On Nov. 15, U.S. District Judge Sean D. Jordan of the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the Labor Department had exceeded its authority in issuing the overtime rule, finding fault with the new salary threshold, which he said was too high, and with the automatic updating.
Given the millions of workers and the large variety of employers who would be impacted by the rule, he wrote that it would be impractical, if not impossible to tailor it in a way that would be acceptable. So he tossed the rule in its entirety. SpaceX and Amazon are among the companies that have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. Business Accused of violating worker rights, SpaceX and Amazon go after labor board
A week later, Ohio State delivered the bad news. In emails sent late on a Friday afternoon, the 306 employees who had just gotten raises were informed that “as a result of the reversal in the law, you will no longer receive an increase in your base pay.”
Calling it “the Biden overtime rule” is kind of misleading. The rule was always there: they just tried to change the threshold, plus automatically adjust for inflation
Here’s the thing:
- article points out 2004, and the threshold was about median wage
- Obama attempted to increase but was rejected by court
- Trump increasing by a smaller amount
- Biden attempted to increase but was rejected
Aside from the seeming partisanship in the court, an increase
- was accepted when set to about median wage
- rejected when set noticeably above median wage.
While I agree it’s set way too low and needs to be raised, it’s quite plausible the court decided that too much above median wage is a difference in kind, that should be set by Congress. Maybe if we had a functional Congress ……
