If legal challenge fails, 44 percent of small business owners will be impacted by DOL mandate.
Wisconsin Joins Coalition Challenging Overtime Rule
Wisconsin joined 20 other states
last month in a federal lawsuit seeking to block implementation of the
Department of Labor’s (DOL) new overtime rule.
If the lawsuit does not prevail,
the rule would go into effect on Dec. 1, making more than 10 million workers
eligible for overtime pay. The rule, which was released in May, doubles the
threshold under which employees are eligible for overtime. Come Dec. 1,
salaried workers earning less than $47,476 must be given overtime pay.
According to NFIB estimates, 44 percent of small businesses be harmed by the
rule. They will have to choose between raising salaries above the threshold,
paying overtime, or convert salaried workers to hourly ones and closely track
their time or prohibit/limit overtime work. They will also have to bear
increased paperwork and scheduling burdens, and these changes—as well as the
fact that there will be fewer salaried, managerial positions available, and
therefore less opportunity for growth—will also impact staff morale.
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad
Schimel issued a statement on the coalition’s suit, reported the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel: “The federal overreach we continue to see is
not a Republican v. Democrat issue, which is demonstrated by the bipartisan
coalition of states fighting this rule. Wisconsin, and every other state, must
be able to set their own priorities and policies and not be forced to take
directive from an unchecked Washington, D.C., bureaucracy attempting to
establish unprecedented power.”
Although NFIB is fighting for the
compliance deadline to be pushed back until June of 2017, in order to give
small business owners more time to make workforce adjustments, employers should
still act quickly to determine which employees will be impacted by the new rule
and what must be done to comply.
For more information about the
new rule and NFIB’s effort to block it, visit www.NFIB.com/overtime.
