Monday morning musings for workplace watchers.
Overtime Rule Litigation|Expanding Anti-Bias Laws
Rebecca Rainey: The Biden administration is defending a Trump-era overtime rule in federal court in an attempt to quash a lawsuit that threatens to undermine its plans to issue another regulation to expand overtime protections to more workers.
Although Democrats say that Trump-era update doesn’t go far enough to protect workers, in recent filings in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, attorneys representing the Biden Department of Labor have requested a quick decision to uphold the rule.
Government attorneys argue that the Trump DOL was well within its authority to update the overtime test, as recognized by prior court rulings, and that Congress explicitly granted the agency the authority to “define and delimit” exemptions to overtime pay requirements.
A refresher: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, workers are exempt from overtime pay if they meet a three-part test: they are salaried, make more than a certain amount per year, and work in a “bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity.” The Trump administration raised the salary threshold piece of that test—below which workers qualify for time-and-a-half overtime pay when they work over 40 hours in a week—to $35,568. The DOL also plans to make updates to the overtime exemption test this summer.
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