Sixty-three percent of Americans work more than 40 hours a week, with some 40 percent exceeding the 50-hours-a-week mark. “There is a big push in industry and hospitals to move to the 12-hour shift, with no overtime pay after eight hours. All the studies show that this leads to more health problems and accidents.” —Steven Ashby, Department of Labor Studies, IUB Ashby Dau-Schmidt “In general, I think the review of the FLSA is a very healthy step. It’s an old law, and it’s time to review and update it. In terms of our organization, I think the impact will be minimal.” — Ellen Poffenberger, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Human Resources Administration, IUPUI

Fast forward six decades. Although the 40-hour week is still considered the benchmark in American work culture, most researchers would argue that it is nearly as obsolete as most of the factory jobs to which it was originally applied. According to a recent survey by Expedia.com, 63 percent of Americans work more than 40 hours a week, with some 40 percent exceeding the 50-hour a week mark. More than $21 billion dollars in vacation time goes unused annually (and back to employers!), as we spend 2.5 more weeks—and three months more—at work than do our Japanese and western European counterparts, respectively.

Steven Ashby, assistant professor in the Division of Labor Studies at IUB and an expert on workers’ rights, offered the following summary of the situation:

“Basically, there is a move by employers to have fewer workers do more work. Part of that is because of pension costs, but a bigger part of is the cost of health care. While it isn’t the employers’ fault that health care goes up 10 to 20 percent a year, it is their fault that their associations have fought a universal health-care system, which every country in western Europe has. Here, the employers have to pay for employees’ health care, and that’s the essence of the problem,” he said. “There is a big push in industry and hospitals to move to the 12-hour shift, with no over-time pay after eight hours,” said Ashby. “All the studies show that this leads to more health problems and accidents. Unions agreed to these terms reluctantly because they are afraid to strike for fear of being locked out or permanently replaced.”

Currently in Congress, the Family-Time Flexibility Act would amend the FLSA and is seen by many labor leaders as a threat to the already tenuous—or fictitious—40-hour work week. Although the bill’s supporters argue that the legislation would not have a negative impact on wages and will make it easier for workers to spend more time with their families, the Labor Research Association points out that most workers would only get overtime if they work more than 80 hours in a two-week period. For millions of workers who count on overtime to survive, the impact would be financially disastrous.

An additional aspect to the proposed FLSA changes is the redefinition of exempt status for workers. Under the salary rates that were last updated in 1979 and are still in effect today, an employee earning only $8,060 a year may qualify as an exempt “executive.” The current proposal would increase the minimum salary level required for exemption as a “white-collar” employee to $22,100 per year. Elaine Chao, U.S. secretary of labor, has indicated that the reform is long overdue and will allow 1.3 million workers the opportunity to gain over-time protection.

Opponents see loopholes in the redefinition of what constitutes exempt status as making it easier for employers to classify millions of low-wage employees as exempt and forced to work longer hours without overtime. For a detailed description of the proposed FLSA revisions, go to this Web site:

http://www.dol.gov/

Having just returned from a trip to Tokyo, Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, Willard and Margaret Carr Professor of labor and employment law at the IU School of Law-Bloomington, said: “The Japanese asked about the proposed changes and wanted to know if they wouldn’t make it possible for employers to buy workers’ rights.

“I think the real question is: ‘Do these changes exempt people who are economically dependent?’ The original FLSA economic realities test tried to determine if someone was economically dependent and, therefore, would benefit from the protections of the law in specifying minimum wages and overtime pay for hours in excess of 40 hours,” Dau-Schmidt said.

Ellen Poffenberger, assistant vice chancellor of human resources administration at IUPUI, concurs with Secretary Chao’s statement that the FLSA language needed to be revised. “In general, I think the review of the FLSA is a very healthy step. It’s an old law, and it’s time to review and update it,” she said. “In terms of our organization, I think the impact will be minimal. When you look at the new guidelines, that is clear. There are no exempt workers at IUPUI that make less than the proposed $22,100 threshold, so we’re not going to lose people to non-exempt status due to the new salary test. We have very few non-exempt workers who make close to $65,000 a year who would be affected by the new legislation, and we would scrutinize those cases carefully to ensure we are in compliance with the new regulations once they are finalized.” 

Dan Rives, associate vice president of University Human Resources at IUB concurred with Poffenberger that the impact on IU staff will be negligible. “The big changes will take place in the retail, service and manufacturing private sector,” he said.

On Feb. 6, University Human Resource Services issued a memorandum announcing that the university has retained the services of Mercer Human Resources Consulting to assist with a review of the university’s methodology for evaluating jobs and classifying positions and the criteria for determining pay. Regular updates on this project will be available in upcoming months at this Web site:

http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/csi.html

For more information about the proposed overtime changes and topics concerning employee rights, go to:

http://www.workplacefairness.org/

http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/overtimepay/underattack.cfm

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