Overtime Pay
Floor Speech
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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I believe that real, long-term economic growth is built from the middle out, not from the top down. Our government, our economy, and our workplaces should work for all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. But across the country today, millions of workers are working harder than ever without basic overtime protection.
That is why I am so proud to come to the floor today to express my strong support for the Obama administration's new proposal to restore overtime protections for millions of workers and families. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it is good for our economy.
I wish to share a story of a man named Paul who lives in Massachusetts. As reported in the Boston Globe, Paul worked very hard at a discount retail store to provide for his family. Each week he was working 72 hours, on average. On one particular stretch, he worked for 40 days in a row without a single day off, but his employer didn't pay him one extra dime for the work he did beyond 40 hours a week.
That is fundamentally unfair. And Paul, believe me, is not alone. There are so many workers like him in States across the country, and these workers feel as though they have been left behind in this economic recovery. They need government policies on overtime protections to catch up.
In 1938, Congress recognized the need to set a standard for the 40-hour workweek. By law, when workers put in more than 40 hours a week, their employers had to compensate them fairly with time-and-a-half pay. But those protections have eroded over the past several years. In today's economy, many Americans feel as though they are working more and more for less and less pay, and in many cases, they are. A salaried worker can be asked to work 50 or 60 or 70 hours a week and never see a dime of overtime pay. One of the main reasons is because overtime rules are severely out of date.
Right now, if a worker earns just a little more than $23,000 a year, he or she does not qualify for time-and-a-half pay. That salary threshold is much too low today. In fact, the current salary level is less than the poverty threshold for a family of four. Workers should not have to earn poverty wages to get guaranteed overtime protection. That salary threshold has only been updated once since 1975.
Back in the mid-1970s, 62 percent of the American workforce was covered by overtime rules. Today, just 8 percent of our salaried workers have overtime protection, and big corporations have used these outdated overtime rules to their advantage. They force their employees to work overtime without paying them fair time-and-a-half pay. That, of course, is good for a big corporation's profit margin. But as the Union-Bulletin in Walla Walla, WA, editorialized a few weeks back, these workers are ``working, paying taxes, raising families, and often suffering due to the long hours.''
But unlike so many of the challenges we face here, there is a solution to this, and it doesn't require congressional action. Last week, the Department of Labor proposed to raise the salary threshold from about $23,000, which is what it is today, to just over $50,000 a year. That will restore overtime protections for millions of Americans.
This, by the way, is especially important for parents. Think about what this would mean for a working mom who right now works overtime without getting paid for it. By restoring this basic worker protection, she can finally work a 40-hour workweek and spend more time with her kids. Or, if her employer asks her to work more than 40 hours a week, she would have more money in her pocket to boost her family's economic security. That is so important for strengthening our middle class today.
Now, I do want to keep working to improve the proposed rule. I believe the Department of Labor should also update what is known as the duties test. For workers who make more than the salary threshold but still do what is called blue collar work, the duties test is designed to ensure that they get overtime protections. But today that duties test is out of date.
Under the current law, big corporations can exploit the duties test to avoid paying their workers time-and-a-half, and I believe that needs to change. When workers put in more than 40 hours a week on the job, they should be paid fairly for it. That is just the bottom line.
I have heard from some of my Republican colleagues that they do not want to update overtime rules. But if the Republicans want to take away this basic worker protection--basic worker protection--they are going to have to answer to millions of hard-working Americans who are putting in overtime without receiving a dime in extra pay. They can try, but I know I and many others are going to be right here fighting back for the workers and families we represent.
Boosting wages and expanding economic stability and security is good for families, and it is good for our economy. And, by the way, that is exactly what we should be focused on here in Congress--to help grow our economy from the middle out, not just the top down.
This isn't the only action we need to take to raise wages and expand economic stability for our families today. In the coming weeks and months, I am going to be working closely with Senate Democrats to continue our efforts to raise the minimum wage, to expand access to paid sick leave and fair and predictable work schedules, and to ensure women get equal pay for equal work.
But restoring overtime protections is a critical part of our work to make sure more families get much needed economic stability. Enacting these policies would be strong steps in the right direction to bring back the American dream of economic security and a stable middle-class life for millions of families.
For workers such as Paul, who just want fair pay for a fair day's work, for the parents who have sacrificed family time for overtime and not seen a dime in extra pay, and for families who are looking for some much needed economic security, I urge all of my colleagues to support restoring overtime protections.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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