Court ruling is a temporary win for Indiana small business owners
Dec. 1 UPDATE: The Department of Labor today said that it would appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court to reverse Judge Mazzant’s injunction. We are monitoring the case, and we will keep you informed. As of this writing, the injunction remains in place and the rule is not in effect.
Small business owners across the nation and Indiana last week appeared to have temporarily dodged the overtime rule when a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule could not be implemented yet.
As a result of this ruling, employers can not be punished by the DOL if they are not in compliance by December 1—an important step forward in the fight to ultimately overturn this burdensome mandate.The DOL had estimated that the regulation would impact more than 87,000 workers in Indiana.
NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan framed the decision as a temporary but important win for small business owners. “This is a victory for small business owners and should give them some breathing room until the case can be properly adjudicated,” Duggan said.
The rule would raise the threshold at which employees are exempt from earning overtime pay—from $23,660 to $47,476. The Fair Labor Standards Act dictates that employees are not eligible for overtime pay if they are compensated at a minimum wage level (now $47,476), if they are paid on a salaried basis, and if they perform duties considered professional, administrative, or executive in nature. Now, under the new rule, the minimum wage level triggering overtime exemption is nearly double the old rate.
NFIB has spoken at length to the media about the harmful impact of this ruling, including decreased staff morale stemming from employment status changes, reduced hours, and falling pay rates. Barbara Quandt Underwood, NFIB/Indiana state director, said the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule would hurt small businesses across Indiana.
“Ultimately, this rule would have reduced opportunities for promotion, reduces workplace flexibility for many workers, and entangles small business owners in new piles of paperwork,” Underwood said. “Hoosier small business owners dodged a bullet here.”
For more information, please visit NFIB.com/Overtime.
