Bill Statistics

The Middle Class Position

The middle class supports.

How They Voted

54% with middle class
45% against middle class
1% did not vote
Pie Chart

Grades

Grade C
Senate

The Senate receives a grade of C for its support of the middle class on this piece of legislation.

54 Senators voted for the middle-class position; 45 voted against.

See how each member voted on this bill:

Senate

S.AMDT. 1580 TO H.R. 2660

Overtime Compensation Amendment of 2003

in
Introduced:
09.05.2003 [House]
Senate: Yea-54, Nay-45
Amendment passed and was amended to H.R. 266, but was removed from the final bill before passage.
The Legislation: 

The Overtime Compensation Amendment to a 2004 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services, and Education blocks proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) that would limit American workers’ ability to receive overtime compensation. In March 2003, the DOL proposed regulations that would raise the salary level under which all employees are entitled to overtime up from $155 to $425 a week, while denying overtime pay to “white-collar” employees earning $65,000 or more. While the DOL concluded that the eligibility modifications would affect only 1.3 million workers currently receiving time-and-a-half, according to an independent study, eight million American workers would be either fully or partially affected by the changes.

The Middle-Class Position: 

The Middle Class Supports: As an essential portion of many “blue-collar” and “whitecollar” workers’ annual salary—as much as a quarter of weekly take home pay—overtime compensation is vital to the economic stability of millions of middle-class American families. The proposed changes to overtime, blocked by this Overtime Compensation Amendment, would compromise hard working Americans’ ability to support themselves and their families and further weaken the American middle class. Support of this amendment, blocking the proposed changes, helps strengthen working families.

From the Experts: 

“America’s workers depend on overtime pay to support their families, especially in these tough economic times of widespread joblessness, stagnant or declining wages, skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs and rising child care costs… These changes would be a major step backward for working families who struggled so hard to win the 40-hour workweek, the weekend and other job protections.” - Linda Chavez-Thompson,Ex ecutive Vice President, AFL-CIO (June 20,2003)

Beyond this Bill: 

In April 2004, the DOL proposed new changes to the rules governing overtime compensation that, it claimed, would bring transparency and fairness to the system by making an additional 1.3 million lower-wage, white-collar workers eligible to receive overtime while blocking eligibility of more than 107,000 white-collar workers earning $100,000 or more. Supporters of workers’ rights in the House and the Senate are skeptical about the unintended impacts of the DOL’s proposed changes on American workers. As incomes decline, and the number of hours American workers put in on the job continue to rise, legislators committed to protecting the economic stability of the middle class should work against changes that expand some American workers’ ability to receive overtime compensation at the expense of others.

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