ERIE, Pa. — Like he did at his rallies, former President Donald Trump talked about a lot of issues on Sunday. He said that no one knows what a Marxist is. He claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris wants to legalize fentanyl. He also said that American cities had been taken over by “gangs of migrants and bandits.”
None of these statements are remotely true. But then Trump said something to the effect that he hates paying overtime and doesn’t do it.
Just like Trump tries attract workers’ votes must win, it seems counterproductive to disparage an 86-year-old law that, for some workers, can mean the difference between paying rent and being evicted.
Two of his most significant allies in Ohio, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and GOP U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, are not discussing Trump’s comments. Democrat Moreno’s spokesman for the challenge, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, noted what he said was the senator’s long history of protecting and trying to expand his overtime activities.
Trump is known for blackmailing people who work for him. include illegal workers on his golf courses.
On Sunday in Erie, Trump also bragged about not paying overtime, even though it is required by federal law.
“I know a lot about overtime,” Trump said. “I didn’t like that they gave overtime. I hated it. I would attract other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I would attract other people. I wouldn’t pay. I hate it.
Overtime – the requirement that employers pay 150% of an employee’s basic salary for each hour worked in excess of 40 per week – was introduced in 1938 under Fair Labor Standards Act. This applies to all blue-collar workers whom US Department of Labor defines as “workers performing work requiring repetitive operations with hands, physical skills and energy.”
However, over the past 40 years, the workforce has moved dramatically away from jobs that meet this definition, and many people working otherwise have lost the right to work overtime.
Work involving mainly office work or computer work is exempt from the obligation to work overtime. The only exception was those who earned less than $36,000 a year through July.
The percentage of salaried workers subject to overtime wage requirements has fallen from 60% in 1975 to about 15% today. This means the average such employee loses almost $18,000 a year what it would otherwise have achieved, Time magazine reported in 2022.
During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Vance again made ponderous references to his family’s working-class roots. However, the spokesman did not answer a question about whether the Ohio senator “hates” working overtime as much as his billionaire running mate does.
Nor did Moreno, a Cleveland businessman whose net worth is estimated to be in the mid-range, respond $38 million and $173 million. The GOP Senate candidate and Trump supporter has his own issues when it comes to paying employees overtime.
In 2017, he was sued by a Massachusetts employee who alleged that Moreno refused to pay him overtime compensation he had earned. Moreno testified in the case that he destroyed monthly overtime records.
Sen. Moreno is challenging Brown, who has long been a supporter of tougher overtime requirements, his office said.
Last year he introduced Reinstatement of the Overtime Compensation Act of 2023which he believes will augment the percentage of salaried employees eligible to work overtime from 15% to 55%. And this year, the Department of Labor adopted Brown’s plan increasing the salary threshold under which overtime would be required from $36,000 to $44,000 in July and $59,000 on January 1, and updating every three years after 2027.
However, unlike legislation passed by Congress, the Department of Labor’s rules can be reversed by the recent administration.
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