligible for extra pay for any work beyond 40 hours. Current, higher-paid recipients would be removed from eligibility.
‘Organized labor supports some change, particularly allowing more low-paid workers to be eligible for overtime. But they fear the net effect could be that more workers would lose overtime pay because of job-classification changes,’ reports Cindy Skrzycki in the Washington Post. The story here. Once the proposal is formally introduced, there will be a 90-day comment period, available, I assume on the Department of Labor website
I’ve been working on a story about this with a library law attorney, wanting to investigate what the FLSA means to non-management, public “professional” librarians. What I’ve learned so far is that the Department of Labor does not consider MLS librarians professionals because they are not treated as such by their managers, their municipalities, and the public. Shouldn’t have been news to me, but it did make me cranky. Currently, MLSs’ “non-professional” status makes them largely and legally non-exempt (eligible), but not sure how the new proposal will affect this.
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