“Once again, President Obama is trying to unilaterally rewrite the law”, Texas Attorney General Paxton said.
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The NFIB asks for more time, until June 2017, for businesses to “prepare for the unintended consequences of the rule”, Ferruso said.
The rule would double the minimum salary threshold – which is the number under which an employee who works more than 40 hours is entitled to overtime pay – from $455 to $913 a week, the latter of which equates to $47,476 a year.
Critics of the rule say it will place a new burden on businesses, potentially forcing them to demote or lay off workers whom they can not afford to pay more.
Nevada, Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, Mississippi and MI filed suit in federal court in Plano, Texas, seeking to overturn the Obama administration’s revision of the overtime exemption.
But that threshold will almost double under the new rule, and workers making up to $47,476 a year will be eligible for overtime after 40 hours of work in a week.
Paxton and his predecessor, Greg Abbott, have filed a wave of challenges to Obama administration initiatives.
Today, Governor Paul LePage joined a number of other states in filing a federal court complaint challenging the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) new overtime rules. “Ignoring this federal law, the Department of Labor by executive fiat is forcing state, local and private employers to pay overtime to any employee who earns under a certain amount, regardless of whether that employee is actually performing “executive, administrative, or professional” duties”. The new rule also promises an ongoing increase to the salary threshold every three years.
Schmidt noted that the new overtime rule will affect about 550 exempt Executive and Judicial Branch employees, roughly 20 percent of all exempt state employees. Many employers have complained it will drive up their costs and cause them to cut workers’ hours, slow hiring of full-time staff and turn salaried workers into hourly employees.
The case is Nevada v. U.S. Department of Labor, 1:16-00407, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Sherman).
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Elected officials and many of their staff members also won’t qualify for overtime under the rule.
