Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association speaks out against proposed overtime rule

The Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association (PMA) recently published a blog post on their website criticizing the Wolf Administration’s proposed overtime rules.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (L&I) submitted the final regulation to Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) on Jan. 17, following a public comment period and stakeholder outreach. The IRRC is scheduled to vote on the proposed change on Jan. 31.

The rule would increase the salary threshold of employees exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) time-and-a-half requirement from $23,600 to $45,000. It would also establish automatic increases in the salary threshold.

According to L&I, the new rule would expand overtime eligibility to 143,000 people and increase overtime protections for 251,000 people.

PMA says that the rule would essentially eliminate the duties of a salaried job as a factor in determining who is exempt from the rule and that Congress did not intend for executive, administrative, or professional positions to be covered by the time-and-a-half rule.

According to PMA, the rule would have a particularly negative impact on charitable organizations, citing comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor in 2016 following the proposal of a similar rule by the Obama Administration on the federal level.

PMA also said that the rule change could cause employers to switch salaried employees to hourly work at 40 hours or less per week, which is the threshold below which the overtime rule wouldn’t apply.

“The potential is very real that salaried employees will lose out when they are demoted to hourly work with less flexibility, fewer benefits, and ultimately lower wages,” PMA wrote in the post. “The very people this rule is intended to help could be hurt.”

A new rule approved by the Trump Administration that increases the salary threshold for overtime from $23,6000 to $35,500 became effective on Jan. 1.