DOL Moves Towards Scaling Back Overtime Rule

The Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Overtime Exemption Rule has been stalled through litigation since just prior to when it was to go into effect last December. (See WICs article, “Federal Court Grants Injunction for DOL Overtime Rule, Suspends Compliance Deadline,” November 23, 2016.) With the rule out of play but still on the books, the DOL on June 27th sent a formal Request for Information (RFI) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the first step towards publishing the RFI in the Federal Register and opening the rule up to the public for comments. Once the RFI is published, ANCOR will develop comments and encourage members to submit comments as well. 

 

DOL Secretary Alexander Acosta has signaled that he believes the Obama-era rule that changed the threshold under which employees must be paid overtime was too high, and a more appropriate threshold would be approximately $33,000/yr, rather than the $47,476/yr it was increased to. When ANCOR commented on the rule before it was finalized, we recommended a threshold of around $30,000 to $35,000. Once the RFI is published, ANCOR will submit comments and encourage members to submit comments as well.