Attorney General Leslie Rutledge continues her tear in support of the Republican agenda, not surprising given the dark Republican money poured into her election campaign. Now she’s attacking better rules for overtime pay for workers instituted by the Obama administration.
In the last week Rutledge has fought women’s medical rights, clean air, separation of church and state and higher pay for workers. No wonder she gets a good seat at the Republican National Convention.
Rutledge joined the usual coalition of Republican state attorneys in filing the suit in Texas. The Obama administration this year directed, after a study of the Fair Labor Standards Act that began in 2014, a change in the rule on overtime pay. It raised the salary threshold of workers covered by overtime pay requirements from $455 to $913 a week, or $47,476 a year. Up to that level, employers must pay time-and-a-half; raise base pay, or send employees home after 40 hours rather than working them unlimited hours without more pay.
Rutledge said this will cost employers money or else force a reduction in services. The Obama administration sees it differently, as the video shows. Note that you could hire more employees for less, rather than making a $30,000-a-year employee work 80 hours with no overtime to get the job done.
No sympathy from Rutledge:
“Concern over this new regulation from Washington has been a consistent topic at regulatory roundtables that I have been holding across the State,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “Business owners, sheriffs, mayors and county judges are all concerned about how they are going to implement this rule without being forced to fire hardworking employees. Washington is once again trying to force a political agenda on the states by unlawfully ignoring the role of Congress, and I hope that the court will act and prevent this rule from taking effect.”
The rule is scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. The lawsuit seeks a court order to block that.