Joint comments filed with the Department of Labor outline substantial concerns with proposal

Washington, D.C. – Today, the National Restaurant Association and the Restaurant Law Center (RLC) filed comments with the Department of Labor calling for them to withdraw the recently posted Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on increased overtime thresholds.

The joint opposition to the proposal sets out four substantive concerns:

• The proposal sets the standard minimum salary too high by using data that includes some of the highest wage jurisdictions in the country, skewing the final level, creating an unequal burden on restaurant operators and other business owners in lower-wage regions.
• The proposal uses national data to set salary levels for highly compensated employees too high. This could be corrected in part by using regional data in the final rule.
• The proposal lacks any joint employment safe harbor for restaurant franchisors who help their franchisees implement new wage-and-hour requirements, unlike previous rules and should be added.
• The proposal includes an automatic “indexing” mechanism for the salary threshold, which we strongly oppose because the DOL does not have the authority to include the provision in the final rule.

“This rule is meant to draw a line separating exempt from non-exempt employees, however, by setting the salary threshold inordinately high for the foodservice industry, the Proposed Rule essentially eliminates the duties test meant to evaluate...

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