Donald Trump, the GOP, and his wealthy backers had a real problem. On December 1st, an Obama administration rule that would expand by multiple millions of people the number of those who were eligible to receive overtime pay up to those who earn $47,500 a year was set to start:
In 2014, President Obama directed the Secretary of Labor to update the overtime regulations to reflect the original intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and to simplify and modernize the rules so they’re easier for workers and businesses to understand and apply. The department has issued a final rule that will put more money in the pockets of middle class workers – or give them more free time.
The final rule will:
– Raise the salary threshold indicating eligibility from $455/week to $913 ($47,476 per year), ensuring protections to 4.2 million workers.
– Automatically update the salary threshold every three years, based on wage growth over time, increasing predictability.
– Strengthen overtime protections for salaried workers already entitled to overtime.
– Provide greater clarity for workers and employers.
The final rule will become effective on December 1, 2016, giving employers more than six months to prepare. The final rule does not make any changes to the duties test for executive, administrative and professional employees.
The Republicans did not want this to go into effect, because if it did, they would find it difficult to repeal on 20 January, because even the American people are not dumb enough to notice their overtime being cut just two months after they started to receive it.
Based on exit polls, almost 20,000,000 Trump voters would lose time and a half overtime under this change. #MakeAmericaBrokeAgain pic.twitter.com/LRnl22tJh7
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) November 21, 2016
Fortunately for the Republicans, this just happened:
A Texas judge blocked President Obama’s bid to expand overtime pay protections to millions of Americans on Tuesday, thwarting a key presidential priority just days before it was set to take effect.
The Labor Department rule would have doubled the salary level at which hourly workers must be paid extra for overtime pay, from $23,660 to $47,476. Siding with business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Texas District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III halted it.
The rule, finalized in May, represented the first such change in more than a decade and was hailed at the time as the most consequential action the Obama administration could take for middle-class workers without congressional involvement.
And with that, a significant payraise to millions of voters, economically anxious and otherwise, was strangled in the crib, and no fingerprints were left behind. Come January 20, Trump, Paul Ryan, and the coterie of wealthy industrialists and banksters who run this nation will quietly rescind the rule change, and no one will even know it ever existed.
America, fuck yeah!
Luthe
Goddammit, I was counting on this going into effect. *eyes paycheck warily*
schrodinger's cat
Can a Texas judge block the rule for non Texans too?
Corner Stone
Glad to see their economic anxiety is being borne out by their representative voting choices.
Ruckus
All those people who thought that President Obama had a time machine and went back and fixed his birth? Once again projection.
Welcome to the 1850s ladies and gentlemen.
PsiFighter37
Every day is just a clown car full of fucking shit. It’s hard not get demoralized by it all.
Corner Stone
Me: Man, you know you are having your wages and/or time stolen from you, right?
Economic Anxiety Voter: That was never going to help me and mine, though!
Me: Why not? That’s right where your wheelhouse is.
EAV: Naw, that was going to help messicans, not me.
Me: But don’t you make…?
EAV: Yeah. Now where’s muh ballot?
Mary G
It’s the Democrats who are responsible for telling voters about this. Elections have consequences and the Republicans need to be revealed.
hovercraft
@schrodinger’s cat:
For Texas, and then it will be challenged in other states in Federal Court citing the Texas case, and so on and so on up the chain, where guess where it goes, to the Supreme Court newly reconstituted conservative majority.
JMG
@Corner Stone: This might piss people off if they were told about it.
Major Major Major Major
What’s the judge’s rationale? How does this exceed the authority of the NLRB? Is he saying that any amount at which overtime is required would exceed their authority? Interstate commerce how the fuck does it work
geg6
@JMG:
The local news had a big feature tonight touting the new overtime rule. Not a word that the GOP is working to get it rescinded. It will likely go into effect here and there will be a lotta surprised Trumpsters who will be wondering how come they lost their overtime. And I will laugh in their faces.
Major Major Major Major
@geg6: as you should.
Judge Crater
Trump himself has nine or ten cases before the NLRB. He gets to appoint about half the board, so, since there is no conflict of interest, he’ll make sure he comes out on top. And he’s got 4,000 or so sub-cabinet level officials to appoint. This is where the real monkey-wrenching will take place.
Sad….very sad.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: It’ll be appealed ASAP.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
By longstanding tradition, district judges are recommended by their state’s senators. That means a state with two conservative senators, like Texas, will generally get conservative judges even when the president is liberal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
They do. Over and over and over and over and over again. Then the NRA tells them Clinton/Gore/OBama/Clinton wants to take their guns, and the brother-in-law, who knows about these things, tells them Obama gave free phones to black people, and their pastor tells them Clinton wants to kill the babies and ban the Bible, and when they’re driving to work half listening to the radio, everybody from NPR to the local shock jock is talking about emails, whether it’s “further questions” or “that bitch delete the stand down order from Benghazi!”, or somewhere in between.
Ian
@efgoldman:
But can we talk about feral Hawaiian cats and who should lose their head over them?
mkro
Meanwhile, we’ll get the incorrigible DC press continuing to ask Obama is he feels he’s at fault for the middle class voting for Trump instead of Clinton.
Again & again, they let the GOP off the hook for any responsibility.
Like, how did they just get away with stonewalling a US Supreme Court nomination for AN ENTIRE YEAR ??
mkro
Oh, BTW, I’m certain that our new billionaire-by-inheritance POTUS will be looking out for those middle class earners that he’s do endeared to.
hitchhiker
Trying so hard not to celebrate when things go bad for DT followers. I got un-friended on fb by my ignorant MIchigan 55 yr old brother yesterday .. he seems to think that my practice of deleting his gloating comments on my own page is rude. What do you do with that level of dumb?
He’s the one who’s going to be in trouble for the next 30 yrs & then have nothing to leave his kids. I’m safe and sane on the left coast, turning 65 just in time to beat the Ryan rollback of Medicare. Our investment situation is looking great, and I expect that DT’s awesome tax cuts will be a boon to my software engineer spouse, who’ll be working for a few years yet.
But I’m the bad guy here b/c I got vocal about the insanity of rejecting a competent woman in favor of a vulgar conman.
schrodinger's cat
@mkro: The mainstream media is the propaganda arm of the Republican party.
Mike G
@Corner Stone:
Glad to see their economic anxiety is being borne out by their representative voting choices.
Repukes have benefited greatly from economic anxiety in this last election, so they are eager to widen and extend such economic anxiety. Just as they benefit from mediocre education systems as it creates more low-info voters and rabies radio listeners.
The party that benefits from failure and misery is sure to generate more of it.
Davebo
@schrodinger’s cat: He’s a federal judge for the Eastern District of Texas.
In other words, he’s bad, he’s nationwide.
schrodinger's cat
@Davebo: Can this decision be appealed?
Kyle
@geg6:
And they can suck on it. Unfortunately there’s a lot of hard working non-Trumpanzees getting screwed.
If the Dems have any backbone they’ll be shouting about this ripoff til the midterms. Trump’s “looking out for the little guy” transparent BS needs to be slammed against the wall until even the densest Rush listener gets it.
Ruckus
@Kyle:
Anyone dense enough to believe limpballs is denser than that wall. It may feel good to do this but in the end it will accomplish little except to knock down the wall.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: oh this poor, poor metaphor.
Judge Crater
Forget about fascism. What we’ve got brewing is a return to Dickensian capitalism facilitated by regulatory capture. Workers will simply have no recourse against the corporatocracy. The GOP is going to smash the federal labor unions and destroy civil service protections.
It’s now Paul Ryan’s world. The suckers in counties that voted huge majorities for Trump (and are usually the poorest in the nation) are going to find out what making America great again is all about.
EBT
Fuck these people.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Those benches stay empty.
dp
@Adam L Silverman: To the Fifth Circuit, where liberal ideas go to die.
schrodinger's cat
Why is it that Democrats follows all norms and Republicans none? There is something wrong in this picture.
goblue72
@schrodinger’s cat: Federal court rulings are binding on courts only within that District (thus a circuit court ruling is binding only on district courts within that circuit, for example).
However, as a remedy, a Federal District court does have the authority to issue a nationwide injunction (which the Texas court did in this case) in order to address the “harm”. 21 states, along with various business, filed the suit. I assume the 21 states were all red state nutbar states.
Texas is well known favorite jurisdiction for nutbars and corporate lobbyists to file court cases opposing Democratic legislation and regulation. We will have to have “our” team get used to doing the same in friendly jurisdictions like the 9th Circuit in California or 1st Circuit in Massachusetts.
agorabum
Kinda wish this rule had gone into effect Dec 2015 so that it could have been discussed during the election…
SiubhanDuinne
Sorry to go off topic, but the relevant thread is long dead.
Tried to watch the National Medal of Fredom awards ceremony this afternoon, but the feed kept dropping out. But just watched the entire thing on YouTube (link) and the whole event is well worth watching.
For one thing, POTUS is just a natural emcee and comedian. He has an exquisite sense of timing, and of course he does that little “heh!” thing chuckling at his own jokes, which I love. But more than that, he has — and shows — a genuine affection and respect for the accomplishments of the NMF recipients. It’s moving beyond words to see Ellen DeGeneres unsuccessfully fighting back tears, or watching Obama, who is not a short man, stretching on his tippy-toes to hang the medal around Kareem Abdul Jabar’s shoulders. (Obama maybe reaches the bottom of KAJ’s chin. Cicely Tyson and Maya Lin maybe reach the bottom of Obama’s chin. I would love to see a photo of CT or ML standing next to KAJ, just saying.) Physicists, musicians (Diana Ross looks fantastic, glad to say), actors (Robert Redford looks horrible, sorry to say), architects, philanthropists (Bill and Melinda Gates are just cute) — a really nice assortment of Americans. If you’re so inclined, do watch the entire ceremony. You won’t be sorry.
schrodinger's cat
@goblue72: Thanks for the explanation. So no appeal is possible, then?
amk
Barnum: #MAGA is great.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Judge Crater: No they won’t, because when their wet dreams don’t come true, it will be blamed on the browns and blacks, the filthy hippies, then we’ll have another Reichstag fire set by radical Islamic terrorists, and we’ll be off to the races. Trump voters will never see that their misery will come from their votes for Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes and I would expect a quick appeal. Given its got to go to the 5th Circuit, which is exceedingly conservative, I would also expect the appeal to be rejected and then a quick appeal to the Supreme Court provided there is time for it before the inauguration.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: No, an appeal is possible. It just is unlikely to succeed in that circuit. Also, by the time an appeal is filed, briefed, scheduled for oral argument, the shitgibbon will have rescinded the rule.
Chet Murthy
@JMG: *Cough* yeah, Jeff Zucker of CNN is ON IT!
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Apparently. They’ve been quiet, too quiet… Especially that Loomis fellow who is a well known agitator.//
Lee
Bush Jr. cuts overtime pay.
Obama reinstates overtime pay.
Fed Judge blocks it before Trump can overturn it.
Guess who is going to be the bad guy in this?
Adam L Silverman
@Judge Crater: Corporatocracy is a type of fascism.
Baud
I wish the Dems weren’t all about identity politics.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@agorabum: (ETA: broken links that I couldn’t fix, but it was from the Clinton campaign website)
August 15, 2016: Trump didn’t come out against the overtime rule, as have many Republicans (including House Speaker Paul Ryan, who in May called it an “absolute disaster”). Nor did Trump embrace the overtime rule, as did Hillary Clinton (“will lift up workers nationwide”).
I googled Hillary Clinton Overtime. Even NewsMax wrote it up. The information was there.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: hey, email me back and I can get that up and running this week.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus:
So what we do? Name call the Electoral College elect? Is that the plan for the next 4 years, making up snarky and clever names, while they eat our lunch.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: What can do about this rule? Nothing. What can we do in general? We can fight where we can. We can organize for 2018. We can start planning for 2020.
Philbert
@agorabum: THIS. He should have put this in in his first term so it would be solidly in place. By delaying until the end so many, so many, good executive actions will be nipped in the bud.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: The 5th Circuit folks did do the right thing on Texas’s voter ID laws. So 1) anything is possible and 2) Hell has frozen over.
lollipopguild
I am affected by this rule and my company has already told all of the people who will see the pay raise that their pay is going up on Dec. 1. Other companies have probably done the same. Some of my fellow employees will see a $10,000 to $15,000 a year pay raise. Me not so much. If the GOP reverses this they will get the blame but if its a judge then the GOP will get away scott- free.
Omnes Omnibus
@Philbert: Everything would not fit in his first term.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Always blame Dems first, Omnes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Fucking annoying.
burnspbesq
@Major Major Major Major:
I never took a labor law course, but I dimly remember from Ad Law that challenges to the validity of final NLRB rules had to go to the D.C. Circuit. I’m totally in WTF-land here.
amk
@Philbert: Yeah right, it’s all obama’s fault. No wonder the left continues to lose at every level.
Baud
@burnspbesq: This isn’t an NLRB rule. It’s a DOL rule.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: It doesn’t surprise me. And I wasn’t meaning to make lite of the loss. I’ve read through some of the comments in the threads pre announcement and the commenters (and I’m sure the lurkers too) are taking it hard. I liked SEK’s writing – never met him, don’t know him (I’ve corresponded with Farley on occasion and once or twice with Loomis), but he did some excellent stuff that made a lot of people laugh and he did it in a way that was very special.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Good point.
@Baud: Shit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I will say Obama has disappointed me by not putting the kibosh on that stupid fucking turkey pardoning position.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: And I think they also tried to do it through legislation so this wouldn’t happen a few times and couldn’t get it through because of the unprecedented obstruction.
Iowa Old Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: From the pics I’ve seen, his daughters agree with you.
Baud
@efgoldman: It’s DOL. And they weren’t going to update the overtime rules in the middle of the recession.
burnspbesq
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, but that was after a trial, and the district court’s findings of fact were so extensive and so obviously supported by the evidence that not even the Fifth Circuit could say they were clearly erroneous.
The standard for getting a preliminary injunction is much more lenient.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump may be good for something. He doesn’t seem like the pardoning type.
Adam L Silverman
@burnspbesq: Tracking. But its nice to know that even their judicial ideology can be overcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: He likes turkeys that don’t get caught.
beth
We’ve got some HR/Payroll people who have spent a lot of hours working on this who are pretty pissed off it ever went into effect in the first place (God forbid they have to do any extra work; I hear the same complaints about Obamacare from them). Their shitty attitude filtered down to the people who were affected by it. Unfortunately the people who were changed from salary to hourly because of this are not going to see any immediate benefit due to the seasonality of the business. They will make most of their overtime next summer and wind up with more money for the year but people can’t see past their next paycheck this week. I’m not against the change but it’s complicated and been a really hard sell.
Dread
@JMG: Maybe. I don’t know. I’m starting to think a lot of Americans enjoy being fucked over by the GOP even if it makes their lives worse.
And if they do get pissed off about it, it’ll just be more proof that government doesn’t work for them, so it’s time to vote GOP again to make government smaller because… reasons.
Baud
@Dread:
Are you not familiar with the parable of the sparrows and rods?
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: His rationale – Obama did it. It will be interesting to see these Texas judges flip after Jan/ 20th and give der Fuhrer ANYTHING he wants.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: that too
Davebo
@schrodinger’s cat: Of course. But not before Donald takes the reigns.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Yea, verily.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Baud: Sparrow the rod, spoil the voter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Verily, the people who dwelt under bridges were pleased to braise their sparrows on rods, for they saw that their neighbors, who were dusky of hue, had none.
Davebo
@efgoldman:
I think it’s the best way for them to show respect.
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus:
You had a bridge? LUXURY! SHEER LUXURY!
My family dreamed of a bridge to shield us from the elements. Or a shoe box.
Pogonip
@beth: They won’t make overtime NEXT summer. They’ll be back on salary. Overtime will have to wait till the summer of 2019 after voters who are even angrier than they were this year have swept the Dems back into power.
I don’t think Trump will be there then; I stick to my prediction that he’ll be impeached within six months.
Pogonip
@Davebo: A shoebox? Is your dad’s name Stuart Little?
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: It’s a parable, ffs. I lived under a scrap of cardboard in the middle of the street.
gex
It’s cute how some people think that those who have consistently believed that tax cuts and deregulation would make them rich, who have consistently stated they want Social Security and Medicare but don’t realize the GOP has every intention of gutting/cutting those programs might somehow realized that their overtime pay got nuked by the GOP.
These people already believe marginalized people are their problem. What on earth makes anyone think they will suddenly understand cause and effect after this very obscure, harder to notice overtime issue? They will do what the nativists stoked by right wing parties always do. They will be even more convinced that marginalized people are the problem and the wave of celebratory hate crimes we saw the week of the election will look like child’s play as the GOP keeps squeezing the WWC we are supposed to revere.
Bill E Pilgrim
From now on I’m just going to read Tom Tomorrow and assume that it’s not satire but a documentary, or at least will be a year or two after he draws it:
https://www.thenation.com/article/one-rich-guy-who-owns-everything/
Omnes Omnibus
@gex: By cute, you mean “Dear god, what is wrong with these people? How the fuck are they able to manage basic life functions like feeding themselves and breathing?”, right?
hovercraft
@Baud:
No I’m not, do tell, please.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Pogonip: No, but possibly Terry Jones
Davebo
@Bill E Pilgrim: Honestly Tom is just phoning it in these days.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Davebo: I thought that of the last couple/few that he did also. Not that one though, the one rich guy was too perfect.
Davebo
@Thor Heyerdahl:
If a joke has to be explained it’s either a lousy joke or the listener is a millennial.
Controversial I know but I stand by it.
Davebo
@efgoldman: Payless Shoes. Only rich people lived in the dumpster behind Thom McCann. But at least they never learned how to spell Tom.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo:
DSW.
Philbert
@efgoldman: Point taken. It did seem that many actions didn’t surface until Obama had NFLTG but I am sure you are correct and they were in process. No, I am not a whiner, given the pathological opposition to Obama doing anything whatsoever.
At any rate “we are in excellent position! Being surrounded we can fire in any direction!”
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus:
Good god, have you ever been to a DSW? It’s a nightmare. When I found myself single after 24 years I thought “at least I’ll never have to go to a DSW again”. Sadly, I was wrong. I’d rather sift through donated shoes from Goodwill but no, there I am.
Omnes Omnibus
@Philbert:
That’s the spirit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davebo: I was married to a shoe addict for seven years. She liked me to get shoes too.
lollipopguild
@efgoldman: It’s an old Monty Python skit. No matter how bad one guy had it growing up the other two guys always had it WORSE.
Anne Laurie
@Davebo:
As a not-Annie, I must defend the right of people to spell their own names however they damned choose.
(With the subclause that people who give their offspring names like Neaveh or J’aih’dyhn should be immediately sterilized, so they can’t repeat their crime.)
Davebo
@Omnes Omnibus:
On the bright side, there’s a great after market for high end shoes and purses. I got $1700 selling two Chanel purses online but that just made me wonder what they must have cost in the first place! If you find another shoe hog I’ve got boxes full of them I’ll cut loose cheap!
Davebo
@Anne Laurie: I’m with you there. But as you note, it seems to be a hereditary affliction, not a choice.
Some may argue, but I believe if you name your new born daughter Tiffany you really can’t get upset if she ends up as an exotic dancer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that….
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
I wound up in back-and-forth jesting with him at least once or twice, and really liked his writing. Witty, sharp, had fantastic encounters with strange people, wrote amazing funny stories about them.
Had many cats who needed help in the worst way, and helped them. Wrote great obits about them when their time came. So young, and such a hard death. Asking the Drs to discontinue life support. I understand that, support it, still don’t like it being needed for my friends. And even tho I never met him in the flesh, I would like to call him a friend.
We will miss him. Scot Eric Kaufman, RIP.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: My sincerest condolences.
ruemara
@Philbert: y’all are perfect armchair presidents.
Ruckus
@beth:
How is this a lot of work? Who does payroll by pen and ink these days? You make one change to the software in setup and you are done. You change the amount that is the limit. That’s all it takes. And yes I’ve done my own payroll, both by spreadsheet and by accounting software. It ain’t rocket science.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
It’s never a welcome decision. But I’ve had to make it for someone else and I’ve participated in another. In both cases the people were terminal and had very limited time. It didn’t feel good, it did feel correct because the other choice was much increased suffering and nothing else.
It’s always difficult to say that final goodby to a friend, sorry that you had to.
SEK RIP.
LongHairedWeirdo
That’s not surprising for the Party of Layoffs – if they had to pay overtime, they would have to decide if they should hire more workers, rather than working the current crop harder, and firing those who say they need time for their families. I don’t quite understand why the GOP hates creating jobs, but it’s pretty clear that they do.