U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

92–256 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–394 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR’S PROPOSED 

RULE ON OVERTIME PAY 

HEARING 

BEFORE A

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SPECIAL HEARING 

JANUARY 20, 2004—WASHINGTON, DC 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado 

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

HARRY REID, Nevada 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

JAMES W. MORHARD, Staff Director 

LISA SUTHERLAND, Deputy Staff Director 

TERRENCE E. SAUVAIN, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND

EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio 

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

HARRY REID, Nevada 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia (Ex officio) 

Professional Staff 

BETTILOU TAYLOR

JIM SOURWINE

MARK LAISCH

SUDIP SHRIKANT PARIKH

CANDICE ROGERS

ELLEN MURRAY (Minority) 

ERIK FATEMI (Minority) 

ADRIENNE HALLETT (Minority) 

Administrative Support 

CAROLE GEAGLEY
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening statement of Senator Arlen Specter ........................................................ 1 

Statement of Hon. Elaine L. Chao, Secretary, Department of Labor .................. 2 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement of Senator Tom Harkin ......................................................... 7 

Opening statement of Senator Patty Murray ........................................................ 8 

Opening statement of Senator Thad Cochran, ...................................................... 17 

Responses of Secretary Chao to committee questions .......................................... 21 

Statement of Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL–CIO ..................... 23 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25 

Statement of David S. Fortney, co-founder, Fortney & Scott .............................. 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31 

Statement of Dr. Jared Bernstein, Ph.D., chief economist, Economic Policy 

Institute ................................................................................................................ 35 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 37 

Statement of Dr. Ronald Bird, Ph.D., chief economist, Employment Policy 

Foundation ............................................................................................................ 40 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42 

Statement of Andrew J. McDevitt, manager, Governmenetal Relations, American Payroll Association ....................................................................................... 50 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 52 

Statement of Patty Hefner, on behalf of the American Nurses Association ....... 53 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55 

Responses of Richard Trumka to committee questions ........................................ 58 

Responses of Ronald Bird to committee questions ................................................ 62 

Responses of David S. Fortney to committee questions ....................................... 65 

(1) 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR’S PROPOSED RULE 

ON OVERTIME PAY 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2004 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN

SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES, COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met at 11 a.m., in room SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Arlen Specter (chairman) presiding. 

Present: Senators Specter, Cochran, Craig, and Murray. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER

Senator SPECTER. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is 11 

a.m. We will now proceed with the hearing of the Appropriations 

Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, to examine the proposed regulations by the administration 

modifying overtime pay. This issue is a highly controversial one. In 

the U.S. Senate by vote of 54 to 46, there was a prohibition against 

any funding for implementing the regulation. In the House of Representatives, there was a vote to bar use of Federal funds to implement the regulation, which failed by three votes. And later there 

was a vote to send instructions to the committee, which passed. 

So both the House and the Senate are on the record as denying— 

as recommending the denial of funds to the administration for the 

implementation of this regulation. 

The administration contends that there needs to be a revision in 

the regulations on overtime pay, which have been in existence for 

a long time and are confusing. There is concern that the new regulation will cause a loss of compensation to many individuals at a 

time when the economy, while recovering, has not yet fully recovered, and the economy is fragile. There is a real concern about denying compensation to individuals on the current status of the 

economy. 

In reviewing the proposed regulations, it is hard to see how there 

will be any significant improvement from the existing law, admittedly vague. The proposed regulation provides as to administrative 

employees someone who holds a position of responsibility with the 

employer defined as either performing work of substantial importance or performing work requiring a high level of skill or training. 

How you define substantial importance with any precision, what 

is very difficult to me, how you define performing work requiring 

a high level of skill or training, again, looks very difficult. The current regulations provide ‘‘customarily and regularly exercises dis-
2 

cretion and independent judgment.’’ Hard to see much of an improvement on precision in telling employers exactly what the law 

should be. 

With respect to the definition of professional employees, the proposed regulations provide ‘‘primary duty of performing work requiring knowledge of an advanced type of field of science or learning 

customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction but which also may be acquired by alternative 

means, such as an equivalent combination of intellectual instruction and work experience.’’ 

Contrast that with the current regulation, which provides as to 

professional employees consistently exercises discretion and judgment primary duty of performing work requiring knowledge of an 

advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired 

by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and 

study. 

Here again, during the course of this hearing, we will examine 

these definitions. But again, speaking as someone who has had extensive experience both as a legislator and a lawyer, it is hard for 

me to see how the new regulation is going to avoid litigation, which 

is the principle of the new regulation. 

As the record shows, I have introduced a bill which would call 

for a commission to come up with better definitions to delineate 

these issues with representatives appointed by the Secretary of 

Labor, from business management, and the private sector, to try to 

come to grips with these issues. 

We have a long witness list. I held my opening statement to 5 

minutes. And we are going to ask the witnesses to limit their statements to 5 minutes, as well. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ELAINE L. CHAO, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF 

LABOR 

ACCOMPANIED BY TAMMY D. McCUTCHEN, ADMINISTRATOR, WAGE 

AND HOUR DIVISION, EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Senator SPECTER. We are joined by the distinguished Secretary 

of Labor, the Honorable Elaine Chao, 24th Secretary of Labor, an 

initial employee of the appointee of the President, started on January 31, 2001, a very distinguished record, had been president and 

CEO of the United Way Foundation from 1992 to 1996, served as 

director of the Peace Corps and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Transportation under President George H.W. Bush, most 

recently a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation, an 

MBA from Harvard Business School, and an undergraduate degree 

from Mount Holyoke. 

Welcome, Secretary Chao. And the floor is yours. 

Secretary CHAO. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning 

to discuss a very important issue, and that is the Department’s efforts to protect the overtime pay of working Americans. Our job at 

the Department of Labor is to make worker protections work. And 

this administration has achieved record results in protecting workers’ pay, benefits, and safety. 
3 

Last year, all across the Department, enforcement was at record 

levels. The Wage and Hour Division, for example, collected over 

$200 million in back wages, including overtime. And that is an 11- 

year high and an increase of 60 percent in just 2 years. We care 

about protecting workers. And we are doing our job aggressively at 

the workplace. 

One worker protection that does not seem to be working very 

well, or as well as it should, is an overtime provision in the Fair 

Labor Standard Act pertaining to the regulations of white collar 

workers. Overtime is one of the most important rights that American workers have. But this particular legal protection has been severely weakened, because the Department has not updated and 

strengthened its regulations defining overtime for white collar 

workers. 

Today, employees earning about $8,000 can be labeled as an executive and denied both minimum wage and overtime pay. And because the white collar duties tests have not been updated in over 

50 years, neither workers nor employers or even many experts in 

the field can tell for certain who is entitled to overtime for white 

collar workers. As a result, workers are increasingly forced to resort to the courts and wait 3 or 4 years to recover the overtime pay 

that they are entitled. 

Federal class action lawsuits on white collar regulations now outnumber all employment discrimination lawsuits combined. Low 

wage workers are being denied overtime. Middle-class workers 

must wade through years of exhaustive and expensive litigation to 

receive their rightful pay. And if this Department is blocked from 

giving workers updated, stronger overtime protections, these workers will pay the price. They will pay the price by not receiving $897 million a year in 

overtime that they deserve. They will pay the price because needless litigation will divert nearly $2 billion away each year from job 

creation and better pay and benefits. 

If these rules were clearer, the Department of Labor would be 

able to recover back pay for workers within about 3 months, on average. 

I think everyone recognizes the need to modernize these rules. 

Reform of the Part 541 regulations actually began in the Carter administration. The wage and hour administrator in the Clinton administration once said that reforming the white collar regulations 

was one of the two key things on her agenda. 

In a recent report to Congress, the GAO recommended that the 

Secretary of Labor review the regulations and make necessary 

changes to better meet the needs of both employers and employees 

in the modern workplace. In 1989, recognizing how outdated these 

regulations have become, Senator Kennedy cosponsored legislation 

to extend the overtime exemption for the first time to computer 

system analysts and software engineers. And the legislation was 

adopted by unanimous consent in the Senate. 

There is broad agreement that reform is necessary. And using 

the regulatory process mandated by Congress, the Department is 

seeking to restore and renew the overtime protections intended by 

the Fair Labor Standards Act. It has been almost a year since we 

first published our proposal. We have since reviewed thousands of 
4 

comments. We have listened to Members of Congress. And we intend to put forward a revised final rule that is responsible and responsive to the public record. 

So let me be clear. The Department’s overtime proposal for white 

collar workers will not eliminate overtime protection for 8 million 

workers, as is alleged. It will not eliminate overtime protections for 

police workers, police officers, firefighters, first responders, paramedics. It will not eliminate overtime for nurses. It will not eliminate overtime protections for blue collar employees and work such 

as carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, laborers, teamsters, construction workers, production line workers, and other blue 

collar employees. It will not affect union workers, because they are 

protected by the collective bargaining agreements. 

Claims to the contrary serve only to confuse the public debate, 

frighten workers, and make them potentially more vulnerable to 

unscrupulous employers. The Department’s overtime proposal for 

white collars is pro-worker. And it is pro-job creation. It will 

strengthen overtime protection for millions of low wage and middleclass workers. It will clarify regulations so that workers—it will 

clarify these outdated regulations so that workers can know what 

their rights are and employers can know what their responsibilities 

are. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

It will also enable the Department of Labor to vigorously enforce 

these laws and rules and regulations. It would also put an end to 

needless litigation. 

America’s workers do deserve action, not more studies or delays, 

but a fair and balanced rule that responds to the tens of thousands 

of Americans who have already told us what they hope to see in 

a strengthened overtime standard for white collar workers for the 

21st century workforce. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ELAINE L. CHAO

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to appear before 

you today to discuss the Department of Labor’s proposed revision of the Fair Labor 

Standards Act’s ‘‘white-collar’’ regulations. These regulations set forth the criteria 

for determining who is excluded from the Act’s minimum wage and overtime requirements as an executive, administrative, or professional employee. The regulations that the Department is revising appear in Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, at Part 541. 

When Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938, it chose not 

to provide definitions for many of the terms used, including who is an ‘‘executive, 

administrative or professional’’ employee. Rather, in Section 13(a) of the Act, Congress expressly granted to the Secretary of Labor the authority and responsibility 

to ‘‘define and delimit’’ these terms ‘‘from time to time by regulations.’’ 

As you are aware, there has been an enormous amount of press coverage since 

the proposed rule was published in March 2003. Given the importance of this issue, 

the amount of press coverage has been deserved. However, much of the reported information has been misleading and inaccurate. I welcome the opportunity today to 

set the record straight regarding the intentions of the Department in issuing an update to the Part 541 regulations. I also welcome the opportunity to re-emphasize the 

Department’s goals in undertaking this important task. 

Let me also state to the members of this subcommittee that the comments from 

both Congress and the public have been a tremendous help to the Department. I 
5 

believe the final rule will successfully address the concerns that have been raised, 

and will be stronger as a result of the comment process 

There are many reasons for updating this half-century old rule. The primary goal 

is to have better rules in place that will benefit more workers. Because the rules 

have not been updated in decades, changes are necessary now to provide hardworking Americans who currently do not automatically have that right, the opportunity to receive overtime pay. Had these changes been made 10 years ago, lowerwage workers would have had an additional $8 billion in their paychecks. The proposed rule would lead to guaranteed overtime for an additional 1.3 million low-wage 

workers. The main purpose of this effort is to restore the intent of the FLSA—to 

restore overtime protections, especially to low-wage, vulnerable workers who have 

little bargaining power with employers. Of the 1.3 million workers who would be 

guaranteed overtime pay under the Department’s proposal, all earn less than 

$22,100 per year; nearly 55 percent are women; more than 40 percent are minorities; nearly 25 percent are Hispanic; and nearly 70 percent have only a high school 

education or less. 

The job ‘‘duties’’ tests have not been updated since 1949 and are plainly written 

for an economy that has long passed us by. As I have pointed out many times, the 

existing regulations identify occupations such as leg men, straw bosses and keypunch operators—all occupations which no longer exist in the 21st century workplace. The salary basis test was set in 1954. The minimum salary levels were last 

updated in 1975, some 29 years ago. Under the salary rates that are still in effect 

today, an employee earning only $8,060 a year may qualify as an exempt ‘‘executive.’’ Another important goal is to create rules that can be more easily read and 

understood. Greater certainty and clarity will allow workers to be paid properly. 

Under the current rules, burdensome and costly class actions lawsuits are often necessary to sort out the rights of employees and the obligations of employers. This is 

harmful to workers who often must wait years to realize their rights, and burdensome to employers who otherwise could use litigation costs to grow and expand their 

businesses and create new jobs. Indeed, overtime is the fastest growing area of employment litigation in America. Overtime litigation costs are currently draining an 

estimated $2 billion a year out of resources that could be better used to grow the 

economy and create jobs. 

Clear, concise and updated rules will better protect workers and strengthen the 

Department’s ability to enforce the law. With more clearly defined rules in place, 

the Department will be able to more quickly and efficiently settle overtime pay disputes, and build upon its strong enforcement record on behalf of workers. 

The existing regulations require three basic tests for each exemption: (1) a min- imum salary level, now set at $155 per week for executive and administrative employees and $170 per week for professionals under the basic ‘‘long’’ duties tests for 

exemption, whereas a higher salary level of $250 per week triggers a shorter duties 

test in each category; (2) a salary basis test, requiring payment of a fixed, predetermined salary amount that is not subject to reduction because of variations in the 

quality or quantity of work performed; and (3) a duties test, specifying the particular types of job duties that qualify for each exemption. 

Our proposal would increase the minimum salary level required for exemption as 

a ‘‘white-collar’’ employee to $425 per week, or $22,100 per year. This is a $270 per 

week increase, and the largest increase since the Congress passed the Fair Labor 

Standards Act in 1938. Under this change, all employees earning less than $22,100 

a year automatically would be entitled to the overtime protections of the FLSA. 

Under the existing rules, even a worker earning minimum wage would not be automatically entitled to overtime protections. We believe that this change would result 

in an estimated 1.3 million additional workers becoming eligible for overtime pay 

for the first time, sharing up to $895 million in additional wages every year. 

As in the current regulations, the Department’s proposal also includes a streamlined test for higher-compensated ‘‘white-collar’’ employees. To qualify for exemption 

under this section of the proposed rule, an employee must: (1) be guaranteed total 

annual compensation of at least $65,000, regardless of the quality or quantity of 

work performed; (2) perform office or non-manual work, and (3) meet at least one 

or more of the exempt duties or responsibilities specified for an executive, administrative, or professional employee. This is the same concept found in the current 

rule’s ‘‘Special Proviso for High Salaried Executive,’’ commonly referred to as the 

‘‘short test.’’ The test for these ‘‘highly compensated’’ workers has been the subject 

of many of the comments we have received. 

The Department’s proposal would simplify, clarify and update the duties tests to 

ensure that the regulations are easy for employees and employers to understand 

and for the Department to enforce. The current rule provides two sets of duties tests 

for each of the three exemption categories. There is both a ‘‘short’’ duties test and 
6 

1Fair Labor Standards Act: White-Collar Exemptions in the Modern Work Place (GAO/HEHS– 

99–164, September 30, 1999). 

a ‘‘long’’ duties test for each of the executive, administrative and professional exemptions. The current long duties tests only apply to employees earning between $8,000 

and $13,000 a year. Given these low levels, these tests essentially have been inoperative for a decade. Accordingly, to simplify this complex process the Department’s 

proposal would eliminate the long duties test and instead rely on the existing ‘‘primary duty’’ approach found in the current short tests. To be exempt, an employee 

must receive the required minimum salary amount and have a primary duty of performing the duties specified for an executive, administrative or professional employee. 

Under the Department’s proposal, the executive exemption adds a third requirement to the current short test that makes it more difficult to qualify as an exempt 

executive. In other words, fewer workers would qualify as exempt executives under 

the proposal than qualify for the exemption under the current regulations. Under 

the proposal, an exempt executive must (1) have a primary duty of managing the 

entire enterprise or a customarily recognized department or subdivision thereof, (2) 

direct the work of two or more other workers, and (3) have authority to hire or fire 

other employees or have recommendations as to the hiring and firing be given particular weight. This third requirement is from the long duties test, and its addition 

makes the exemption more difficult to achieve. 

The Department did not propose substantial changes to the professional exemption. To the extent debate in Congress and comments submitted expressed concern 

that the Department was upsetting the law in this area, let me say that the Department intends to clarify that this is not the case. 

In any rule-making process, certain areas receive more public comment than others. The Department’s proposed revision to the administrative exemption is one 

such area. The major proposed change to the duties test for the administrative exemption is replacing the ‘‘discretion and independent judgment’’ requirement, which 

has been a source of much confusion and litigation, with a new standard that exempt administrative employees must hold a ‘‘position of responsibility with the employer.’’ To meet this requirement, an employee must either customarily and regularly perform work of substantial importance or perform work requiring a high level 

of skill or training. In our proposal, the Department specifically sought comment 

about replacing the ‘‘discretion and independent judgment’’ element of the test. Both 

proponents and opponents of this proposed change submitted lengthy and helpful 

comments that the Department very carefully and deliberately is considering. 

Despite what has appeared in the press, let me emphasize that it has never been 

the intent of the Department to upset the overtime rights of hardworking American 

workers. The recent debates in the Senate and House have helped the Department 

identify areas in which the intent of these revisions needs to be made clearer. For 

example, it is not, nor has it been, the intent of the Department to change the overtime status of police, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs and other first responders. 

Similarly, it is not, nor has it been, the intent of the Department to change the overtime rights of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and other similar health 

care employees. The Department also did not intend to substantially change the 

educational requirements for the professional exemption. 

Furthermore, the overtime status of ‘‘blue collar’’ workers will not change. ‘‘Blue 

collar’’ employees in production, maintenance, construction and similar occupations 

such as carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, iron workers, craftsmen, operating engineers, longshoremen, and construction workers will not see their right 

to overtime change. This regulation will not affect workers subject to a collective 

bargaining agreement. These and other critical issues will be addressed in the final 

rule, and the Department extends its gratitude to Congress for raising issues that 

need more explicit clarification. 

As the Department pointed out to the Subcommittee in July of last year, updating 

the Part 541 regulations is a bi-partisan issue. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue, and it is not a new idea. The Carter administration recognized in 1979 

that the rules were antiquated and placed Part 541 reform on the Department’s regulatory agenda. This issue has been on the Department’s regulatory agenda for 

more than two decades. The last Administration before this one to suggest that 

these regulations be modernized was the Clinton administration. 

Significantly, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) in 1999 issued a report 1

on the ‘‘white-collar’’ exemption regulations and recommended the path we find ourselves on today. The GAO chronicled the background and history to the exemptions, 

estimated the number of workers who might be included within the scope of the exemptions, and identified the major concerns of employers and employees. The GAO 
7 

concluded that ‘‘given the economic changes in the 60 years since the passage of the 

FLSA, it is increasingly important to readjust these tests to meet the needs of the 

modern work place,’’ and recommended that ‘‘the Secretary of Labor comprehensively review the regulations for the white-collar exemptions and make necessary 

changes to better meet the needs of both employers and employees in the modern 

work place. Some key areas of review are (1) the salary levels used to trigger the 

regulatory tests, and (2) the categories of employees covered by the exemptions.’’ 

Finally, I would like to address recent media stories suggesting that the Department of Labor is giving employers ‘‘tips’’ on how to evade overtime requirements. 

These news reports are completely false and potentially harmful to workers’ rights 

as they may give some employers the impression that they can ignore the FLSA 

overtime requirements. The news reports refer to a single paragraph in the economic analysis section of the preamble to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published last March. This paragraph discusses the estimated range of potential impacts of this rulemaking and does not contain ‘‘tips’’ or ‘‘instructions’’ on how to cut 

pay or avoid paying overtime. The Department is legally-required to discuss the 

range of likely effects in an economic impact analysis. This must be performed for 

every significant rule that DOL issues. 

The Department of Labor has ‘‘zero tolerance’’ for employers who try to play 

games with the overtime laws. I am proud to say that the Department’s Wage and 

Hour Division has increased enforcement by 60 percent in the past two years, and 

collected in fiscal year 2003 a record $212 million in back wages for employees. 

In conclusion, the Department continues to work on developing a final rule that 

is based on the comments we have received and the debate we have heard. We are 

working diligently to achieve a rule that takes into consideration the concerns that 

have been expressed and that makes sense for the 21st Century Workplace. It will 

also protect the overtime rights of American workers far better than the half-century old regulation now on the books. Today’s workers are not protected at all—they 

are severely disadvantaged by rules that few can understand in the context of the 

modern workplace. They are disadvantaged if they have to go to court to get overtime wages they have rightfully earned. And, they are disadvantaged if they have 

to wait years for that money to find its way into their pockets. Mr. Chairman, it 

is time to update this rule. I would be happy to answer any questions Members of 

the Subcommittee may have. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Secretary Chao. 

Senator Craig, would you care to make an opening statement before we proceed with questions? 

Senator CRAIG. No, thank you. I do appreciate you holding a 

hearing on this most important issue, Mr. Chairman. I have a variety of questions I want to ask the Secretary. So I would be happy 

to move into the questioning phase. 

Senator SPECTER. Senator Harkin, the ranking member, is unavoidably detained. He is in Iowa. I do not know why, exactly, except for the caucuses. But he will be here a little later today. And 

without objection, a statement from Senator Harkin would be made 

a part of the record. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR TOM HARKIN

Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this important hearing. I also want to 

thank all of the witnesses who are here today. 

Both houses of Congress, on a bipartisan basis, voted for my amendment to block 

the Administration’s proposed new rule on overtime. Both houses voted to block the 

Administration’s radical rewrite fo the nation’s overtime laws. That amendment 

passed 54 to 45 here in the Senate and 221 to 203 over in the House. The Congress 

of the United States spoke up clear as a bell and said, ‘‘No, the Administration must 

not strip overtime rights from 8 million American workers.’’ 

But as we all know, the Administration refused to accept the will of Congress 

even when you, Mr. Chairman, repeatedly offered to work out a compromise. 

And so here we are today, faced with an Omnibus bill that was stripped of my 

amendment to protect overtime pay for millions of American workers. 

The Administration’s new rule, which they will issue in March, is a stealth attack 

on the 40-hour workweek, pushed by the White House without a single public hear-
8 

ing. I also am very troubled that this proposed rule contains specific advice to employers on how they can get around paying overtime to low-income workers. It is 

a gut-punch to American workers. 

This sweeping proposal is in direct contrast to the intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that established the 40-hour work week for American’s workers. 

And it’s a slap in the face to the millions of American workers who depend on overtime pay to support their families and make ends meet. We’re talking about taking 

away some 25 percent of the income of many American workers. 

Furthermore, taking overtime eligibility away hurts job creation. When employers 

can require current employees to work more hours for no additional cost, there is 

a disincentive to hire new workers. 

Congress did the right thing in voting to block this new rule. And its shameful 

that House leaders stripped the provision the appropriations bill we will vote on this 

afternoon. 

But I am here to serve notice that I will not give up, nor will others who have 

fought this. 

The American people will not allow us to drop this issue. They have been watching this issue closely, because it hits so close to home. I pledge to them that I will 

offer the overtime amendment to every piece of legislation until we succeed. 

Senator SPECTER. Senator Murray, would you care to make an 

opening comment? 

Senator MURRAY. I would, Mr. Chairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATTY MURRAY

I really appreciate the opportunity. And I thank you for calling 

this second hearing on the proposed regulatory changes that the 

Department of Labor has put forth regarding overtime pay. And I 

really am here today to express my outrage at the Republican leadership in Congress for really disregarding the will of a bipartisan 

majority of Members in both houses when they removed the Harkin amendment from the final omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal 

year 2004. 

It really is inconceivable to me that as families struggle in today’s economy that the Bush administration and some in this majority are cutting off the pay of really millions of workers who depend on their overtime pay to make ends meet today. Without any 

hearings, the Secretary of Labor, with just a few strokes of her pen, 

is about to adversely affect the quality of life for millions of hardworking families. 

Here we are with so many Americans out of work, many people 

struggling to keep their jobs, millions have lost their pension benefits and their healthcare benefits, and now this administration is 

going to force a pay cut on those who work overtime for their employers. And we know that overtime pay often makes up 25 percent 

of an eligible worker’s wages. I don’t think we should forget, too, 

that many of these workers are now the only breadwinners in their 

families. 

Mr. Chairman, this change is going to really hurt some 8 million 

hardworking Americans who have worked hard, played by the 

rules, and are now going to have to endure as much as a 25-percent 

pay cut. Right now, our firefighters, our police, our EMTs, we all 

know are working hard on the front lines of homeland security. 

And they are going above and beyond the call of duty, often with 

inadequate equipment and training. But they are doing it to protect us in this very dangerous time. Many of them are working on 

overtime. 
9 

Now this administration is telling our firefighters, our police, and 

our EMTs that they do not deserve overtime pay for the extra work 

that they are doing to keep us safe. And to top it off, I, like a lot 

of people, was very concerned and upset that the Department of 

Labor provided employers with tips on how to avoid paying employees overtime. I want to hear about that today. 

So Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate your calling this hearing. 

I look forward to working with you and others to develop a truly 

bipartisan solution to some of the some of the critical policies that 

are affecting Americans and their families today who are struggling to pay their mortgage and put food on the table. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Senator Murray. 

We will now proceed, as is our custom, with 5-minute rounds. 

Madame Secretary, we are loading on a cloture motion on the 

omnibus appropriation bill today, which means that we have a 

large appropriations bill, and we have to get 60 votes to proceed 

to vote on the matter. And that is why this hearing was scheduled 

in advance of that vote. And there are three issues in contention 

which might resolve the differences of opinion between the two parties. And the key issue is this overtime regulation. 

The proposal to delay implementation until September 30 is 

what would really, I think, break the knot and enable us to go forward on this omnibus bill. Very important for the Subcommittee on 

Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education, important funding 

for your Department, important funding for the National Institutes 

of Health, important funding for HeadStart and for many, many 

other programs. 

We are now at January 20, almost half the way to September 30. 

The Department has received some 80,000 comments. And you are 

projecting to have the regulation in final form by March 31. After 

that, it has to go through the Office of Management and Budget, 

which takes considerable time. And a key question on my mind is: 

How much would be lost to your interest in putting a regulation 

forward between whatever date it can be completed and September 

30? How much time are we really talking about? 

Secretary CHAO. I think enough time has been spent on delays, 

as well as studies and studies of all sorts on this issue. As I mentioned, this issue has been on the regulatory agenda since the 

Carter administration. There is a great deal of concern and also 

agreement that something has to be done to clarify these regulations. 

The duties test has not been clarified in well over 50 years. The 

salaries test has not be clarified in over 25 years. There are 1.3 

million workers not getting their guaranteed overtime right now. 

And any further delay will only in fact harm workers. 

Senator SPECTER. Madame Secretary, I understand the lengthy 

period of time. But that does not answer my question. And I would 

like you to take a look at my question, if you would. I have many 

questions, and I have 2 minutes and 16 seconds left. And I intend 

to observe the time limitations, as I will ask every other member 

to. But focus on the question which I have asked you. 

I know how long it has been since the Carter administration 

when this issue has been considered. But this is January 20. And 
10 

you are projecting to March 31. So you have October, November, 

December. By March 31, half the fiscal year will have passed. Then 

you have OMB. 

How much time are you looking at from the time there will be 

a regulation until September 30, which is all that is asked for in 

the prohibition of funding, until the end of this fiscal year. 

Now let me move to the really core question on the substance. 

And you have the definition of the proposed regulation of an administrative employee to perform work of substantial importance or 

perform work requiring a high skill level or training. Now how 

much difference is there in that? And how do you define substantial importance to avoid litigation contrasted with the current regulation, which is customarily and regularly exercises discretion and 

independent judgment? 

With respect to professional employees, the proposed regulation 

calls for advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily 

acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction at an alternative to have the equivalent combination of intellectual instruction or work experience, with the very similar language in the current law, which says, ‘‘Requiring knowledge of an 

advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired 

by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and 

study.’’ 

My time has now expired, and you have the floor. 

Secretary CHAO. The specific instances that you mention are indeed very complicated. This is a very complicated and a very detailoriented rule. The outdated portions of this rule are creating a 

great deal of confusion. It is creating confusion among employers, 

employees, and also even experts. 

So on your specific question, I will ask Tammy McCutchen, who 

is the Administrator for the Wage and Hour Division, to address 

that. Thank you. 

Ms. MCCUTCHEN. We have received the most comments on the 

administrative exemption test. And so it is something that we are 

going to be taking a close look at as we are developing a final rule, 

so that we can try to improve on the administrative test. 

On the professional exemption question you asked, the language 

that you mentioned is about defining what it means to customarily 

acquire the knowledge by an advanced degree. And it reflects the 

current case law and the current language in the regulations that 

says the occasional chemist without a chemistry degree or the occasional lawyer without a law degree is still entitled to the exemption, because it is a profession that, as a standard prerequisite for 

entry into the field, requires that advanced 4-year degree. 

The case that we cited in the preamble was an example of an engineer, who had 3 years of engineering courses in college and 30 

years of on-the-job experience. And the court found that he was indeed an exempt engineer, although he did not finish that 1 year 

of college and get his engineering degree. 

That was the intent of our proposal. We did get some significant 

comments on that. And we will make sure we clarify that in the 

final rule. 
11 

Senator SPECTER. As I had noted, my time had expired prior to 

the start of the answers. We are going to follow, as we customarily 

do, the early bird rule. 

Senator Craig, you were the first to arrive. 

Senator CRAIG. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I spent a good deal of time trying to understand the issue and 

also trying to deal with your proposed regs against the rhetoric 

that has often spewed out against them, the proposed regs. And I 

have tried to take the politics that is in that language and pull it 

out to see if there is a substantive difference of the allegations 

made. 

So Madame Secretary, when the Economic Policy Institute’s 

paper came out last summer and it varied widely from the projections the Department of Labor issued as it related to white collar 

exemptions, I think the EPI paper projected or asserted that some 

8 million workers would lose the right to overtime pay. And DOL’s 

figures are less than 750,000. Now that is a huge discrepancy. 

So I tried to ring the politics out of that one, because most of the 

substance is fairly well salted with politics, and look at it from that 

standpoint. Could you go into that briefing, as prepared by EPI, 

and speak of the differences between an 8 million figure and a 

750,000 workforce figure? 

Secretary CHAO. The EPI study shows gross misunderstanding of 

the current regulations and the proposal that the Department is 

putting forward. It includes, for example, people who are already 

exempt under current law. The EPI report greatly overestimates 

the number of workers who may be reclassified. It included in the 

8 million estimate part-time workers, other employees who never 

work more than 40 hours per week. 

It also claims that the Department is expanding the executive exemption, when actually the Department’s proposal would actually 

make it more difficult to qualify as an exempt executive than it is 

today. EPI contends that most nurses and medical technicians, for 

example, will also lose overtime pay, although the Department has 

proposed no changes at all. EPI also alleges that most cooks will 

lose overtime, and that is not true either. 

The Department has studied this report. Our report is based on 

independent—our economic analysis is based on independent, wellregarded economists. And we found at least 15 very basic errors in 

this EPI report. And every error leads to additional unjustified inflation of the number of employees that may potentially be impacted. We believe that 1.3 million workers will gain overtime— 

they will be guaranteed overtime—and that less than about 

644,000 may potentially face the prospect. 

But as I mentioned, the rules and regulations are so unclear at 

this point, what we want to do is to clarify them. 

Senator CRAIG. Well, I think at least that was partly my observation, the confusion of what is and what is not and what you are 

actually doing versus what is already being applied in current law. 

Concern of the unions has been loudly spoken. And yet the analysis that you have just given would suggest that a good many 

union folks will be untouched by this. And you went on to say in 

your opening statement that the collective bargaining agreements 
12 

cover and protect. Well, then, what group is the most dis-served 

group by the proposal that you are offering? 

Secretary CHAO. Our intent is not to take away overtime, not at 

all. Our intent is to strengthen overtime. And what we have seen 

occurring is tremendous confusion over an outdated regulation. Our 

purpose is to protect workers. And we have a responsibility, as the 

Government, to ensure that the rules and regulations that emanate 

from our Department are clear and easy to comply with. And right 

now, the rules and regulations are not easy to comply with. There 

is a great deal of confusion. 

So we hope that the adverse impact will be minimal. And we will 

work very hard in our final proposal to make that the case. But 

this is a white collar exemption, regulation. So it will not impact, 

for example, union members covered by collective bargaining agreements. It will not cover firefighters, policemen, paramedics, other 

first responders. It will not cover those who engage in manual 

work. This is white collar exemption, white collar regulation. So it 

is primarily office work and people who do non-manual work. 

Senator CRAIG. Thank you. My time is up. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Senator Craig. 

Senator Murray. 

Senator MURRAY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am listening carefully to you, Madame Secretary. And I think 

what you are saying is that under current collective bargaining 

agreements, it will not apply. But as we all know, collective bargaining agreements end. And it will be up to the employer to make 

a determination under the new regulations. So I think that we all 

need to understand that. 

But my question really goes, as a former preschool teacher and 

a former school board member, I really am concerned about the 

proposed regulations, attempts to lower the education requirement 

for professional employers. Under the current law, dental hygienists fall within the professional exemption to the 40-hour workweek 

only if they have completed 4 years of pre-professional and professional study. Under your new proposed rule, dental hygienists with 

only 2 years of academic training and work experience can now fall 

into the exemption. 

If employers decide that their employees’ work experience in a 

field that customarily requires a degree—and there is a lot of 

them—biology, nursing, engineering, culinary, accounting—there is 

a lot of them—have the same knowledge as workers with degrees, 

will not the employers now really be free to deny those workers 

overtime? 

Secretary CHAO. Let us not forget that the proposal is indeed a 

proposal. Before the proposal went out in its initial form, the Department held numerous meetings with various stakeholders. After 

the proposal went out, we were in the process of soliciting comments. As mentioned, there have been tens of thousands of comments. The Department will evaluate these comments. 

Senator MURRAY. So do we expect to see some changes in the 

education requirements? 

Secretary CHAO. I cannot say that right now, because the rule is 

not final. But I have said on many other occasions, as have others 
13 

in the Department, that we take these comments very seriously. 

And we will evaluate them. 

Tammy, do you have anything else to say? 

Ms. MCCUTCHEN. Just to repeat what I said before, that it was 

not our intent to lower the educational requirements for the professional exemption. And we did get comments on that and that we 

will be addressing those in the final regulations. 

Senator MURRAY. And that final regulation comes out in March. 

We will have not any opportunity to comment or speak to it once 

the final rule comes out. Correct? 

Secretary CHAO. There has been comments again in the public 

record, as we have mentioned, in tens of thousands. According to 

the APA procedures, that is what the—the comments in the public 

record are what we consider. And we do consider them very seriously. We have been evaluating them. We have also been listening 

to the Members of Congress who have expressed their concerns. 

Senator MURRAY. Well, okay. I am hopeful that we will see some 

changes in that, because I think that is a very important issue that 

many of us are extremely concerned about. 

Let me mention another one. I think that all of us know that the 

men and women in our armed forces are currently performing heroically on a number of fronts around the world. And I am very concerned with your proposal that the veterans who now get overtime 

could lose it because the draft rule allows the military to equate 

training received in the military as equivalent to a 4-year degree. 

Unfortunately in your proposal, there is no guidance on how to 

make the determination on whether or not a veteran’s training in 

the military is equivalent to a 4-year degree. And under your new 

proposed rules, veterans that are now receiving overtime could well 

lose it. Can you please comment on that and what you see you are 

going to change in the final rule to assure that that does not happen? 

Secretary CHAO. I think first of all the military is not covered by 

these regulations. 

Senator MURRAY. But we are speaking about veterans who are 

working—— 

Secretary CHAO. And second—— 

Senator MURRAY [continuing]. Who it will apply to. 

Secretary CHAO [continuing]. In terms of training as a general 

observation, overtime will not be taken away. But again, the comments that we have received during this review process will be 

very important. 

Senator MURRAY. Well, again, that will depend on how you write 

how the equivalency of training is in the final rule on, something 

I think we, as Members of Congress, need to be very well aware, 

because it could have a real adverse impact on a number of people 

who you are saying right now it does not. Many others are saying 

it will. It depends on how you write that rule. 

So I am deeply concerned about this moving forward without congressional action. 

Mr. Chairman, I see that my time is just about up. I just want 

to make one comment. 

I keep hearing that you need to do this to avoid litigation, reduce 

litigation, because the rules are confusing. But I think the proposed 
14 

regulations contain a lot of new and very vague terms that can 

spawn a whole new wave of litigation. I think these criticisms were 

made recently by Hewitt, who is one of the leading management 

consulting firms in the Nation, who said these proposed changes 

likely will open the door for employers to reclassify a large number 

of previously nonexempt employees as exempt. 

It goes on to say that the resulting effect on compensation and 

morale could be detrimental as employees previously accustomed to 

earning in some cases significant amounts of overtime will suddenly lose that opportunity. 

I just, very quickly, Madame Secretary, do you—are you aware 

that the employer community fully expects to reclassify a large 

number of previously nonexempt workers once these go into place? 

Secretary CHAO. Well, first of all, I have not heard that study. 

And that is a singular study that is very unusual. Most people just 

want clarity. The Government—— 

Senator MURRAY. I will be happy to supply the—get that to you. 

Secretary CHAO. I will be glad to see it. 

Senator MURRAY. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SPECTER. Madame Secretary, turning the clock back to 

last November 20, which was a Thursday, and the House of Representatives was going to vote either that night or the next morning. And we were looking at two alternatives. One was a continuing 

resolution in which event the regulation would go into effect, because there would certainly be no prohibition against it. 

Second, to delete the prohibition to defeat the regulation, in 

which event we would have the omnibus appropriations bill. So we 

were looking at having additional funding in my subcommittee 

alone of $3.7 billion. And either way we went, the regulation would 

go into effect. 

There was a meeting. There were meetings all day long. But we 

had one with the four key members, with Chairman Young and 

Chairman Regula of the House, Senator Stevens and myself of the 

Senate. And we sought to schedule a meeting with you at 7:15 to 

try to see if we could find some way out. Then I wrote to you on 

November 24. And you replied on December 2. Without objection, 

both letters will be made part of the record. 

[The letters follow:] 

U.S. SENATE, 

Washington, DC, November 24, 2003. 

Hon. ELAINE CHAO, 

Secretary, Department of Labor, Washington, DC. 

DEAR SECRETARY CHAO: Last Thursday afternoon, November 20, 2003, Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young, 

House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula and I were involved 

in extensive discussions on how to handle the overtime issue which was the final 

impediment to the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and 

Human Services and Education. At about 5:15 P.M., we instructed staff to ask you 

to meet with us at 7:15 P.M. that evening because time was of the essence. I was 

later advised that you were not available. Additional efforts to resolve the overtime 

issue continued on through Thursday evening and into Friday, November 21. I 

placed a call to you at about 12:30 P.M. I did not receive a call back until 5:30 P.M. 

when I had already returned to Pennsylvania. 

It is unacceptable for the Secretary of Labor to be unavailable to the Chairman 

of the Subcommittee for five hours at a critical time when discussions had to be 
15 

made on an issue which was holding up an appropriations bill of more than $140 

billion. 

On November 4, 2003, my staff called your office to request a meeting on the overtime issue with my offer to come to your office. You replied that you would prefer 

to come to my office and, as you know, we met privately one on one. It was my 

thought that such a private meeting would be the best way to break the impasse 

on the overtime issue. I was dismayed to read in CongressDaily on November 5: 

‘‘During a Tuesday meeting with Labor Secretary Chao, Specter offered to drop the 

amendment in exchange for the Administration ‘backing away’ from unrelated rules 

that would require unions to file more detailed financial disclosures known as LM– 

2 forms, sources said. Unions vehemently oppose both sets of rules. Chao rejected 

the offer.’’ 

As you know, I made no such offer. 

My press secretary called CongressDaily repudiating that story and he called your 

press secretary saying that the CongressDaily story was false and noting that there 

were only two people in the meeting, you and I. Your office did not confirm my repudiation of the November 5th story. 

On November 18, 2003, CongressDaily contained the following: 

‘‘Specter’s office released a statement saying he is still seeking a compromise with 

the White House on the issue. But the statement denied an earlier report in 

CongressDaily that in a meeting with Labor Secretary Chao he had offered to drop 

the overtime provision in exchange for the Administration delaying new rules on 

union financial disclosure reports, known as LM–2 forms. However, several sources 

familiar with the early November meeting said otherwise.’’ 

Again, I am at a total loss to note that ‘‘several sources familiar with the early 

November meeting said otherwise,’’ when only you and I were present. Again, your 

office did not confirm that I made no offer to drop the overtime amendment in exchange for the Administration backing away from LM–2. 

I call these matters to your personal attention because of the importance of cooperation between the Secretary of an executive branch department and the Chairman of the appropriations subcommittee funding that Department if the public’s 

business is to be appropriately carried out. 

Sincerely, 

ARLEN SPECTER. 

SECRETARY OF LABOR, 

Washington, December 2, 2003. 

Hon. ARLEN SPECTER, 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor-HHS Appropriations, U.S. Senate, Washington, 

DC. 

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your letter of November 24, as it affords an 

opportunity to clear up several issues of concern. 

First, with regard to the proposed meeting on Thursday evening, I was out of the 

office and, as I understand from staff, there was no specific mention of a 7:15 p.m. 

meeting. I was therefore puzzled to learn that there were reports circulating that 

I had ‘‘cancelled’’ a meeting with you, when no meeting was ever scheduled. Needless to say, I would never do such a thing without good reason and direct communication between our offices. 

Second, I can unequivocally assure you that no one from the Department of Labor 

gave any information to CongressDaily or other news sources concerning our November 4 meeting. In fact, our public affairs office strenuously denied the validity 

of the report in CongressDaily because, as we know, it was simply not true. You 

never made any offer to ‘‘trade’’ one regulatory item for another. I do not know why 

CongressDaily ran with the story, but I can assure you that the Department of 

Labor did nothing to encourage it or even suggest it. Moreover, as soon as the story 

appeared, our staff immediately contacted yours and offered to do everything possible to deflect any further stories in the same vein. 

I regret any misunderstandings that may have been formed as a result of these 

incidents. I appreciate your leadership of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations 

Subcommittee and agree with you that it is essential that we work together to 

achieve the best possible policies that help our workforce. 

Sincerely, 

ELAINE L. CHAO. 
16 

Senator SPECTER. On the issue of that meeting, you responded 

that there were reports that you had ‘‘canceled’’ a meeting with me, 

which is not what my letter had said at all. The meeting was never 

set up. But we sought to have the meeting. Did you know that the 

four of us, the key appropriators controlling these seven appropriations bills in the omnibus, were seeking a meeting with you that 

Thursday evening? 

Secretary CHAO. No, I did not. I did not receive that news. In 

fact, I think it would be quite foolish for any secretary to not go 

to a meeting with four of the appropriators there. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, I happen to agree with you, that a secretary ought to go to a meeting with the chairman of the House 

and the chairman of the Senate full committees and the two subcommittees. But there we were on the Thursday night. You must 

have been aware that this critical matter was percolating at a very 

high boiling point. 

Let me move on to Saturday, when I placed a call to you at 

12:30. 

Secretary CHAO. Saturday? 

Senator SPECTER. Friday, November 21. And I got a response 

from you, which did not really deal with that at all. But a call came 

back at 5:30, when I was in Pittsburgh trying to find some way to 

talk to you to work through this issue, to see if we could find some 

compromise. Had you received a call from me at 12:30 on Friday, 

November 21? 

Secretary CHAO. Well, Mr. Chairman, I pride myself on being 

very responsive. And I got back to you as quickly as I could. I did 

not know that you were in Pittsburgh at the time. But I did—— 

Senator SPECTER. I am not asking you if you knew where I was. 

What I am asking you, if you knew that there was a call to you 

at 12:30. 

Secretary CHAO. I got the call as—as soon as I got word that you 

had called, I tried to return the phone call, yes. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, let me try one more time. Did you know 

that there was a call at 12:30? 

Secretary CHAO. No, I did not. 

Senator SPECTER. You and I had met, Madame Secretary, one on 

one about this issue. And there was a report in the Congress Daily, 

which said that during a meeting between Secretary Chao and Senator Specter that I had offered to drop the amendment on regulations in exchange for the administration backing away from the 

LM2 rules. And you rejected the offer. 

After I had issued a statement of denial, Congress Daily then 

came back on November 18 and noted my denial but said: ‘‘However, several sources familiar with the early November meeting 

said otherwise.’’ My office issued a formal written statement denying that I had made any offer to you, which, first of all, is it not 

true that I did not make any offer to you to make an—— 

Secretary CHAO. I will attest to that. 

Senator SPECTER. No deals, no stipulation, drop the regulation on 

LM. 

Secretary CHAO. No, not at all. 

Senator SPECTER. Did your office issue a written statement to 

Congress Daily straightening out the record and confirming my 
17 

written statement that no such proposal had ever been made by 

me? 

Secretary CHAO. I do not know, but I will check on that. But as 

for—I do not know. But I also think that—— 

Senator SPECTER. Well, wait a minute, Madame Secretary. 

Secretary CHAO. Yes. 

Senator SPECTER. I wrote this to you back on November 24, outlining that in detail. How can it be that you do not know? 

Secretary CHAO. I just asked my staff. And the answer I received 

was that a statement was not issued, but that phone calls were 

made. I think it is also worthwhile to point out that we had nothing to do with that story. If I had been a valuable source of any 

type, the coverage on this issue would certainly have been much 

better. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, my time is up. So I will come back to this 

when my time resumes. 

Senator Cochran has joined us. 

Senator Cochran. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THAD COCHRAN

Senator COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am 

hopeful that this hearing can help identify the importance of the 

effort to modernize our pay and overtime rules. And I congratulate 

you, Madame Chairman, on undertaking that responsibility. I 

know it is a difficult challenge, because some come into consideration of that issue with preconceived notions that whatever proposal you make is going to be unfair to some people. 

But as I understand the effort here, it is to give lower wage earners an opportunity to be in a position to earn overtime pay that 

they are not now getting. Is that part of the proposal that the Department has made? 

Secretary CHAO. Yes. Right now, if you are a worker earning about $8,060 a year, which is below minimum wage, you are not 

guaranteed overtime. If you are receiving overtime, it is only because your employer has agreed to give it. 

So what we want to do is to help low wage vulnerable workers 

be guaranteed overtime and help about 1.3 million workers get the 

overtime that they deserve. 

Senator COCHRAN. I was just with a couple of constituents of 

mine from Mississippi, who came up for a visit. And I told them 

that I was not able to meet with them as long as I had hoped to 

because of the hearing that was scheduled. And I wanted to come 

over and ask you about this. 

I asked them if they had any views about the proposed change 

in the Department of Labor regulations on overtime pay. And they 

said, ‘‘Well, it is past due. It has been needed for a long time.’’ They 

have a lot of professional engineers, who are employed, who are 

owners of the business. And they keep being—they are worried. 

They are concerned that unwittingly they are going to be in a situation where they are found to violate some rules, as currently interpreted and applied by some courts. 

Is not another reason for the modernization of these rules to 

have businesses like those that were just visiting with me achieve 

a greater degree of certainty as to what the law is and what the 
18 

regulations are, so they can comply with them? They do not want 

to violate the rules. 

But the way the law and the regulations have been interpreted, 

there is some confusion about what the obligations of some businesses are, treating professionals as wage earners. Is this another 

reason why the modernization effort has been undertaken by your 

Department? 

Secretary CHAO. Absolutely. Class action lawsuits concerning 

white collar regulations now is the largest area of class action lawsuits in employment law, far surpassing discrimination lawsuits. 

Over $2 billion a year are spent in needless litigation. And workers 

should be receiving their overtime sooner, but they are not, because 

there is no other mechanism sometimes except for the courts. And 

even the courts rule differently on issues, some of these issues. 

So the best way to protect workers is to clarify the rules and regulations. If we, the Government, want to have—if the Government 

wants to really protect workers, we need to give certainty to the 

employers, so they know what their responsibilities are. And we 

also need to empower workers, so that they know what their rights 

are. 

Senator COCHRAN. Well, I think this is a helpful hearing, so we 

can all understand better what the motivation is behind the proposed changes. The fact that Congress is trying intervene, I know 

that there was an effort made in the appropriations process to 

change the regulations or to modify them or to make them have no 

effect, null and void in some respects. 

Well, I hope we will refrain from doing that and let the regular 

process work its way, as you have proposed. I think we will all be 

better off if we exercise that restraints and not overreact just on 

the basis of a few articles that have been written that might misrepresent in some respects what the intentions are and what the 

effects of the regulations will actually be. 

Thank you for appearing before the committee today. 

Secretary CHAO. Thank you. 

Senator SPECTER. Senator Craig. 

Senator CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, thank you. A couple more questions of the secretary. 

I think one of the great frustrations that the private sector has 

is trying to deal with ambiguous or very lengthy, detailed regulation of the Federal Government. Bigger businesses hire fleets of attorneys that spend all of their time doing it and to do just exactly 

what Senator Cochran has suggested, be in compliance with the 

law, because they do not want to be obviously out of compliance. 

It is my understanding that these regulations are not only sometimes very ambiguous, but there is a density to them that is in 

itself a physical fitness test. When an employee feels that he or she 

has been unfairly treated, what is their current recourse today? 

And what kind of time and expense might be involved in attempting to prove their case? 

Secretary CHAO. Well, a lot of times they resort to the courts. 

And it takes about 3 to 4 years before they will get justice or they 

get their overtime paid. At the Department of Labor, if the rules 

and regulations are clear, we can help to recover back pay in about 
19 

108 days. That is about 3 months. So there is quite a lot of difference. 

If the rules and regulations are clear, our own investigators can 

be better equipped to recover back wages. If the regulations are unclear and the courts cannot decide themselves, our investigators, 

the Department’s investigators, are also not equipped fully to carry 

out the rules and regulations. Employers do not know what to do. 

Employees do not know what their rights are. It is very confusing. 

Senator CRAIG. Who pays the legal bill? 

Secretary CHAO. I think we all do, as a society. Because this $2 

billion in litigation fees can be better used to pay higher wages. 

And also, it can also be used, be better energy and effort used, to 

create new jobs. 

Senator CRAIG. And the current estimate of legal bills in relation 

to this area of the law is how much? 

Secretary CHAO. It is about $2 billion. 

Senator CRAIG. Annualized. 

Secretary CHAO. Yes, annualized. And in addition, workers every year miss out about—workers every year miss out on about $897 

million in back wages. 

Senator CRAIG. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Senator Craig. 

Thank you, Madame Secretary, for moving ahead on this important issue. And let me associate myself with the remarks of Senator Craig and Senator Cochran on the desirability of having regulations which can be understood. And the issue of avoiding litigation is absolutely a matter of the highest priority. 

I would like you to submit in writing to the subcommittee just 

how that is going to be accomplished. I would like to spend more 

time in going into detail on the discussion, but we have a very long 

list of witnesses. But if you take a look at the proposed regulation, 

which defines an administrative employee as someone who holds a 

position of responsibility defined either as, one, performing work of 

substantial performance or, two, performing work requiring a high 

level skill or training, how do we come to grips with the words substantial importance to avoid litigation? And how do we come to 

grips with the language of performing work requiring a high level 

skill or training? And how does that contrast with the current law, 

which has led to the litigation, stating ‘‘customarily and regularly 

exercises discretion and independent judgment’’? 

Then when we deal with professional employees, it is hard to distinguish the current regulation which calls for a knowledge of an 

advanced type in the field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction 

study contrasted with the proposed regulation reciting language 

advanced type in a field of science or learning, prolonged course of 

specialized intellectual instruction, and also the alternative is the 

existing regulation, an equivalent combination of intellectual instruction and work experience. 

I would like you to submit to the subcommittee how there is an 

improvement and whether there might be a better course to tackle 

this with a commission such as the proposed legislation would call 

for. And then we would like answers in writing on the total num-
20 

ber of comments you have had, 80,000 reputedly, according to the 

media, how many have been analyzed, and when you expect to 

have the final regulation. Will you meet the March 31 date? And 

how long do you anticipate the Office of Management will take to 

propose the final regs? So we have some idea. 

I had asked you about this, but I did not get a specific answer 

as to what date we are looking at when this regulation is going to 

be final contrasted with September 30, which is what is asked for 

under the congressional move to delay this until the end of the fiscal year. 

I want to be sure you had a full opportunity to answer the questions that I had asked you about issuing a statement. When my 

time is up, Madame Secretary, your time is not up. We do not want 

to limit you on the time of responding, if you had wanted to supplement your answer. 

Secretary CHAO. We will be more than glad to submit the answers in writing. Let me just say a couple of things. One, this is 

a proposal. And we are in the process of evaluating the tens of 

thousands of comments. This rule is very complicated. It has not 

been updated. It needs to be updated so that workers can be protected. 

Our intent is to strengthen overtime protection. We have a responsibility to clarify what the Government requires and what the 

Government is asking of employers. And employees need to know 

what their rights are, as well. 

As for the timing, we think that this has been ongoing for quite 

a long time. There was a great deal of work done before the 

issuance of the proposal. There were stakeholder meetings. There 

were all sorts of discussions. We are now through the issuance of 

the rule, the proposal of the rule. And we have received tens of 

thousands of comments. We are going through that very carefully. 

And our goal is to move on this again, so that we can protect workers who are now losing out on overtime protection. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, we certainly do respect your responsibility, Madame Secretary. No doubt about it. As you have articulated, advances made by the Bush administration in the employment field at the opening part of your statement. And we would appreciate your addressing in writing the issue about whether there 

will be a loss in compensation as contended. I know you will have 

people here to monitor the testimony which will follow. If you had 

the time, it might be desirable for you to stay. There might be 

something you would care to add at a later point. 

While we respect your responsibility, the congressional responsibility is one of oversight of administrative regulations. 

Secretary CHAO. Thank you. 

Senator SPECTER. We thank you for joining us today. And we 

concur. I think there is a unanimity of agreement that we need to 

have regulations which are understood to avoid litigation. 

Secretary CHAO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

Senator SPECTER. There will be some additional questions which 

will be submitted for your response in the record. 
21 

[The following questions were submitted to the Department for 

written responses:] 

RESPONSES OF SECRETARY CHAO TO COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

Question. Please explain how changes to the FLSA Part 541 regulations will decrease litigation so that workers will not have to fight for years in federal court to 

receive their overtime pay. 

Answer. Because the duties tests for exemption in the regulations have not been 

updated in over 50 years, the regulations do not reflect a significant body of federal 

case law or long-standing Wage and Hour Division (WHD) enforcement policies as 

set forth in WHD opinion letters and the Field Operations Handbook. In the last 

50 years, there have been significant legal developments on issues such as concurrent performance of exempt and nonexempt duties, the use of reference manuals, 

and the ‘‘production versus staff dichotomy’’ for the administrative exemption. Significant and sometimes conflicting court decisions have also been issued on particular occupations such as retail assistant managers, insurance claims adjusters, 

public sector employees and journalists. None of these developments are reflected 

in the current regulations, thereby generating confusion, uncertainty, inconsistent 

results, and excessive litigation. 

The final regulations will use clearer and more precise language to reflect the 

rulemaking record, current federal case law (resolving conflicts between cases when 

necessary) and WHD enforcement policies. By doing so, the public will have one set 

of transparent rules to follow, consistent with existing law, and thus will not have 

to rely as much on attorneys to understand their legal rights and responsibilities 

through the conduct of extensive legal research from a multitude of sources. Ensuring the regulations accurately reflect current law, and reconciling conflicting court 

decisions, should reduce litigation. 

For example, the current regulations contain no discussion of the exempt status 

of police officers, fire fighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians or other 

first responders. There is, however, a significant body of federal court decisions providing that most such employees are not exempt administrative or professional employees, although courts have found that chiefs, captains and some lieutenants can 

qualify as exempt executives. The Department had no intent to change this interpretation of the law, but the public commentary indicates that more clarity is needed on this issue. 

Question.The proposed regulation defines an administrative employee as someone 

who holds a position of responsibility, which is further defined as (1) performing 

work of substantial importance or, (2) performing work requiring a high level skill 

or training. How will using these new phrases ‘‘substantial importance’’ and ‘‘high 

level of skill or training’’ avoid litigation? How does this contrast with the current 

regulations which require the exercise of ‘‘discretion and independent judgment?’’ 

Answer. In meetings held by the Department of Labor prior to drafting the Notice 

of Proposed Rulemaking, employer stakeholders identified the administrative exemption, and particularly the ‘‘discretion and independent judgment’’ standard, as 

one of the most confusing and difficult requirements in the regulations. A review 

of case law reveals that federal courts also have difficulty interpreting and applying 

this standard. Accordingly, the Department attempted to propose an alternative 

standard that would be easier to understand and apply. 

Comments received by the Department indicate that we were not fully successful 

in this effort. Both employer and employee commenters have expressed concerns 

about the proposed test. Most commenters request that the Department bring back 

the ‘‘discretion and independent judgment’’ test, although they disagree sharply on 

whether it should be a requirement, or one of several alternatives, for exemption 

as an administrative employee. 

In response to these valid concerns, when the Department issues the final rule, 

it will reflect significant changes from the proposal. As stated above, the Department will rely on existing federal case law, opinion letters, comments received during the comment period, and other WHD policy statements to provide regulatory 

language that will be easier for both employers and employees to understand and 

apply. It is not the Department’s intent to depart significantly from current law. 

Question. When dealing with professional employees it’s difficult to distinguish between the current regulation that calls for ‘‘a knowledge of an advanced type in the 

field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized 

intellectual instruction and study,’’ and the proposal’s language, ‘‘advanced type in 

the field of science or learning or a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction’’. I would like you to submit to the subcommittee how there is an improve-
22 

ment and whether there might be a better course to tackle this with a commission 

such as the proposed legislation would call for. 

Answer. The professional exemption has been the focus of much misinterpretation 

during the course of this rulemaking. Section 541.301(a) of the current regulations 

provides that a learned professional is an employee whose work requires ‘‘knowledge 

of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study.’’ (Emphasis added.) 

However, current section 541.301(d) states that, while the word ‘‘ ‘customarily’ implies that in the vast majority of cases the specific academic training is a prerequisite for entrance into the profession,’’ it also ‘‘makes the exemption available 

to the occasional lawyer who has not gone to law school or the occasional chemist 

who is not the possessor of a degree in chemistry.’’ 

The proposed changes to section 541.301 were intended to clarify the point at 

which the ‘‘occasional chemist’’ who does not have a degree can qualify as a professional. The proposal states that such an employee (to qualify as a professional) must 

have the same knowledge as the degreed employee even if that knowledge was acquired by an alternative, nontraditional means. The Department intended to clarify 

that an employee who has the same knowledge, same skills, and performs the same 

work as the degreed employees working in a professional field should be classified 

and paid in a similar manner. 

Department officials have stated repeatedly that we do not intend to make any 

changes to the educational requirements for the professional exemption. Many of the 

specific concerns—about nurses, engineering technicians and veterans, for example—arise from the presumption that we are making major changes to the educational requirements. The Department intends to clarify the final regulation to ensure no misinterpretation of our intent. 

The Department does not believe a commission would provide any information or 

ideas not already included in the 75,280 comments received during this rulemaking. 

This rulemaking has been on the Department’s regulatory agenda for 20 years, and 

already has been studied by GAO. Further delay will mean that millions of workers 

will continue to be denied overtime pay. 

Question. We would like answers on the total number of comments received, 

media reports say 80,000. How many have been analyzed? When do you expect to 

have the final regulation? Will the March 31, 2004, deadline be met? How long do 

you anticipate the Office of Management and Budget will take to review the final 

regulations? Contrast that date with the September 30, 2004, deadline that has 

been requested in congressional moves to delay this to the end of this fiscal year. 

Answer. The Department received a total of 75,280 comments during the official 

comment period. We have analyzed all of them. The Department will publish a final 

rule as expeditiously as possible, consistent with the requirements of a process governing a significant, complex rule such as this one. The Department intends to submit a final rule to OMB in March; we are not in a position to comment on OMB’s 

review process. We believe that the final rule will meet Congress’ expectations for 

both thoroughness and thoughtfulness. As stated above, we believe that a delay to 

September 2004 would be harmful to workers, especially low-wage workers who 

today can be denied overtime if they earn only $8,100 per year. 

Question. In your statement, you articulated advances made by the Bush Administration in the employment field. What are those? Could you also discuss whether 

there will be a loss in compensation as contended? 

Answer. The Department intends to make every effort in the final regulations to 

ensure that no low-wage or middle-income employees lose overtime pay or experience a decline in compensation. 

The Bush Administration is committed to protecting America’s workers, and the 

Department of Labor has backed up this commitment with action. Almost every law 

enforcement agency in the Department posted record performance results in fiscal 

year 2003: 

—The Wage and Hour Division collected over $212 million in back wages for over 

340,000 employees, an 11-year high and a 60 percent increase over fiscal year 

2001. 

—OSHA cited employers for 83,760 violations, a nearly 8 percent increase over 

fiscal year 2002. Almost 60,000 of those violations were considered serious, an 

11 percent increase. 

—Workplace injuries and fatalities fell to the lowest point ever in 2002. 

—Fatalities in all mines decreased by 10 percent in fiscal year 2003, and total 

mining injuries fell by 12 percent. 

—The Employee Benefits Security Administration had record monetary results of 

more than $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2003, a nearly 60 percent increase over the 

previous year. 
23 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD L. TRUMKA, SECRETARY-TREASURER, AFL– 

CIO 

Senator SPECTER. We will now turn to the second panel, which 

will be the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL–CIO, Richard L. 

Trumka, esquire. Mr. Trumka was first elected in 1995, the youngest secretary-treasurer in AFL–CIO history, a third generation coal 

miner from Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, a graduate of Penn State 

with a law degree from University Law School. 

We are now going to call the other witnesses. I called the second 

panel of just Mr. Trumka. So if you others would step back, we will 

call you. 

Mr. Trumka, would you move to the center, please? 

Mr. Trumka has a very unusual background as a coal miner 

after he became a lawyer, which perhaps put an appropriate perspective on the skill levels and social utility of the respective professions. 

I am going to withhold further comment or the characteristic stories about lawyers’ compensations. But we welcome you, Mr. Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL–CIO. And the floor is yours. 

Mr. TRUMKA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify on behalf of the 

AFL–CIO regarding the Bush administration’s proposed regulations on overtime eligibility. 

The overtime regulations proposed by the Bush administration in 

March 2003 would redefine 8 million workers as ineligible for Federal overtime protection. In addition, under this proposal thousands more workers every year would be stripped of their overtime 

rights. The Bush proposal would effectively gut the 40-hour workweek through administrative regulation, dishonoring the sacrifice 

of thousands of working women and men, who struggled for over 

a century to enact the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. 

It would also dishonor the sacrifice of millions of working parents 

today, who work longer hours to provide for their families. And it 

would be a slap in the face to working parents in desperate need 

of more family time away from work. 

Mr. Chairman, this hearing could not be more timely for today 

the 40-hour workweek is in jeopardy. A vote scheduled for this 

afternoon in the Senate could determine the future of overtime protection and the 40-hour workweek in this country. 

There are seven points that I would like to make about the Bush 

overtime proposal and today’s vote in the Senate. First, it bears repeating that the one and only overtime issue before Congress is a 

very simple one, whether the Bush administration should be allowed to strip workers of their overtime rights. 

Contrary to assertions by the Department of Labor, nobody has 

proposed stopping the Department from issuing a regulation. No 

one has proposed stopping DOL from updating, clarifying or improving the overtime regulations. And no one has proposed stopping DOL from making an inflation adjustment that would expand 

overtime coverage to a small number of lower income workers. 

The only thing anyone in Congress has proposed is an amendment to stop the Labor Department from stripping workers of their 

overtime rights. That is all the Harkin amendment does. The Harkin amendment would allow the DOL to issue a regulation accom-
24 

plishing all the things the Department says it wants to do, so long 

as it refrains from stripping workers of their overtime rights. So 

DOL should stop hiding behind excuses. 

Second, the administration’s detailed descriptions of ways employers can avoid paying anything for overtime work, as reported 

recently by several news organizations, I think are revealing of its 

true priorities, providing a primer of how to lower employees’ 

wages in order to save money on overtime. Whether these strategies are actually legal or not is hardly consistent with the administration’s pressed concern for the overtime earnings of low income 

workers. 

In fact, these proposed rules were designed for the benefit of employers, not workers. And that is not just my opinion. But it is also 

the opinion of the business community. As one prominent management law firm informed its clients when the proposed regulations 

first came out, and I quote, ‘‘Thankfully, virtually all of these 

changes should ultimately be beneficial to employers.’’ 

Third, we believe the Bush administration has grossly miscalculated the effects of its proposal in ways that make its overtime cuts 

look smaller. The administration’s estimates low-ball the number of 

workers who would lose their overtime eligibility and inflate the 

number of workers who would gain. 

In one sense, of course, the administration’s misleading estimates 

are beside the point. Whether the actual number of workers losing 

overtime is 700,000, 7 million, 8 million, or 20 million, there is no 

excuse for taking overtime protection away from any worker. And 

if DOL’s estimates are right, if they are correct, it is all the more 

reason for them to support the Harkin amendment because it 

would affect, in their opinion, so few people. So to stop the logjam, 

they should support the amendment. 

Also, the number of low income workers who would benefit from 

the proposed inflation adjustment is irrelevant to the debate in 

Congress. Again, the Harkin amendment would allow the administration to extend overtime coverage to any number of workers, 

whether it be 300,000, 1.3 million, or whatever number of workers 

would benefit from a more complete adjustment for inflation. 

Fourth, while no worker deserves to lose overtime eligibility, it 

is particularly reprehensible for the administration to propose 

stripping overtime rights from veterans who have received technical training in the military. Under the Bush proposal, if an employer determines that the training veterans have received in the 

military is equivalent to a 4-year professional degree, that employer will now be allowed to deny those veterans overtime eligibility and refuse to pay them anything for overtime pay. This proposal is not only offensive, it actually insults the men and women 

who risk their lives and serve their country. 

It also threatens to undermine a key recruiting tool of the armed 

services. That is the opportunity for career advancement through 

military training. In a regulatory proposal brimming with bad 

ideas, this is certainly one of the worst. And this is surely not the 

way to show support for our troops. 

Fifth, the Senate vote this afternoon may be the last chance for 

Congress to protect the overtime rights of 8 million workers and 

more broadly to protect the future of the 40-hour workweek. 
25 

Mr. Chairman, has my time expired? 

Senator SPECTER. It has. You are about a minute over time, if 

you—— 

PREPARED STATEMENT

Mr. TRUMKA. I apologize. I can only say that I would like to 

thank the chairman, give my personal gratitude to the chairman, 

for his vote in favor of the Harkin amendment and hope that we 

can count on his continued support for guaranteeing American 

workers the loss of their overtime rights. And I thank you very 

much for the opportunity to be here. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD L. TRUMKA

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify 

on behalf of the AFL–CIO regarding the Bush Administration’s proposed regulations 

on overtime eligibility. 

The overtime regulations proposed by the Bush Administration in March 2003 

would redefine 8 million workers as ineligible for federal overtime protection. In addition, under this proposal, thousands more workers every year would be stripped 

of their overtime rights. The Bush proposal would effectively gut the 40-hour workweek through administrative regulation, dishonoring the sacrifice of thousands of 

working men and women who struggled for over a century to enact the Fair Labor 

Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. The Bush proposal would also dishonor the sacrifice 

of millions of working parents today who work longer hours to provide for their families, and would be a slap in the face to working parents in desperate need of more 

family time away from work. 

Mr. Chairman, this hearing could not be more timely, for today the 40-hour workweek is in jeopardy. A vote scheduled for this afternoon in the Senate could determine the future of overtime protection and the 40-hour workweek in this country. 

There are seven points I would like to make about the Bush overtime proposal 

and today’s vote in the Senate: 

First, it bears repeating that the one and only overtime issue before Congress is 

a very simple one: whether the Bush Administration should be allowed to strip 

workers of their overtime rights. Contrary to assertions by the Department of Labor 

(DOL), nobody has proposed stopping the Department from issuing a regulation. No 

one has proposed stopping DOL from updating, clarifying, or improving the overtime 

regulations. No one has proposed stopping DOL from making an inflation adjustment that would expand overtime coverage to a small number of lower-income workers. The only thing anyone in Congress has proposed is an amendment to stop the 

Labor Department from stripping workers of their overtime rights. That is all the 

Harkin amendment does. The Harkin amendment would allow DOL to issue a regulation accomplishing all the things the Department says it wants to do, so long as 

it refrains from stripping workers of their overtime rights. DOL should stop hiding 

behind phony excuses. The indisputable fact is that this Administration is pulling 

out all the stops to insist on its right to take away workers’ overtime. 

Second, the Administration’s detailed descriptions of ways employers can avoid 

paying anything for overtime work, as reported recently by several news organizations, are very revealing of its true priorities. Providing a primer on how to lower 

employees’ wages in order to save money on overtime—whether these strategies are 

actually legal or not—is hardly consistent with the Administration’s professed concern for the overtime earnings of low-income workers. 

In fact, these proposed rules were designed for the benefit of employers, not workers. This is not just my opinion, but is also the opinion of the business community. 

As one prominent management law firm (Proskauer Rose) informed its clients when 

the proposed regulations first came out, ‘‘Thankfully, virtually all of these changes 

should ultimately be beneficial to employers.’’ 

Third, we believe the Bush Administration has grossly miscalculated the effects 

of its proposal in ways that make its overtime cuts look smaller. The Administration’s estimates lowball the number of workers who would lose their overtime eligibility and inflate the number of workers who would gain eligibility. In one sense, 

of course, the Administration’s misleading estimates are beside the point. Whether 

the actual number of workers losing overtime is 7 million or 8 million or 20 million, 

there is no excuse for taking overtime protection away from any worker. And the 
26 

number of low-income workers who would benefit from the proposed inflation adjustment is irrelevant to the debate in Congress. Again, the Harkin amendment 

would allow the Administration to extend overtime coverage to any number of workers, whether it be 300,000, 1.3 million, or whatever number of workers would benefit from a more complete adjustment for inflation. 

Fourth, while no worker deserves to lose overtime eligibility, it is particularly reprehensible for this Administration to propose stripping overtime rights from veterans who have received technical training in the military. Under the Bush proposal, if an employer determines that the training veterans have received in the 

military is equivalent to a four-year professional degree, that employer will now be 

allowed to deny those veterans overtime eligibility and refuse to pay them anything 

for overtime work. This proposal is offensive. It is an insult to the men and women 

who risk their lives to serve their country. It also threatens to undermine a key recruiting tool of the armed services—the opportunity for career advancement through 

military training. In a regulatory proposal brimming with bad ideas, this is certainly one of the worst. 

Fifth, the Senate vote this afternoon may be the last chance for Congress to protect the overtime rights of 8 million workers, and more broadly to protect the future 

of the 40-hour workweek. The Labor Department has announced its plan to issue 

a final regulation by March 2004. Time is running out. If an overtime guarantee 

is not included in the omnibus appropriations bill now before the Senate, there may 

be no way to stop the Administration from stripping overtime rights from more than 

8 million workers. It is urgent and imperative that Congress defeat cloture this 

afternoon to force the Administration to abandon its campaign to restrict overtime 

eligibility. 

Sixth, responsibility for jeopardizing the omnibus spending legislation now before 

the Senate lies squarely with the Bush Administration. It was the Bush Administration that threatened to veto this legislation if it included the Harkin overtime guarantee. It was the Bush Administration that forced the conference committee to strip 

out the Harkin overtime guarantee. It was the Bush Administration that refused 

even to sit down and discuss a compromise with the distinguished chairman of this 

committee. It was the Bush Administration that flouted strong bipartisan votes in 

both the House and Senate in favor of protecting workers’ overtime rights. And it 

was the Bush Administration that recklessly disregarded repeated public warnings 

that stripping the Harkin overtime guarantee from this bill could jeopardize its final 

passage. 

Seventh, it is within the Administration’s power to resolve this standoff. If the Administration agreed to respect the will of bipartisan pro-overtime majorities in both 

houses of Congress, the Harkin overtime guarantee could be reattached to an omnibus package. Alternatively, if the Administration withdrew its opposition to protecting overtime, the Harkin overtime guarantee could be enacted separately. Or the 

Bush Administration could simply withdraw its controversial overtime cuts, make 

a public commitment not to restrict overtime eligibility in the future, and immediately implement the non-controversial part of its proposal that adjusts overtime 

salary tests for inflation. 

Finally, I would like to express my personal gratitude to the chairman for his vote 

in favor of the Harkin amendment. I hope we can count on the chairman’s continued 

support for guaranteeing America’s workers against the loss of their overtime rights. 

Thank you, and I would be glad to answer any questions. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Mr. Trumka. 

You have specified in the opening part of your statement that 

there will be a redefinition of 8 million workers as ineligible for 

Federal overtime protection. You go on to say that thousands more 

workers every year would be stripped of their overtime rights. 

In the context that we do not yet have a final regulation, what 

is the evidentiary base for your first conclusion as to the 8 million 

workers who would be stripped of their overtime rights? 

Mr. TRUMKA. It was based on the proposal that was issued and 

an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, can you amplify that, as to how they 

come to that conclusion and how much money would be involved 

in the losses? 

Mr. TRUMKA. Well, Mr. Bernstein will be here in a little while 

on the second panel. He conducted the study. And he can give you 
27 

the detail of it. If you would like, I can give to you a detailed written analysis of that study. 

In addition, the second part of the study about thousands more 

in the future being affected works two ways. The new regs will 

index the top level and the bottom level. They put a top level for 

overtime. It is $65,100, I believe. If you go over that, you are presumed to lose overtime. They do not index that figure for inflation. 

So each year, as raises take people over the $65,000, they will lose 

overtime. 

Also, they do not index the bottom level of $22,000. So as people’s raises take them over the $22,000 level, they profess that more 

people will lose overtime as their wages go beyond $22,000. 

Senator SPECTER. Mr. Trumka, you were present during the 

course of my questioning Secretary Chao, where I commented on 

the proposed regulation and the current law as to administrative 

employees, as to the difficulty of the definition. And the current 

proposal is for an administrative employee performing work of substantial importance or performing work requiring a high level of 

skill or training. Do you have a specific proposal as to how you can 

structure a regulation which would provide clarity to avoid litigation? 

Mr. TRUMKA. Well, the first thing we do with any proposal, Mr. 

Chairman, is to specify, as clearly and as concisely and as bindingly as possible, the goal. If the goal is to help workers, then the 

Harkin amendment will help them do that, because what it will not 

allow them to do is change definitions so they can be interpreted 

to eliminate or deny people overtime. Then you could start with 

specificity. 

You know, over the years we have had litigations. So the current 

regs are fairly well understood. And one of the previous witnesses 

that was with the Secretary of Labor said the new or proposed regulations would result in a deluge of litigation because of the words 

that you just talked about, substantial, high level. Those are a lawyer’s dream. Those are the fudge words that everybody uses and 

will result in another 15 years of litigation to define those out into 

the future. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, Mr. Trumka, beyond the issue of whether 

it is going to help one group or another, do you agree that we ought 

to have definitions which avoid litigation? And I know the answer 

to the question, but just to put that on the record, there is no doubt 

that it is a common objective. When there is litigation, there are 

expenses on all sides. Do you concur that we really need regulations which would advance the interest of avoiding litigation? 

Mr. TRUMKA. Yes, sir. I do agree, Mr. Chairman, that we should 

avoid litigation. However, if we are going to have definitively, I 

would have them definitely provide overtime, as opposed to definitely not provide overtime. I would fight any regulation that took 

overtime away from a substantial number of workers. 

But I agree with the goal of eliminating costly litigation, so long 

as, when we are being definitive, it definitively provides overtime 

and not definitively takes overtime away. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, Mr. Trumka, how is overtime taken away 

on the proposed regulation contrasted with the current regulation, 

where the current regulation defines a professional employee as 
28 

someone performing work requiring knowledge of an advanced type 

in the field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study, and 

contrast that language with the proposed regulation, advanced type 

in the field of science or learning using language specialized intellectual course, and then as an alternative, the equivalent combination of intellectual instruction and work experience? 

It looks very difficult to me to draw a distinction between those 

two definitions. Am I missing something here? 

Mr. TRUMKA. Well, those two definitions, the second one is far 

more nebulous and gives far more discretion to employers to define 

what equivalent means, things of that sort. 

The other thing is, you and I both know, Mr. Chairman, that as 

lawyers, when words are litigated, they take on a meaning. And 

the courts give meaning to all those terms in the first definition 

that you gave. They have been defined. Now you change one word, 

eliminate a word, add a word, there will be another series of litigation that will redefine what all of those things meant. And so long 

as we are going to do that, if you can assure or we can assure the 

American worker that the redefinition is not going to take away 

overtime, but is going to add overtime, we will be helpful. We will 

do what we can to help that happen. 

What we will not tolerate is seeing a bad economic policy with 

an economy that is two-thirds driven by consumer spending. Taking upwards of $3 billion to $4 billion out of the pockets of average 

Americans and putting it somewhere else is not a good economic 

policy. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, the question is whether we could redefine the regulations so that we leave people in their current status, 

so it does not have an impact one way or another, not giving an 

advantage to either side, but maintaining the current level of compensation with language which would avoid litigation. And that is 

the objective that I would like to come to, so that you do not create 

an imbalance in where you stand now as to what people are earning but seek to avoid ambiguous language, which leads the courts 

to make constructions on it. 

Well, I do not know that we are going to advance that cause very 

much here. But when I looked at the proposed reg and I looked at 

the old reg, it seemed to me that the ball was not advanced on limiting litigation. I would like to limit litigation. And let the record 

show the witness is nodding in the affirmative. I do not think it 

does that. 

Mr. TRUMKA. I agree with you. It does not. 

Senator SPECTER. I am going to be interested to hear the next 

witnesses as to how you make the computation that labor loses. On 

this language, I do not know that you can pick winners or losers, 

because I do not know that you can pick what a court is going to 

say on this language. 

Mr. TRUMKA. Well, some of the things you definitely cannot. But 

$65,100 is real easy to interpret. Taking away the long test and 

having only the short test is really easy to interpret. Maybe on one 

specific thing you cannot pick winners and losers. But when you 

look at the whole thing, you can definitely pick winners and losers. 
29 

Employers win and workers lose. And there is not a doubt in my 

mind about that. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, that is a valid consideration. That is the 

first time I have heard the figure articulated in this hearing. I 

know of a figure, but that is the first I have heard of it. 

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Trumka. 

Mr. TRUMKA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you for coming and joining us here 

today. 

Mr. TRUMKA. Thank you for the hearing. 

Senator SPECTER. We will now go to panel three: Mr. David 

Fortney, Mr. Jared Bernstein, Mr. Ronald Bird, Mr. Andrew J. 

McDevitt, and Ms. Patty Hefner. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID S. FORTNEY, CO-FOUNDER, FORTNEY & SCOTT 

Senator SPECTER. Our first witness on this panel is Mr. Fortney, 

David S. Fortney, who is co-founder of Fortney & Scott, a Washington, D.C.-based firm specializing in labor and employment 

issues. Before co-founding the firm, Mr. Fortney held several positions with the U.S. Department of Labor, including acting solicitor 

of labor and chief legal officer. He has a bachelor’s degree from 

Penn State and a JD from Duquesne University School of Law. 

Are you a Pennsylvanian, as well as—— 

Mr. FORTNEY. I am indeed, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SPECTER [continuing]. A background in your schooling in 

Pennsylvania? 

Mr. FORTNEY. I am indeed. And I just spent the weekend there 

with my parents. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Fortney. And the 

floor is yours. 

Mr. FORTNEY. Thank you and good morning. It is a privilege to 

appear before you this morning, Mr. Chairman, regarding the proposed overtime regulations. I am appearing on behalf of a broadbased employer coalition known as the OT Overtime Coalition. This 

coalition is comprised of more than approximately 100 trade associations, companies, and professional human resource organizations. And together the coalition represents 2.4 million employers 

and over 42 million employees. 

At the outset, let me state that we really would like to thank 

you, Mr. Chairman and members of this subcommittee, for convening this important hearing today. We believe that it is very important that we have an honest and informed dialogue about these 

proposed regulations and what would happen and what would not 

happen if the regulations, at least as proposed, would become final. 

I think that although there may be some disagreement on this 

point, but I think there is at least a consensus that the proposed 

regulations would make many changes that are desperately needed. The current regulations are outdated. They cause confusion and 

uncertainty among all stakeholders, including employers, employees not knowing what their rights are, and including the Labor Department, who is charged with enforcement. I think the other witnesses have covered that. 

So what we have today is the existing regulations designed for 

a 1950s workforce making 1970s salaries. The rules are out of date. 
30 

And they produce nothing but confusion and litigation. I think 

there is agreement on that. 

Initially, I would like to share, if I could, please, why the overtime regulations need to be updated. There is, again, the GAO report. The secretary has cataloged many of the prior looks at the 

regulations, all reaching the same conclusion. But what specifically, why are there problems with these regulations? Let me see 

if I can provide some examples to illustrate in the real world what 

is going on with these regulations. 

The current regulations, which again were promulgated about 

half a century ago, list a number of occupations that were put in 

there so that people could read the regulations and understand, 

should an employee get overtime or not get overtime. The examples 

that are listed in the regulations are largely wholly out of date and 

unhelpful today. 

For example, straw bosses, gang leaders, keypunch operators. 

These occupations no longer exist. No member of this subcommittee, I would suggest, will find those occupations in their 

home states. We do not have them with our clients. And so in contrast, how do we take these antiquated occupations in the current 

regulations and align them when clients come and ask us: Who is 

the software engineer? Is that person exempt or nonexempt? Network administrator, a web master. 

Now these are the jobs where—job creation that is making our 

economy grow. And the lack of clarity that we are suffering from 

today with these regulations result in unfairness to everyone involved. This needs to be addressed. 

But it is not just the job titles. The regulations go further and 

say: You do not look at titles, but you have to look at what people 

actually do. 

Let me see if I can give one example that supposedly is there to 

help us understand the distinction between who is exempt and 

nonexempt. Our current regulations tell us that employees who 

watch machines and keep an eye out for trouble, those can be exempt employees from overtime. However, if an employee watches 

a machine, if they operate—to see if they ‘‘operate properly,’’ that 

person is not supposed to be exempt. I, frankly, have never been 

able to divine what the distinction is. And in the real world, people 

cannot. This is a huge problem in the practical world. 

Now, what has happened? There has been some reference to the 

litigation. I think the Secretary of Labor cataloged what has happened with that record. Let us talk about what some of these cases 

have done, the results that just do not seem sensical. I think the 

average human resource professional, the small business administrator would not accurately read these regulations and does not 

often. 

A court found that a project superintendent earning $90,000 a 

year as a salary was nonexempt because he performed staff functions. In the court’s reasoning, they found that he was a production 

employee. He was producing construction management. That is not 

helpful. 

Another court found that network communications specialists, all 

of whom had advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, engineering, many of whom on their surface, many of us would look at say 
31 

those are certainly professionals, were ruled not to be because they 

followed manuals and made group decisions. 

I see my time is up, Mr. Chair. I just want to close by noting that 

the lack of—— 

Senator SPECTER. If you need a little more time to summarize, 

go ahead and take it, Mr. Fortney. 

Mr. FORTNEY. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

The lack of clarity in these regulations operates unfairly. Realistically, a typical human resource representative, a small business 

owner—there was reference before, Senator Cochran talked about 

the density of the regulations. They are dense. They are not fair. 

They do not work well. 

What we need are regulations that help with that. Are the proposed regulations perfect? No. And that—you have asked a number 

of questions probing what their effect would be. But what we know 

for certain is that the current regulations are broken. They need 

to be fixed. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

I do not know nor, with due respect, does anyone know what the 

final regulations will look like. We await those results. We know 

that if there are problems, that there are a number of remedies 

that are available: Judicial review, congressional review, as this 

Congress did with the economic regulations. So we are not, if you 

will, stuck with them either. But it is a start. A concern, respectfully, is that the delay in addressing these issues, although not perfect, would be a step forward. 

With that, I thank you. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID S. FORTNEY

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. My name is David Fortney and I am 

a co-founder of the law firm Fortney & Scott, LLC in Washington, DC. I am testifying today on behalf of a broad group of employer associations, employers and other 

organizations that are united by their mission of working for fairness and clarity 

in overtime laws. The coalition represents employers of every size and in every state 

and covers many sectors of the U.S. economy, including small business, retail, manufacturing, financial services and insurance, education, and other areas. While I am 

here today on behalf of the employer coalition, my testimony also reflects my experience as a practicing labor and employment attorney for twenty four years, as well 

as my previous experience at the U.S. Department of Labor, where I served as the 

Deputy Solicitor and Acting Solicitor during the first Bush Administration, under 

Secretaries of Labor Elizabeth Dole and Lynn Martin. In my positions at the Labor 

Department, my responsibilities included the interpretation and enforcement of the 

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended (‘‘FLSA’’), and the regulations implementing the FLSA, including the regulations that are the focus of today’s hearing 

that provide for exemptions from overtime and minimum wage for ‘‘white-collar’’ 

jobs, including executive, administrative and professional positions. Moreover, I 

have extensive experience counseling employers who seek to comply with the FLSA 

white-collar regulations, and experience responding to the growing number of class 

action claims being filed against employers. I will discuss my experience and views 

on these matters in the context of the proposed revisions to the white-collar exemption regulations. 

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF THE FLSA WHITE-COLLAR EXEMPTION REGULATIONS

The white-collar exemption regulations are dramatically outdated and have imposed significant confusion and uncertainty in determining who is, and who is not, 

exempt from the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime requirements. The FLSA imposes minimum wage and overtime requirements on covered employers, but also, in 
32 

29 U.S.C. § 213 (a), provides certain exemptions from these requirements. Section 

213 (a) states that the minimum wage and overtime requirements shall not apply 

to any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional 

capacity or in the capacity of outside salesperson. As you know, the regulations for 

implementing these statutory exemptions—commonly referred to as the ‘‘white-collar’’ exemptions—are codified at 29 CFR Part 541. The white-collar exemption regulations impose two requirements for a job to be classified as exempt. First, the employee must be paid on a salary basis and at the required salary level. And, second, 

the job duties must involve manage rial, administrative or professional skills. 

THE WHITE-COLLAR EXEMPTION REGULATIONS ARE OUTDATED AND REQUIRE

COMPREHENSIVE REFORM

The problem that all stakeholders face today, including employers, employees and 

the Labor Department, is in trying to apply the outdated regulations to today’s 

workplace. The duties tests were last modified in 1949—over 50 years ago, and have 

remained essentially unchanged since that time. The salary basis was added to the 

regulations in 1954, and was last updated in 1975—over 25 years ago. As a result, 

the long-outdated requirements create uncertainty and frustrate compliance efforts. 

For example, the ‘‘long test’’ for determining whether an employee is exempt from 

the overtime provisions of the statute is currently triggered by a weekly salary of 

only $155, a figure so out-of-date that it renders the long test meaningless. Virtually 

every salaried employee earns more than $155 per week and is therefore potentially 

outside the overtime protections of the law. Indeed, if an employee is paid the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, which equals $206 for a 40-hour workweek, the long 

test is met. Moreover, the alternative salary test of $250 for highly compensated exempt employees (the ‘‘short test’’) is nearly met with the minimum wage and, as a 

practical matter, is not a useful tool. The only remaining issue for salary typically 

is whether there have been improper deductions or impermissible partial day 

‘‘dockings’’ of compensation. 

Therefore, as a practical matter, because of the general obsolescence of the salary 

test, typically the evaluation of whether jobs properly are classified as exempt primarily turns on the duties requirements. The duties tests, however, have proven to 

be a vast ‘‘gray’’ area, because the current regulations are too vague. As a result, 

both employers and the Labor Department are faced with inconsistent results that 

often are no more certain than the next court decision. In particular, the administrative exemption’s requirements, which require exempt employees to perform 

‘‘staff’’ rather than production or sales work, and exercise ‘‘discretion and independent judgment’’ on important matters in managing the employer’s general business operations, are particularly difficult to apply. For example, a court ruled that 

a project superintendent, who supervised three large construction projects for a construction management company, earning an annual salary of $90,000, was not an 

exempt administrative employee. The court reasoned that under the staff versus 

production dichotomy, the employee ‘‘produced’’ construction project management 

and thus was a nonexempt production employee. See Carpenter v. R.M. Shoemaker 

Co., 2002 WL 987990, 7 Wage & Hour Cas. 2d (BNA) 1457 (E.D. Pa. May 6, 2002). 

Similarly, the professional exemption was found not to apply to ‘‘network communications specialists’’ who had advanced physics, mathematics and engineering degrees and who trained mission control personnel, because, the court held, the employees failed to exercise discretion, because they used technical manuals and made 

group decisions. Hashop v. Rockwell Space Operations, 867 F. Supp. 1287 (S.D. 

Texas 1994). 

The result is that the current vague regulations result in ‘‘gotcha’’ liabilities and 

unintentional noncompliance. The significant increase in employment claims is a 

clear indication that the current rules are not working—why should we have escalating claims when the rules have not changed? Wage and hour class actions now 

are the most frequently filed class action claims employers face, and individual wage 

and hour lawsuits doubled in 2002. 

In my experience, the explanation for these unacceptable developments is simple—plaintiffs’ lawyers have discovered that the outdated regulations provide an excellent basis for filing ‘‘gotcha’’ claims that primarily benefit the attorneys. Moreover, under the current outdated rules, employers often are required to secure expensive legal guidance on what is required to secure compliance, and even then the 

best that typically can be provided is somewhat guarded advice. As one of our clients once asked me, why should extensive good faith compliance efforts have the 

same feel as spinning a roulette wheel? 

Everyone, perhaps with the exception of a small cadre of plaintiffs’ lawyers who 

are making huge fees in filing these wage and hour class action lawsuits, agrees 
33 

that the outdated regulations require revision, because the rules are vague and ambiguous and difficult to apply to many positions in today’s workplace. The U.S. General Accounting Office (‘‘GAO’’) review of regulations in 1999 recommended that the 

Secretary of Labor comprehensively review and make the necessary changes to the 

white-collar regulations to better meet the needs of both employers and employees 

in the modern workplace and to anticipate future workplace trends. The GAO’s recommendations recognized the problems in achieving compliance. My personal experience has been that it often is difficult to advise employers because the rules are 

not clear. Additionally, the judicial interpretations vary and compound the problems 

in securing compliance. Moreover, it is my belief, based on my personal experience, 

that these same factors pose challenges to the Labor Department in securing uniform and consistent enforcement. 

CONGRESS SHOULD ALLOW DOL TO COMPLETE THE PENDING REGULATORY PROCESS AND

ISSUE A FINAL RULE

Delaying or preventing the issuance of a final rule, based on concerns about how 

the final rule might turn out improperly preempts the regulatory process provided 

by the FLSA. In the FLSA, Congress quite consciously left undefined those broad 

terms describing which jobs were exempt (‘‘any employee employed in a bona fide 

executive, administrative, or professional capacity’’) and explicitly placed on the Secretary of Labor the duty to ‘‘define and delimit’’ the terms used in the exemptions. 

Congress also explicitly provided that the Secretary’s actions in defining and delimiting the exemptions are subject to the provisions of the Administrative Procedure 

Act. 

The rulemaking process has been respected and followed by the U.S. Department 

of Labor in a lawful, prudent and orderly manner. The Department received nearly 

80,000 comments during the three-month comment period, addressing all aspects of 

the proposed rule—pro and con. Included in the comments filed were comments by 

many employers, and although there were differences among employers’ comments 

on many aspects, employers did generally support the Labor Department’s efforts 

to update the exemption regulations. At this point, everyone awaits the issuance of 

the final regulations. 

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with particular provisions of the 

Secretary’s proposed regulations, and regardless of where one will stand with regard 

to specific features of the as yet unknown final regulations to be enacted, the Secretary has undertaken to do exactly that which Congress has prescribed and GAO 

has recommended, and she has followed the procedures dictated by the APA. Congress should permit the Secretary to complete that process. 

Faced with such clearly outdated regulations and with reports by the General Accounting Office and others urging an overhaul of the regulations, the current Secretary of Labor undertook the long neglected task of providing regulations that were 

meaningful for the modern workforce. This was a task that earlier Administrations, 

both Democratic and Republican, had considered but shied away from, undoubtedly 

over concern that revising these regulations would be controversial. 

During 2002, the Department initially met with over 40 interest groups, representing employers and employees, to learn of their suggestions and concerns. On 

March 31, 2003 the Department of Labor published proposed regulations in the Federal Register, and requested comments on the proposal. See 68 Fed Reg 15560– 

15597 (March 31, 2003). In the preamble to the proposed regulations, the Department explained the existing regulations and the changes proposed, and provided 

comparisons between the two. In accordance with Executive Order 12866, the proposal included a Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis, and a regulatory flexibility analysis assessing the impact of the proposed regulations on small businesses, 

as required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act. The public had an opportunity to comment on these economic analyses, as well as on the substantive provisions of the 

proposed regulations. 

The rulemaking record remained open for 90 days. When it closed on June 30, 

2003, the Department of Labor had received almost 80,000 comments. As the Department has testified, it is in the process of reviewing those comments and determining what changes it should make to the proposed regulations and the economic 

analyses, based on the comments received. 

This is the rulemaking process contemplated by the Fair Labor Standards Act and 

the APA, and it is a process that is fair and orderly and that should be respected 

by this Committee. The Secretary should be applauded for undertaking such a 

meaningful revision, and the Department should be allowed to conclude what it has 

started by issuing a final regulation. Of course, once the final regulations are issued, 

there will be ample opportunity for review. Under the Congressional Review Act, the 
34 

Department of Labor will be required to submit the final regulations to Congress 

and the regulations will not take effect before Congress has had an opportunity for 

review, and if it chooses, Congress may, of course, pass a joint resolution of disapproval. This is the very same procedure Congress invoked in 2001 to overturn the 

Department of Labor’s newly promulgated ergonomics standard. 

Even in the absence of Congressional review, the final regulations will undoubtedly be the subject of challenges in the courts. Congress should not deprive interested parties of the opportunity to seek judicial review. 

THE PROPOSED RULE WILL FOSTER COMPLIANCE, AND SHOULD REDUCE LITIGATION

CLAIMS

Although the purpose of my testimony is not to comment on all the details of the 

proposed changes—the volume of comments filed with the Labor Department have 

provided a full and comprehensive analysis of nearly every facet of the proposed 

rules—there are some general points that bear recognition. The proposed regulations—intended to simplify and clarify—are a significant step forward to ensure that 

the white collar exemption regulations can be understood and enforced in the 21st 

Century workplace, thereby avoiding the plethora of litigation that currently 

plagues employers. 

The proposed regulations include significant improvements. Generally, if included 

in the final regulations, the streamlined tests for executive, administrative and professional exemptions should make compliance easier and provide greater certainty. 

This result directly benefits all stakeholders—employers, employees and the Labor 

Department. Greater compliance should directly result in lower litigation claims and 

resulting exposures. 

Although the higher standard salary test of $425 per week ($22,100 per year), 

which is a 170 percent increase, may impose a hardship on some sectors of the economy including small businesses and more rural locations, we recognize that these 

considerations are balanced to some degree by the benefit of gaining greater clarity 

under the new regulations. Under the proposed $425 salary test, there at least 

would be a return to the original criteria that required a salary of a sufficient 

amount in order for a position to be eligible for classification as exempt. 

Many have asked what will be the effects if the proposed regulations are enacted. 

The only employees who will be affected, if the proposed salary level becomes final, 

are those who will start to receive overtime. The estimates by the Labor Department are that 1.3 million workers now exempt would gain overtime protection by 

the new $425 per week ($22,100 per year) requirement. These are employees who 

today are performing jobs with exempt duties but who are being paid below the 

$425 per week salary requirement. 

The proposed regulations also retain and clarify the two long-standing requirements for classifying employees as exempt—the duties and salary tests. There are, 

however, new duties tests for white-collar exemptions. Some of the proposed changes 

result in more demanding requirements. For example, under the executive duties 

test of the proposed regulations, employees are required to (1) have a primary duty 

of managing the entire enterprise or a department or subdivision, (2) direct the 

work of two or more other workers and (3) to have hiring/firing authority or substantial influence over these decisions. Under the proposed regulations, the administrative duties are also modified and require an employee to hold a ‘‘position of responsibility’’ instead of requiring the exercise of ‘‘discretion and independent judgment.’’ The professional duties test under the current regulations is retained, but 

the proposed regulation clarifies when education and experience qualify an employee as a professional. The current discretion test is eliminated from the professional exemption. 

The proposed regulations retain the salary basis requirement that employees be 

paid a fixed, predetermined salary for each week in which the employee performs 

work. The liability for improper deductions or ‘‘dockings’’ is reasonably limited to the 

employees who are directly affected. 

The proposed regulations add new eligibility for exempting highly compensated 

workers with an annual salary of at least $65,000, if they perform office or nonmanual work and meet one of the duties of either an exempt executive, administrative or professional employee. The payment of a salary of $65,000 or more does not 

meet the requirements for the highly compensated worker, unless the duties requirements also are satisfied. 
35 

MISINFORMATION AND CONFUSION RELATING TO THE PROPOSED WHITE-COLLAR

EXEMPTION REGULATIONS

There also has been a significant amount of confusion resulting from inaccurate 

information and news stories relating to the proposed regulations, and I would like 

to briefly address some of those matters. The most recent example is the widely circulated Associated Press story alleging that the Labor Department has counseled 

employers to circumvent the proposed rules in the rulemaking. Nothing could be 

further from the truth. 

Let me set the record straight on this point. The Department of Labor’s March 

2003 notice of the proposed rule summarized the lawful alternatives for meeting the 

salary requirements. The proposed regulations do not change the current alternatives for meeting the salary requirements. See 68 Fed Reg 15576. As required by 

Executive Order 12866 (signed by President Clinton in 1993), the Labor Department 

prepared a Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis and published a summary of 

that analysis with the proposed regulations. As it was required to do, the Labor Department analyzed the costs of complying with the current regulations and the proposed regulations and prepared a cost comparison of the two. This necessarily required the Department to identify the means by which employers could comply with 

the current and proposed regulations, and the Labor Department quite appropriately identified employers’ options for structuring and paying their workforces in 

order to comply with the regulations. By no stretch of the imagination did the Department advise employers on how to avoid paying legally required overtime. 

Another common misconception is that the proposed regulations will result in a 

‘‘take away’’ of overtime on a widespread basis. Again, this is not the case. Although 

we can allow economists to project the impact of the proposed regulations, the only 

changes that are guaranteed are that 1.3 million workers gain overtime protection 

because of the new $425 per week requirement. 

Many employees’ representatives have raised false alarms, claiming that their exempt/non-exempt status will be changed by the proposed regulations. Take nurses, 

for example. Registered nurses currently can be exempt, even though the overwhelming majority receives overtime, and that classification remains unchanged. 

Generally Licensed Practicing Nurses currently are not exempt, and their status 

would not change. Police Officers and Firefighters generally are not exempt today, 

and the same result would be reached under the proposed regulations. Unionized 

employees will continue to receive overtime as provided by their collective bargaining agreements. Again, there is no change from the current regulations. 

CONCLUSION

Where do we stand today? The Department of Labor is in the last stage of a 

drawn out and long overdue rulemaking process. With some liberties to a wellknown expression, let me close by noting that rulemaking delayed clearly is justice 

denied. The current regulations are not serving anyone’s interests except those of 

class action lawyers. Employers and all stakeholders will benefit from rules that can 

be understood and complied with. If the Labor Department improperly changes the 

regulations, then there are ample avenues of redress, including judicial review and 

the Congressional Review Act, which can prevent the regulations from taking effect. 

At this point, I respectfully submit that Congress should not prejudge the outcome. 

Instead, Congress should allow the rulemaking process to conclude and then, if necessary, debate whether the rules are proper. 

Thank you for your time. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you, Mr. Fortney. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JARED BERNSTEIN, Ph.D., CHIEF ECONOMIST, 

ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE 

Senator SPECTER. We turn now to Mr. Jared Bernstein, Senior 

Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, served as Deputy Chief 

Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor from 1995 to 1996, a 

Ph.D. in social welfare from Columbia University. 

Thank you for joining us, Mr. Bernstein, and the floor is yours. 

Dr. BERNSTEIN. Mr. Chairman, it is a great privilege to testify 

before you today. And I thank you for the opportunity to be here. 

Surely one of the most critical issues before this committee is an 

accurate assessment of how many workers would stand to lose 
36 

overtime protection if these new rules are enacted. And that question has already come up numerous times today. As is well known, 

the Department of Labor’s own analysis finds that only 644,000 

workers would lose that right. Our analysis, as has been cited here 

today, at the Economic Policy Institute, however, finds that 8 million employees stand to lose the right to overtime protection. 

Now both sides agree that some of those currently covered will 

be hurt by the new rule. Yet the difference between the two estimates is clearly large enough to totally change the way one views 

the proposal. The point of my testimony is straightforward. Once 

we adjust the Department’s estimate for a fundamental omission, 

our estimates are far more similar than they appear. And the relevant numbers are also on this chart that we provide on the easel 

over there. 

Let me cut right to the central point. In order to determine who 

would lose overtime protection under the proposal, we must consider all those whose jobs are covered under current law. Whether 

or not these employees actually work overtime is irrelevant. What 

matters is that if they do so, they must be paid time and a half. 

By dint of their coverage, they are covered by the Fair Labor 

Standards Act in exactly the way the law intended. The employer 

faces a financial cost associated with overtime. 

The fact that workers could lose this protection, that covered 

workers could lose this protection, is what matters in any policy 

analysis of this proposal’s impact. Yet when they looked at who 

would lose coverage, the DOL looked not at the full group of covered workers but at a small subset, the 10 million currently working overtime. That ignores about 70 million workers placed at risk 

by the proposed rule. 

Now the Department’s apparent assumption is that employers 

would only reclassify those workers who are already costing them 

time and a half. This means they fail to consider a significant cost 

incentive created by their proposal. The cost to an employer of an 

hour of overtime by a reclassified worker falls from time and a half 

to zero. Thus, we have to adjust the Department’s estimate for this 

omission and figure out how many covered workers would lose coverage regardless of whether they are currently working overtime. 

As was described in my written testimony, when we make such 

an adjustment, the number of hourly workers who lose overtime 

protection in the DOL’s impact analysis, not ours, in that of the 

DOL, goes from 644,000 to just under 5 million. When it comes to 

salaried workers, the DOL and EPI’s estimates were never that far 

apart. Quoting from the Department’s own analysis, ‘‘An additional 

1.5 to 2.7 million employees will be more readily identified as exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA because the updated duty test will replace the current duties test in determining 

their exemption.’’ 

So this compares to our estimate that 2.5 million salary workers 

would likely to be reclassified. Okay. Put this altogether. Take the 

mid-range of the Department’s own estimate for salaried workers, 

the one I just mentioned, that is 2.1 million, add this number to 

the adjusted hourly worker count, 4.8 million, and the DOL estimate of those at risk for losing coverage is not the widely publicized value of 644,000, it is 6.9 million. 
37 

Now the Department has frequently asserted that their sole motivation for the new rules is to clarify and update current standards. Well, how then could so many workers end up losing their 

protected status under current law? The answer is that the language changes in the new rules vastly broaden the criteria for exemptions. 

To stay within my allotted time, I will not give specific examples 

of occupations likely to be reclassified due to the broader language 

in the new proposal. But I have many such examples and would 

be happy to share them during a Q&A, if that would be helpful. 

Thus far, I have focused my critique on the Department’s undercount of those who stand to lose overtime protection. But the DOL 

also argues that 1.3 million workers would gain coverage under the 

new rule. However, as detailed in my written testimony, close to 

half of those workers are blue collar and manual workers. And they 

are already covered. They gain nothing new under the proposal. 

The Department cannot claim credit for covering workers who are 

already protected under current law. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

In conclusion, we submit that an accurate answer to the question 

of how many workers stand to lose overtime protection from the 

new rule depends on examining the proposal’s impact on all covered workers. Once so adjusted, the Department’s estimate is that 

4.8 million hourly workers could lose protection. Add that to their 

finding that about 2 million salary workers will be reclassified exempt. And they find that close to 7 million could lose coverage. 

Now our estimate is larger still. But under either analysis, the 

potential loss of compensation and income to America’s working 

families is far more dramatic than the Department’s published 

analysis has suggested throughout this debate. 

Thank you. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. JARED BERNSTEIN

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman, it is a great privilege to testify before this committee, and I and 

my colleagues at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) thank you and your staff for 

the opportunity to be here. 

As the committee is well aware, in March of 2003 the Department of Labor (DOL) 

proposed major changes to the rules governing the treatment of overtime in the Fair 

Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Since the proposal was introduced, a rousing debate 

has ensued regarding the number of workers predicted to lose their current coverage 

under the FLSA such that they would no longer be compensated at a rate of timeand-a-half for each hour of overtime worked. A correct answer to this question is 

obviously a critical piece of information, perhaps the most critical piece for those entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating the potential impact of the proposal. 

As is well known to those who have followed this debate, the Department of Labor’s own analysis finds that only 644,000 workers would lose the right to overtime 

pay. EPI’s analysis, however, finds that this fate would befall 8 million employees 

who benefit from overtime protection under current law. 

Clearly, these are very different estimates of the new rule’s impact. And neither 

estimate is benign—all sides agree that some of those who are currently covered will 

be made exempt and lose current protections. But the difference between the two 

estimates is large enough to totally change the way one views the proposed changes. 

Much of what follows shows that these two estimates are far less different in 

some ways than they might initially appear. Once we adjust the Department’s estimate for a fundamental flaw—that is, its sole focus on those working overtime in 
38 

the single survey week examined instead of the full set of hourly workers who are 

covered by overtime protection—and add in its less-publicized estimate of 1.5 to 2.7 

million workers exempted by the new duties tests, then the vast difference between 

the two impact analyses disappears. As shown in the accompanying chart, when we 

correct for these omissions, the DOL results reveal that about 7 million employees 

would lose overtime coverage under the new rules, which is quite close to the 8 million we predict would lose such protection. 

EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE IMPACT ESTIMATES

Thankfully, it is not hard to explain the main source of the different estimates. 

In trying to determine who would lose overtime protections, the Department of 

Labor only considered persons who are currently working overtime. While about 90 

million hourly workers are currently covered by the FLSA’s overtime regulations 

and thus are eligible for time-and-a-half pay when they work overtime, the DOL’s 

widely published number—the number they have set forth in front of this committee—is based only on the 11 to 12 million who were actually paid for overtime 

at the time of the survey. 

A moment’s reflection should reveal that this is a major oversight, one which results in misleading policy analysis. A fundamental rule of impact analysis is that 

you must look at the whole group that is potentially affected by a proposed policy, 

in this case, the covered workforce. The thrust of our analysis is that if this rule 

becomes law, the rules that determine overtime protection for each one of these 90 

million workers will change. Thus, a serious effort to determine the impact must 

consider all covered workers, not solely those actively working overtime at a given 

point in time. 

If the rule becomes law, every employer will be faced with a significantly altered 

set of incentives regarding the cost of overtime, and this fact also underscores the 

need to look beyond the 14 percent of hourly workers being paid for overtime at the 

time the survey was conducted. By paying them 1.5 times their base pay for overtime, these employers are sending a clear market signal that this is a worthwhile 

expenditure. But if we lower the price of overtime—and that, at its heart, is the 

impact of this proposed rule change—we gut a critical disincentive built into the 

FLSA, one that has worked for decades to ensure that employers pay a premium 

for having covered workers work beyond 40 weekly hours. 

Take away that premium—the extra 50 percent that non-exempt workers must 

receive for overtime—and some employers will have both opportunity and reason to 

reclassify covered workers as exempt and assigning them unpaid overtime hours. No 

credible policy analysis would ignore such a huge change in cost incentives facing 

employers, but that is precisely what the DOL’s impact analysis does. 

Another way to view the difference between the estimates is to note that EPI examines changes in the number of workers covered by the FLSA while the DOL examines changes in the number of workers who received overtime pay during the 

week when the survey was conducted. The EPI approach, which examines the erosion of coverage, is more appropriate because the rule change can lead to significant 

earnings losses among workers who lose coverage even though they happened not 

to work any overtime in the survey week. For one, those who did not work overtime 

when the survey was taken may well do so in some other week. Second, because 

of the removal of a major disincentive for employer’s to ‘‘purchase’’ more overtime, 

there will be workers who currently aren’t asked to work overtime but who, once 

they lose coverage, will be asked to do so without additional pay. 

To reiterate, by ignoring the impact of the proposed rule on millions of workers 

who are currently protected by FLSA overtime regulations (even when they are not 

currently working overtime), the DOL’s estimate is not credible and provides a misleading view of the impact of the change. 

In fact, if we simply extrapolate from their estimate based on this critique, we 

find that the two estimates are not all that far apart. The ratio of hourly workers 

with overtime protection to those actively working overtime is about 7.5. This ratio 

is the factor by which the Department underestimated the affected group that ought 

to have been considered in their impact study. Multiply this factor by their 

644,000—the number of those working overtime who would become exempted—and 

the result is 4.8 million, close to our estimate of 5.5 million hourly workers who 

would lose protection under the new rules. This result is shown in the third bar in 

the ‘‘Hourly’’ panel of the accompanying chart. 

Turning to the impact of the rule change on salaried workers, EPI’s and DOL’s 

approaches were similar (as were their findings). In this part of the DOL’s impact 

analysis, it examines the impact of changes in the duties tests on how salaried employees are classified, which is very much akin to our own approach, and is histori-
39 

cally the way this work has been undertaken. The following statement appears on 

page 15580 of the preamble to the rule: 

‘‘The PRIA [the DOL’s impact analysis] indicates an additional 1.5 million to 2.7 

million employees will be more readily identified as exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA because the updated duties tests will replace the current 

duties tests in determining their exemption.’’ 

The preamble states that, based on their current duties, these workers are unlikely to pass the existing exemption tests and are thus covered by current overtime 

rules. However, due to the very changes in the proposed rule that we examined in 

our analysis, the Department concludes that these workers would pass the new 

tests, and would be classified as exempt from overtime protection. Note that EPI 

found that 2.5 million salaried workers would become exempt as a result of the 

change in the duties test, slightly below DOL’s higher estimate (see the ‘‘Salaried’’ 

panel of the accompanying chart). It is unclear why an estimate of this magnitude— 

that approximately 2 million workers could lose overtime protection from the new 

rule—was given such little attention by the DOL in its presentation of its findings. 

Instead, the DOL chose to focus on the exemption of 644,000 hourly workers. 

WILL 1.3 MILLION EMPLOYEES REALLY GAIN COVERAGE?

Thus far we have focused solely on those who will lose coverage under the proposed rule. The Department of Labor also claims that their rule would cover an additional 1.3 million who are not currently eligible for overtime pay. The agency argues that because the proposed rule raises the coverage threshold from $155 to $425 

per week (or $22,100 per year), 1.3 million salaried workers will gain overtime protection that they currently lack. But here again the DOL’s analysis is flawed, leading in this case to an overestimate of the number who would gain coverage under 

the new rules. 

The DOL made two critical mistakes in this estimate. First, its 1.3 million estimate includes 600,000 workers who are already covered under current law. These 

workers are not in white-collar occupations and thus cannot be exempted on the 

basis of their duties (their occupations are farming, forestry and fishing, transportation and material moving, handlers, equipment cleaners, helpers, laborers, machine operators, assemblers and inspectors, none of which could be exempted as executive, administrative, or professional employees). 

The Department mistakenly assumed that, since these 600,000 workers have 

earnings above the current minimum salary test of $155/week, they would gain protection under the new rule that lifts that minimum. But, in fact, the DOL is counting them as becoming newly covered when they already are covered under current 

rules. 

This leaves 700,000 legitimate salaried, low-income, white-collar workers earning 

less than $22,100 per year (these include executive, administrative, managerial, and 

professional employees, as well as technicians and related support workers, sales, 

administrative support, and clerical employees). Here the Department made a second error. Some of these workers could, indeed, be helped by the new rule, but since 

DOL admittedly failed to examine their duties, we have no way of knowing their 

coverage status under current law. Surely, it is a mistake to assume that all of 

them, including clerical workers, are currently and legitimately classified as bona 

fide executive, administrative, managerial, and professional employees. But that is 

precisely the assumption that DOL makes. 

In fact, according to Acting Solicitor of Labor Howard Radzely, the Department 

of Labor ‘‘concluded that information regarding duties is not relevant’’ because these 

workers would all be guaranteed overtime under the proposed rule. But again, this 

represents a fundamental analytic flaw: by ignoring their current duties, the DOL 

fails to make a determination of how many of these low-income, white-collar workers are currently covered, and thus it cannot determine how many are gaining overtime protection under the new higher salary test. 

CONCLUSION: ALIGNING THE DOL AND EPI ESTIMATES

A good deal of confusion has been generated by the difference between EPI’s and 

DOL’s claims as to how many workers stand to lose overtime protection from the 

new rule, with our estimate at 8 million and theirs at 644,000. In fact, once we appropriately adjust the Department of Labor’s estimate of hourly workers to account 

for the fact that the Department only looked at a small subset of the affected group, 

and we include their own estimate of 1.5 to 2.7 million salaried workers who would 

be newly exempted due to their changes in the duties tests, both the DOL and EPI 

arrive at similar numbers of affected employees. As shown in the accompanying 
40 

chart, when these factors are taken into account, the Administration’s own results 

reveal that about 7 million employees would lose overtime coverage under the new 

rules, an estimate that is quite similar to the EPI estimate of 8 million workers losing such protection. 

By examining only those employees working overtime at a given point in time, 

and ignoring the far larger group of hourly workers who are not now overtime workers but could easily be so in the future, the Department of Labor generated a misleading undercount of who would be hurt by the new rule. This is especially the case 

when we consider that the proposed rule change has the potential to eliminate the 

cost disincentive currently in place to discourage employers from using and abusing 

overtime. Such a change is likely to lead to the reclassification of millions of workers 

from their current nonexempt status to exempt from overtime protection. At that 

point, they will no longer be compensated for overtime, violating the word and spirit 

of the FLSA. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Dr. Bernstein. 

STATEMENT OF DR. RONALD BIRD, Ph.D., CHIEF ECONOMIST, EMPLOYMENT POLICY FOUNDATION 

Senator SPECTER. We now turn to Dr. Ronald Bird, chief economist of the Employment Policy Foundation. Prior to his current position, Dr. Bird was the chief economist for DynCorp, has a Ph.D. 

in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Thank you for joining us, Dr. Bird. And we look forward to your 

testimony. 

Dr. BIRD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. 

My name is Ron Bird. I am chief economist for the Employment 

Policy Foundation. I am honored to testify before the committee 

this morning, or this afternoon, actually, on the issue of the Department of Labor’s proposed revision of the Fair Labor Standards 

Act’s white collar regulations. You have a printed copy of my full 

statement, which I will briefly summarize under three main headings. 

First, the need for the FLSA rules revision, why this revision is 

long overdue. Second, the impact of the proposed revision, why the 

rule will clearly benefit millions of employees, and why claims of 
41 

harm are unreliable and speculative. And third, I will address recent allegations regarding the intent of the Department of Labor’s 

impact analysis, why claims that DOL is providing guidance to employers is just plain wrong. 

First with regard to need, it has been over 50 years since the 

core definitions were revised and 25 since these salary thresholds 

were revised. In that time, substantial shifts have occurred in the 

workplace and in the economy as a whole because of the changes 

in job structure, in duties, in technology. Applying regulations 

largely written before the creation of the first transistor requires 

a more intensive effort for every FLSA status determination. And 

employers may be having to make 40 million of these a year, these 

determinations. 

Second, regarding impact, when we cut through the rhetoric 

about impact of rule changes, one fact is indisputable. Workers who 

today earn between $155 a week and $425 a week will go from today’s uncertainty about their status to absolute certainty that they 

are covered. A minute ago, Mr. Trumka made a reference to the 

need for definitively saying that people are covered. This aspect of 

the proposal definitively says that people who make between $155 

and $425 are covered and entitled to overtime, and it cannot be 

taken away. 

Today, the coverage of workers who make between $155 and 

$425 is dependent on their job duties, on what their job description 

is. Whatever status they have today, be it exempt or nonexempt, 

could change. Raising the salary test threshold to $425 will make 

their status as covered and entitled absolute and certain. 

DOL estimated that 1.3 million employees who work full time 

and are currently paid on a salary basis, who are presumed to have 

currently exempt duties, would be directly affected, would move 

from exempt to nonexempt status. But you also need to be aware 

that there are currently 36.4 million employees altogether who 

earn between $155 and $425 per week, including salaried and 

hourly, part time and full time. For all of these, the right to overtime pay will be made absolute, will be made, as Mr. Trumka said, 

definitive. For all of these, the right to overtime, if this proposal 

is adopted, cannot be taken away. 

Now, as to claims that 8 million currently nonexempt employees 

would pass the revised duties test and be reclassified who are not 

exempt today, there is an element here in this analysis that is inherently speculative. They are based on subjective guesses about 

duties that underlie the job titles that we do know in the available 

data. The available economic data does not provide the facts that 

we need as analysts to precisely and with certainty, with statistical 

certainty, determine whether an individual performs duties considered exempt. Available data only counts job duties, the job titles. 

The duties behind these titles are uncertain. 

Even if someone can be classified as exempt, however—and this 

is the big leap that is being made in a lot of the discussion—there 

is, in fact, no assurance that they will be changed from hourly or 

salaried status. Millions of people today are paid on an hourly basis 

and get overtime, not because the FLSA requires it, but because 

that arrangement works best for them and their employer. 
42 

Third—and I see my time has expired, and I will wrap up very 

quickly here—regarding the claims about guidance, if DOL wanted 

to give advice to employers as to how to evade overtime, I think 

they could have done better than hide it 40 pages deep inside a 

technical document that only economists are apt to read. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

Fourth, no scenario of the ones that DOL presented, none of 

those scenarios actually result in lower payroll cost for the employers. Three of the four alternatives that DOL examined result in 

higher wages for employees and higher payroll costs. The fourth reflects zero change, but it is, in fact, the Roosevelt administration’s 

original purpose in proposing an overtime premium, to spread 

work. The assumptions DOL made are not guidance. Rather they 

are the kind of thorough analysis that you expect in any good regulatory impact statement. 

Thank you. And I will be pleased to answer questions. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. RONALD BIRD

I am Ronald Bird, Chief Economist for the Employment Policy Foundation (EPF). 

EPF is a research and educational foundation established in 1983 to provide policy 

makers and the public with the highest quality economic analysis and commentary 

on U.S. employment policies. On behalf of EPF, I appreciate this opportunity to provide information and analysis regarding the need for and impact of proposed revisions to the Department of Labor’s white collar regulations under the Fair Labor 

Standards Act (FLSA). The proposal in question is the first comprehensive attempt 

in fifty years to update the terms and definitions of these regulations (29 CFR Part 

541) that define the criteria to be considered an ‘‘executive, administrative or professional’’ employee exempt from overtime. For the earnings thresholds that affect coverage status, it has been over 25 years since the last revision. 

BACKGROUND

The Fair Labor Standards Act generally requires that employers pay workers at 

mutually agreed hourly rates above the statutory minimum, keep records of weekly 

hours, and, in the event that hours exceed 40 during any week, pay a fifty percent 

overtime premium for the excess hours worked. The overtime provisions of the 

FLSA do not apply universally. The 1938 law recognized that the hourly pay approach did not fit the realities of work for certain executive, professional or administrative office jobs. 

The law directed the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations to define the types 

of jobs and circumstances that would qualify for exemption from the hourly pay, 40 

hour week, and overtime premium requirements. By giving the duty of defining specific details of terms and conditions for exemption to the Department of Labor, Congress recognized that circumstances meriting exemption were apt to change over 

time as the economy evolved. Delegating the task of setting and revising the thresholds and definitions to DOL suggests that the Congressional authors may have anticipated that adjustments would need to be made more frequently than would be 

convenient if Congress kept the responsibility to itself. 

Since the 1930s, DOL’s FLSA regulations have required that exempt managers, 

professionals, and administrative office workers must be paid on a fixed weekly or 

annual salary basis regardless of hours worked. Since 1975, the rules have required 

that the salary be at least $8,060 per year ($155 per week) relative to the basic 

‘‘long-test’’ duties list, and at least $13,000 per year ($250 per week) relative to the 

less stringent ‘‘short-test’’ list of duties. 

COMPARISON OF SALARY BASIS AND HOURLY BASIS OF PAY

The salary basis test is an important element of the rule that has sometimes been 

overlooked in discussions of the current regulatory proposals. The proposed rule is 

not just about the simple question of whether or not someone is paid an overtime 

premium. The FLSA rules affect the basic principles by which wages are negotiated 
43 

and calculated. The distinction between those covered by FLSA overtime premium 

rules and those exempt from those rules involves a fundamental difference in way 

in which compensation is negotiated and paid. 

Rules for Exempt Employees.—Because the FLSA rules require that exempt employees be paid a fixed salary that does not vary with weekly hours worked, any 

deviation from the fixed weekly wage standard by pay docking may void the exempt 

status of the employee. This means that the exempt employee has the assurance of 

a predictable paycheck regardless of fluctuations in the employer’s labor needs. The 

employer and employee are relieved of responsibilities to keep records of hours 

worked. 

In addition, the sociological implications of the time-clock in the workplace are interesting. I recall how pleased my grandfather was the day his status changed to 

exempt: What seemed to matter most to him was not the small increase in pay or 

the altered title but the fact of not having to ‘‘punch the clock.’’ Exempt status carries with it a certain degree of autonomy in the workplace that many individuals 

value. 

Being exempt also means that the employee knows that working hours may fluctuate from week to week, and the employee’s salary demand reflects the employee’s 

expectations about both the expected average hours and the degree of fluctuation. 

In a well-functioning, competitive labor market, salaries will adjust to reflect the reality of expected average hours of work and weekly variance in hours. The disadvantage to the employee arises when the actual hours of work exceed the employee’s 

expectation. 

Sometimes discussions about FLSA status imply this disadvantage when it is said 

that the exempt worker is not ‘‘protected’’ from demands for extra hours or is not 

paid for the full amount of time committed to the job. However, this risk is tempered by the mobility of the employee in the labor market. Having education and 

skills that are in demand and being in a labor market where employment is growing 

and unemployment relatively low are important considerations that also protect employees from such risks. The main disadvantage is that the salaried employee may 

have to bear the transactions costs of re-negotiation with the current employer or 

of seeking other employment to redress the balance between his or her time preferences and wages. 

Rules for Nonexempt Employees.—For employees who are not exempt from the 

FLSA rules, the law establishes an entirely different scheme for wage negotiations 

and pay calculations. Wages must be based on a basic hourly wage rate (‘‘straighttime’’ rate) that applies to any hours worked through 40 per week. The hourly wage 

rate rather than the sum of total earnings becomes the focus of labor market negotiation and transaction. Records have to be kept and clocks punched. Weekly hours 

over 40 are paid at one-and a-half times the basic rate. This arrangement has both 

advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the employee has less need 

to worry about fluctuations in required hours beyond the 40 limit. Unexpected work 

demands are either reduced or well compensated. The fifty percent overtime premium is designed to be large enough to ensure that most employees are compensated more than sufficiently for any extra hours required. The disadvantage to 

the employee is the down-side fluctuation in earnings when work is slack, and the 

possibility that the overtime premium may discourage employers from offering over 

40 hours of work to any one employee—spreading the total amount of work over 

more individual employees. 

It may be useful to remember that protecting employees from unexpected demands for extra work hours was not the main policy motive behind the FLSA in 

1938. The main motive was to increase the total number of individuals employed 

by encouraging employers to constrain hours and share the total work hours among 

a wider number of labor market participants. That was an understandable policy 

goal in the context of the stagnant economy and high unemployment of the time. 

The distinction between exempt employees and non-exempt employees is not a 

distinction between being paid fairly and being paid unfairly. It is misleading for 

anyone to imply that exempt employees are working unpaid hours as a general rule. 

The banishment of exploitation and oppression from the workplace was one of the 

great achievements of our nation in the 20th century, and there is no basis to fear 

their return in the 21st century. Both exempt and non-exempt workers are paid 

fairly. Indeed, some researchers have found evidence that they are paid equivalently—that the earnings of both categories average out to the same result over time 

in terms of total annual earnings and total hours worked after controlling for different characteristics of occupations, education and experience. 
44 

THE WORKPLACE HAS CHANGED DRAMATICALLY

The proposed revisions to the white collar regulations are long overdue. The FLSA 

was enacted in 1938, and the regulatory structure of definitions and categories of 

duties implementing its pay classifications have remained essentially unchanged 

since 1954. The minimum salary thresholds for possible exempt status were last 

changed in 1975. The law has changed little, while the workplace it governs has 

changed enormously. 

Today’s American workplace is different in structure and more complex in its organization than the workplace of 1938. The workplace transformation of the past 

sixty five years reflects at least five dimensions of change that affect relevance and 

applicability of current FLSA regulations: 

Industrial Structure.—Before World War II, nearly one-in-three (33.6 percent) 

workers were employed in manufacturing. In contrast, today less than one-in-seven 

(13.6 percent) works in the manufacturing sector. The industries that have experienced relative job growth are characterized by workplace organizations in which job 

duties are not as narrowly defined as they were in manufacturing in the 1940s. The 

number of jobs where duties do not clearly fit the categories defined by the current 

FLSA rules has increased considerably. Even in manufacturing, technological and 

organizational advances that have raised productivity have also blurred the definitional lines of many job responsibilities, qualifications, and duties. The result of 

these changes in industrial structure and workplace organization has been to complicate significantly and increase the number of FLSA coverage/exemption status determination decisions that employers must make each year. 

Occupational Structure.—Managerial and professional jobs have increased more 

than any other category. In 1940, only about one-in-six workers (17.9 percent) were 

employed in managerial or professional occupations. Today, nearly one-in-three employees (30.1 percent) work in such a position. Under the FLSA, job title alone is 

not sufficient to determine coverage or exemption status. The outdated regulations 

make the process of determining FLSA status for workers in management and professional jobs the most complex and time consuming. 

In 1940, nearly one-half (48.2 percent) of all employees worked in occupations related directly to manufacturing and production, including: laborers, craftspeople, 

construction workers, assembly-line workers and machine operators. Jobs related to 

manufacturing and manual production are now less than one-in-three of all occupations (28.5 percent). In 1938, determination of coverage status for workers in these 

types of occupations was fairly straight-forward—the job title and the job duties 

were closely aligned and readily associated with decision criteria of the FLSA rules. 

Today, the number of ‘‘easy classification’’ jobs are fewer, and even among production occupations, technological and organizational changes have often blurred the 

lines of distinction on which the current duties tests rely. 

These changes in occupational structure mean that many more jobs today than 

in the past may quality for exemptions defined in the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

The increase in the number of potentially exempt jobs makes it much more important today that the regulations implementing the exemption concepts be clearer, 

and easier to apply. The larger number of decisions about exemption status that 

must be made in today’s workplace magnifies the cost burden of rules that are complex and cumbersome. 

Education.—Just as occupational and industrial structure have changed, educational attainment of the workforce has also changed dramatically. In 1940, it was 

not uncommon for the typical worker to be a high school dropout—over three-quarters (75.1 percent) of all adult workers had never finished high school. 

Today, over 58 percent of the population age 16 and older has at least some postsecondary (college-level) education. Over 38 percent of workers now have a collegelevel degree. Only 11.9 percent have less than a high school diploma. Between 1998 

and 2001, the number of jobs held by college graduates has increased 5.8 million 

while employment of persons with no more than a high school diploma has declined 

by 1.7 million 

The increase in employment of college graduates reflects the changing structure 

of the workplace and increasing need for workers who can think critically and analytically, and who can manage and coordinate their work activities through complex 

automated information, process control and communication systems. Increased educational attainment is also associated with increased diversity of job duties and the 

breakdown of traditional organizational hierarchies in the workplace. These education-related changes have blurred the definition of professional work as currently 

defined in the FLSA regulations and made the process of determining status of employees under the regulations more complex. 
45 

Earnings.—Changing occupational structure and rising educational attainment 

have resulted in a workforce that is significantly better paid than 65 years ago. 

Today, the average full-time, year-round worker earns $44,579 and 15.7 percent of 

full-time, year-round workers earn over $65,000. The trend is towards greater numbers of high earning workers. Since 1992, the number of full-time, year-round workers earning over $65,000 in real 2002 dollar equivalent doubled from 7.4 million to 

14.9 million. The number of full-time, year-round workers making less than $65,000 

increased 18.7 percent. Growth of jobs paying $65,000 or more accounted for 37.5 

percent of total employment growth for full-time, year-round workers over the past 

decade. 

Higher earnings have made it more important that status determinations under 

Part 541 be accurate. The confusion and complexity associated with the current 

rules mean that both employees and employers have more at stake, and both will 

benefit by revised rules that make the status determination process simpler, easier 

to understand, and less prone to error or disagreement. The possible loss of overtime 

pay to employees who are wrongly classified as exempt is an apparent concern, despite statistical evidence that classification has little or no impact of average weekly 

earnings. 

Workplace Dynamics.—Beyond the changes in workplace structure, education and 

earnings, the American workplace has become more dynamic in terms of employment growth and turnover. Technological change, global competition and changing 

social norms have resulted in a workplace in which new jobs are created and old 

jobs eliminated at a faster rate than ever before. In 1938, most workers expected 

to stay with a single employer for his or her working life. Today, average job tenure 

is under five years and declining. 

The typical worker entering the workforce today can expect to change jobs seven 

times over a working life. Both new jobs created by economic growth and replacement job openings created by job-shift turnover and retirement result in decisions 

that employers must make about FLSA coverage/exemption status. According to 

data from the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Job Openings and Turnover Survey, private sector employers made 45.6 million hiring decisions in 2002, despite a total employment level that was essentially unchanged. The 45.6 million hiring actions reflects replacement of employees who lost jobs, changed jobs or retired. This 42.2 percent turnover rate indicates the flux of job creation, i.e., the job elimination and job 

switching that constantly characterizes our dynamic labor market. 

Each of these hiring actions involves some degree of decision-making regarding 

FLSA coverage/exemption status of the job. For replacement positions, the decision 

may be limited to a review of the existing determination to confirm whether it is 

still appropriate. For newly created positions, the decision making process to determine FLSA coverage/exemption status is more lengthy. Net job growth (1.6 million 

annually) is a minimal estimate of new job positions created. Because of changing 

job duties, expansion and contraction of employment within industries, and offsetting job eliminations and creations, the number of new positions that require more 

intensive effort for determination of coverage/exemption status may include a sizable number of the 45.6 million hiring actions per year previously identified as ‘‘replacement’’ hires. 

Increased Regulatory Burden Now and in the Future.—Each of the categories of 

change discussed above reflects on-going and accelerating forces affecting the American workplace. These changes have already increased the regulatory burden under 

the existing Part 541 rules to a significant degree. The higher regulatory burden has 

already raised costs and eroded competitive advantages. The effect the regulatory 

burden has been especially hard for manufacturing and other production workers 

who have seen their jobs lost to foreign competition. The increased burden of the 

regulation has harmed some of the very workers that the original law was designed 

to protect. 

However, the need for revisions to Part 541 does not rest solely on the history 

of workplace change and increased burden. The changes described here are on-going 

and accelerating. The impacts seen thus far may be dwarfed by the adverse impacts 

that will accumulate in the future if action to modernize the rules is delayed. The 

greatest justification for changing the existing rules is avoidance of adverse economic impacts that will result in the future if nothing is done now. 

The complexity and ambiguity of the existing rule is evidenced by the amount of 

disagreement and litigation it generates. For the past two years, FLSA issues— 

many related to this rule-have been the leading employment-related civil action in 

federal courts. 

The DOL proposal is a revision that is long overdue. It has been on the regulatory 

agenda for 25 years. Inflation, along with rising real wages, has rendered the longtest for exemption—applicable to employees making between $155 and $250 per 
46 

week—almost moot. In 2001, 78.7 percent of employees who earned between the 

current minimum threshold of $155 per week and the proposed new salary test 

threshold of $425 also earned over $250 per week. For those 5.4 million full-time 

and part-time employees, determination of their exemption status was based on an 

attenuated list of duties under the ‘‘short test.’’ 

The proposal would ensure that everyone who earns less than $425 is classified 

as non-exempt. They would be guaranteed the protections of the FLSA, including 

having a basic hourly wage rate defined, having their working hours tracked and 

recorded, and being paid a fifty percent hourly wage rate premium in the event that 

they work over 40 hours during a given week. 

THE IMPACT OF THE PROPOSED REVISION ON EXEMPTION STATUS

Recent discussions about the proposed revision have focused largely on the questions of how many people gain exempt status and how many might lose exempt status. In fact, many policy makers have expressed dismay over the wide fluctuations 

in estimates of how employees will be affected. The reason for these fluctuations is 

that solid empirical research and reliable survey data that identifies actual classification status of individuals is scarce and incomplete. 

—The available data tells us with fair accuracy how much people earn per week. 

So, we know how many people earn amounts below and above the relevant salary thresholds—$155, $250 and $425. 

—We also know with fair accuracy the actual hours that people believe they 

worked in each monthly survey reference week and how many hours they think 

they usually work in a typical week. So, we can identify people who work parttime (under 35 hours per week), full-time (over 35 hours per week). 

—We can identify the number who work over 40 hours per week and consequently 

would be entitled to overtime premium pay if classified as non-exempt. 

—We know whether people say they are paid on an hourly basis or a salaried 

basis. So we can presume by the salary test that people paid hourly are nonexempt and currently get overtime premium pay, but we do not know whether 

they are currently exempt solely because of their pay method or also because 

of their duties. 

—We even know to a reasonable degree of specificity the number of people whose 

occupations fall under various job titles, but we do not know enough about their 

duties to say with certainty who is actually exempt under the current rules and 

who is not. Because duties tests remain a major element of the proposed new 

rules, the same problem applies to attempts to estimate the number who would 

be exempt under the proposed rule. 

The limitations of the data have led to attempts to associate duties that relate 

to classification status with job titles for which we have employee counts. Some researchers have conducted assessments of samples of written job descriptions and 

interviews of employees to duties associated with occupations. In other cases, wage 

and hour enforcement officers have made broad estimates of the percentage of people with currently exempt duties in each occupation based on their field experience. 

These estimates are useful, but they are not precise, some were based on information or experience that is now outdated, they are not based on statistically valid 

random samples of the universe of employees. The estimates of exempt proportions 

of jobs under selected occupation titles are a pragmatic effort to overcome the limitations of available data, but such estimates are inherently subjective and speculative. 

The Impact of Revised Salary Thresholds.—Because employee salaries are more 

readily known than job duties, we can be most certain that raising the salary 

threshold for exemption will increase the number of workers who are absolutely eligible for overtime regardless of what their duties are today and regardless of how 

their duties may evolve in the future so long as their pay stays below the threshold. 

Currently 36.4 million employees earn between $155 and $425 per week. These include 29.5 million who are paid hourly and 6.9 million who are paid on a salary 

basis. 

All of the employees who are paid on an hourly basis are non-exempt by definition 

because they are not paid on a salary basis. The extent to which their duties reinforce non-exempt status is not known with certainty. 

Some of the salaried employees may be non-exempt under current rules also and 

would be entitled to overtime premium pay in the event that they worked over 40 

hours. Because exempt status depends on duties, we do not know the number for 

certain, but DOL used existing subjective estimates of exemption probabilities based 

on past assessment studies to estimate that 1.3 million salaried workers who now 

usually work full-time are likely exempt today and would definitely become non-exempt under the proposed revision. 
47 

The Employment Policy Foundation examined the DOL estimate and concluded 

that it was a very conservative estimate of the number of individuals who would 

be converted to non-exempt status by the proposed increase in the salary threshold. 

EPF found that 5.1 million salaried employees currently work full-time (35 hours 

or more in a typical survey week) and, therefore, may work over 40 hours at least 

some weeks during the year. Even if many of these workers are presently non-exempt by duties (DOL estimated that 75 percent were non-exempt), they all benefit 

to some degree by having their status more surely defined by the increased salary 

threshold. In addition, there may be some among the hourly pay group who currently have duties that would make them eligible for exemption except for their 

hourly pay basis. 

It is important to recognize that everyone who is eligible by duties for exempt status is not automatically paid on a salary basis. For example, I used to work for a 

government contractor firm. My job duties as an economist and education qualified 

me for exemption as a professional, and my weekly earnings were in excess of the 

minimum thresholds. Nevertheless, my employer and I agreed to an hourly pay arrangement. My earnings fluctuated from week to week depending on my recorded 

hours, and I was paid an overtime premium when I worked over 40 hours. Needless 

to say, I frequently wanted to work over 40 hours a week but the boss was less frequently willing to let me work as many extra hours as I would have liked. 

The point is that I was an hourly worker, and non-exempt because of the pay status, but my employer could have treated me as exempt based on duties. That did 

not happen because it was in both of our interests to keep things on the hourly 

basis. For me, it meant occasional extra income, and for my employer it meant less 

risk of losing me to a competitor because I was happy with the arrangement. In today’s labor market, many employees have more bargaining power than was typical 

50 years ago. An employer who would change an employee’s status to shave a few 

cents off the payroll would do so at his peril and risk losing a valuable worker to 

a competitor. 

Impact on Employees Who Earn Over $425 Per Week.—Some have argued that 

changes in certain definitions of exempt duties will cause employees who now are 

entitled to overtime to be reclassified as non-exempt. Estimates of the number affected have been published based on subjective evaluations of how changes in wording of duties definitions would change the percentage of exempt people under each 

occupation title. At their foundation, however, these estimates are purely speculative and subjective. Five lawyers representing one perspective on the issue will come 

up with very different subjective conclusions than five lawyers representing another 

perspective, and all of them will come up with different conclusions than five lawyers selected at random. 

Indeed, the idea that you need lawyers to figure out the meaning of the exemption 

criteria is the heart of the problem with the current rules. This complexity is the 

reason DOL is trying to simplify the rules and make them relevant to contemporary 

language and contemporary ways of organizing work. Employees and employers 

should be able to read the rules, and each know and both readily agree on the right 

answer to the exemption eligibility question. 

Consider one example.—The proposed rule replaces the requirement that an employee exercise ‘‘discretion and independent judgment’’ with a new ‘‘position of responsibility’’ requirement for exemption as an administrative employee. The current 

language is as follows: 

‘‘In general, the exercise of discretion and independent judgment involves the comparison and the evaluation of possible courses of conduct and acting or making a 

decision after the various possibilities have been considered.’’——(§ 541.207(a)) and 

‘‘The term does apply to the kinds of decisions normally made by persons who formulate or participate in the formulation of policy within their spheres of responsibility or who exercise authority within a wide range to commit their employer in 

substantial respects financially or otherwise.’’——(§ 541.207(d)(2)) 

The proposed new language requires that an exempt employee perform: 

‘‘Work of substantial importance [that] includes activities such as . . . Making or 

recommending decisions that have a significant impact on general business operations or finances; analyzing and recommending changes to operating practices; 

planning long or short-term business objectives; analyzing data, drawing conclusions 

and recommending changes; handling complaints, arbitrating disputes or resolving 

grievances; representing the company during important contract negotiations; and 

work of similar impact on general business operations or finances. Work of substantial importance thus is not limited to employees who participate in the formulation 

of management policies or in the operation of the business as a whole. It includes 
48 

the work of employees who carry out major assignments in conducting the operations of the business, or whose work affects general business operations to a significant degree, even though their assignments are tasks related to the operation 

of a particular segment of the business.’’——(proposed § 203(b)) 

This change has been cited to support claims that thousands of employees would 

be reclassified as exempt and lose earnings that they now receive. The reality is 

that such claims are only a wild guess. There is no objective data about job duties 

at sufficient specificity to determine whether the proposed change in wording will 

change the result for anyone. To the extent that anyone might become exempt who 

is not exempt now, it is also reasonable to consider that some who are now exempt 

might become non-exempt. 

Also, one should consider whether any rational employer would reclassify an employee and cut effective pay in a job market where most people are not trapped and 

where many of us have more options and opportunities than we did 50 years ago. 

Unilateral reclassification is likely to increase turnover, and turnover cost is a much 

more critical concern for today’s human resource managers than overtime payroll 

cost. 

DOL DID NOT PROVIDE GUIDANCE TO EVADE THE LAW

Amid the recent controversies about duties definitions, several press articles reported in error that the Department of Labor’s economic analysis of the proposed 

rule was guidance to employers on how to avoid their obligation to pay overtime. 

EPF examined the complex questions involved in estimating the economic impact 

of the proposed regulation. When an agency proposes new or revised regulations, the 

government is required to publish an extensive analysis of the likely economic impacts of the proposal. The impact analysis requirements mandate that the government describe in detail all of the assumptions and contingencies that go into its estimates and consider all possible ramifications of the proposed change. 

Press reports described the DOL analysis of alternatives for calculating the cost 

of converting from salary to hour wages as guidance for circumventing the payment 

of overtime. If DOL had intended to provide guidance to employers, it is unlikely 

that they would have hidden it 40 pages inside a technical document and the preamble to the proposed regulations that only economists and policy analysts are apt 

to read. 

Press articles described the DOL analysis of alternatives for calculating the cost 

of converting from salary to hour wages as guidance for circumventing the payment 

of overtime. In fact, three of the four alternatives discussed result in higher wages 

than the employees in question are currently earning. The only alternative that 

might hurt an individual employee is the one that reflects the original Roosevelt administration intention for the FLSA—cutting hours to 40 per week and sharing 

available work among other employees. The compensating wage adjustment alternative examined in the DOL regulatory analysis is a logical extension of the reduced 

hours scenario based on the idea that employees might choose to negotiate terms 

that would enable them to maintain their desired working hours and earning objectives despite the intention of the FLSA to discourage employers from offering extra 

work opportunity. 

The complex policy analysis problem that DOL examined in its preliminary regulatory impact analysis document arises from the fact that currently exempt salaried 

employees do not have a clearly defined hourly pay rate to use in the computation 

of the cost of converting them from exempt to non-exempt status when the salary 

threshold is raised. Their base hourly rate is unclear because their hours vary from 

week to week while their pay is fixed. This problem introduces a major uncertainty 

into the regulatory impact analysis. 

The following hypothetical example illustrates the four scenarios that are covered 

by the DOL analysis. In this example, assume that Jane is currently an exempt 

manager who is paid $400 per week, and this week she worked 40 hours, but last 

week she worked 32 hours and the week before that she worked 50 hours. Over the 

entire year she averages 41 hours per week. There are four different ways to logically calculate how the proposed change of Jane’s status from exempt to non-exempt 

would affect her potential earnings and her employer’s payroll costs. 

1. Calculate Jane’s pay based on a ‘‘straight-time’’ rate of $10 per hour (her $400 

per week salary divided by a 40 hours per week standard). This approach assumes 

that Jane is currently not being paid anything for the 41st hour worked during the 

average week—i.e., she agreed to a $400 salary based on the expectation of a 40 

hour (or less) weekly work requirement and regrets her employment choice. On this 

basis, Jane would get $15 for the average weekly hour of overtime, raising her 
49 

1Stephen J. Trejo, ‘‘The Effects of Overtime Pay Regulation on Worker Compensation,’’ American Economic Review, vol. 81, no. 4 (September 1991), pp 719–740. 

weekly earnings to $415. Her annual earnings would go up by $780, if her employer 

continues scheduling an average of 41 hours of work per week. 2. Calculate Jane’s wages based on an hourly rate of $9.76 per hour ($400 per 

week divided by the average 41 hours per week of work) This alternative assumes 

that Jane expects to work 41 hour a week on average and accepted a $400 weekly 

salary on that basis. In this case her $400 weekly pay already includes a ‘‘straighttime’’ equivalent payment for the 41st hour at the base rate, but switching Jane to 

non-exempt status would trigger a 50 percent wage premium for the hour of overtime during the average week. Her average weekly earnings would increase by 

$4.88 per week or $254 per year. 3. Avoid the whole issue by raising Jane’s salary to $425 per week, which will 

maintain her FLSA exempt status under the proposed rule. This approach will save 

Jane and her employer from the paperwork of keeping time records and ensure Jane 

a predicable weekly paycheck, regardless of fluctuations in actual hours. This approach would raise her annual earnings by $1,300 to $22,100. 

4. Limit Jane’s hours to 40 per week, and hire additional workers to cover the 

extra hours needed. This is the approach that was envisioned by President Roosevelt and the authors of the FLSA in 1938—a shortened work week that would create jobs for more individuals. Based on Jane’s average hourly equivalent wage rate 

of $9.76 per hour, Jane’s annual earnings would decrease by $390 as her annual 

working time was decreased by 52 hours. Someone else (a new employee or a parttime employee assigned additional hours) would pick up 52 hours more employment 

and an extra $390 per year in earnings. The net impact on employers would be 

zero—the payroll total would be unchanged. 

The fourth alternative deserves special attention, because it suggests that the proposed change could lower Jane’s earnings. Because the hours worked would be reduced also, it might be argued that Jane would be no worse off. The impact depends 

on how Jane values extra time off from work versus extra income. 

If Jane valued extra income more highly than time off, she might take a second 

job to supplement her income. Currently about five percent of the work-force holds 

a second job—‘‘moonlighting’’ for extra income because their primary jobs do not 

offer them enough hours to meet their weekly earnings desires. The fact that the 

typical second job pays a lower hourly rate than the primary job, suggests that these 

individuals would be willing to work more hours on their primary jobs if the opportunity were available. 

Alternatively, if Jane wanted extra income instead of extra hours off, she also might bargain with her employer to let her continue earning an average of $400 per 

week by continuing to work 41 hours per week on average, subsequent to implementation of the proposed FLSA rule change. This unchanged average weekly wage solution makes sense from the perspective that Jane is currently choosing 41 hours 

a week of work (on average) for a salary package of $400. Her continuing employment choice reveals she is satisfied with getting $400 for a work week that averages 

41 hours. If she and her employer agree to an equivalent ‘‘straight-time’’ hourly 

wage rate of $9.64, then she can earn the same $400 per week and be equally satisfied after the new rule goes into effect by being paid for 40 hours at $9.64 per hour 

and one average weekly overtime hour at $14.46 (rounding results in six cents 

extra). This alternative assumes that Jane cares only about the total amount that 

she is paid and not about how the amount is calculated. It saves Jane the trouble 

of finding and scheduling a second job to achieve her earning goal. The ‘‘straight-time’’ rate in this example is slightly less than the $9.76 average hourly rate that results from simple division of Jane’s $400 weekly salary by 41 average hours. Recent economic research supports the theory that this sort of adjustment has occurred in the past in response to existing FLSA overtime rules. Trejo 

(1991) compared persons covered by FLSA overtime rules in the 1970s and those 

who were not.1 He found that for similar persons who worked the same hours, their 

weekly earnings were nearly identical regardless of whether their wage computation 

included an overtime premium. In other words, for workers who are concerned only 

with the total earnings and expected total hours of work, then a change in FLSA 

classification status has no economic impact on the overall outcome of competitive 

labor markets. The proposal would not change payroll costs, total hours of work or 

employee earnings. 

Our examination of the DOL impact analysis found that the alternatives discussed are the opposite of guidance. They are carefully considered examinations of 

how the marketplace may operate as people make free choices to adjust to a 

changed policy framework. The alternatives represent a good-faith effort by DOL to 
50 

consider the full range of possibilities. This thoroughness is the hallmark of good 

regulatory impact analysis. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present my views. I will be glad to answer any 

questions that you may have. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Dr. Bird. 

STATEMENT OF ANDREW J. McDEVITT, MANAGER, GOVERNMENETAL 

RELATIONS, AMERICAN PAYROLL ASSOCIATION 

Senator SPECTER. Our next witness is Mr. Andrew McDevitt, 

manager of the governmental relations at the American Payroll Association here in Washington, BA degree in political science from 

California State University. 

Thank you for joining us, Mr. McDevitt. And the floor is yours. 

Mr. MCDEVITT. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. My name is Andrew McDevitt. And I am the manager of government relations for 

the American Payroll Association. It is my privilege today to appear before your committee to provide APA’s specific comments 

concerning the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposal to amend the 

regulations governing how employers determine if their white collar workers are to be classified as exempt from the minimum wage 

and overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 

1938. 

The APA is a nonprofit, professional association representing 

21,000 companies and individuals in all 50 States and Canada. 

APA’s central mission is to educate its members in the entire payroll industry about the best practices associated with paying America’s workers their wages while successfully complying with all 

Federal, State, and local employment, tax withholding, and information reporting laws. 

APA’s secondary mission is to work with legislative and executive branches of all levels of government to find ways for employers 

to meet their requirements under law and support government objectives while minimizing administrative burden for government, 

employers, and individual taxpayers. 

When the Department of Labor released its proposed revisions to 

the FLSA regulations in March 2003, APA and its members were 

very enthusiastic about the prospect of these sweeping and necessary changes. APA believes that the changes proposed by the 

DOL are needed to benefit both employers and workers so that 

legal controversies about worker classification matters, as it pertained to overtime pay, can be eliminated or minimized. 

The duties test for the existing regulations, which describe the 

type of work that is exempt from overtime, has not been changed 

since 1949. However, the workplace has certainly changed a lot 

since then. And there are countless jobs held by workers today that 

did not even exist at that time. With rules and examples that do 

not recognize today’s workplace, it is very difficult for an employer 

to make a decision as to exempt status. 

The task of classifying workers correctly is a very important one 

in ensuring that workers are properly paid what they are entitled 

to receive under the law. But, as one can observe in the various 

courthouses throughout the country, worker classification lawsuits 

are on the rise because the outdated overtime exemption regulations provide little guidance to help employers properly classify 

their workers in today’s dynamic and modern workplace. 
51 

Since payroll professionals work closely with their human resources counterparts in today’s work environment, these proposed 

regulations are very important to APA. As previously summarized 

in the letter to the DOL in June 2003, APA and its members are 

in favor of the direction taken by the proposed regulations and suggests the following improvements upon the DOL’s already sound 

proposal. These suggestions would make it easier for employers to 

make the appropriate and correct worker classification determinations for their employees. 

One, the DOL should strengthen its guidance to provide additional, real-life examples of the types of jobs that will qualify for 

exemption, including guidance relating to customer service employees, entry-level researchers, and various types of trainers, including 

those who provide software or other technical training away from 

their employer’s primary place of business. This expanded guidance 

would help employers a great deal when applying the new primary 

duties test to make the accurate classification determination. 

Two, additional guidance should be provided to address the circumstances of those workers who may meet the position of responsibility test by virtue of the fact that they are the only individuals 

in certain positions performing the function of those positions, for 

example, one-person departments. 

The Department should provide more comprehensive guidance 

addressing the application of the exemption in hospitals and other 

environments where employees are given supervisory duties on a 

rotating basis. And the Department should provide additional guidance addressing instances in which the FLSA nonexempt employee 

temporarily takes on duties of an exempt employee. For instance, 

in the common situation where a nonexempt employee is filling in 

temporarily for a supervisor who has taken family or medical leave 

or is on vacation. 

Clarification is also needed for the reverse situation when an exempt employee fills in for an exempt employee or takes on some 

extra nonexempt work in another area to earn extra money. The 

DOL should also provide a definition of other non-discretionary 

compensation, which employers must use to determine if a worker 

meets the proposed $65,000 annual salary threshold that would 

classify workers as exempt from the overtime laws, if they meet 

any one of the components of the proposed primary duties test. 

APA also believes the Department’s proposal does not go far 

enough to define the types of infractions of company rules for 

which an employer may legitimately dock the pay of an exempt employee. 

Finally, the proposal needs to be more specific about whether employers may subtract from leave balances when exempt employees 

take off fractions of work days for personal reasons. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

APA is confident that the additional guidance we are requesting 

on behalf of employers would help avoid confusion, conflict, and litigation in the future. And most importantly, employers and workers 

would be able to believe that there are clear and concise labor regulations to which they can refer when worker classification issues 

arise. 
52 

APA thanks you for your time and opportunity today to comment 

on this important labor issue. And we would be more than happy 

to answer questions that the committee may have. 

[The statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDREW J. MCDEVITT

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is Andrew 

McDevitt and I am the Manager of Government Relations for the American Payroll 

Association. It is my privilege today to appear before the committee to provide 

APA’s specific comments concerning the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposal to 

amend the regulations governing how employers determine if their ‘‘white collar’’ 

workers are to be classified as exempt from the minimum wage and overtime pay 

requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. 

The APA is a non-profit professional association representing 21,000 companies 

and individuals in all 50 states and Canada. APA’s central mission is to educate 

its members and the entire payroll industry about the best practices associated with 

paying America’s workers their wages while successfully complying with all federal, 

state, and local employment, tax withholding, and information reporting laws. APA’s 

secondary mission is to work with legislative and executive branches of all levels 

of government to find ways for employers to meet their requirements under law and 

support government objectives, while minimizing administrative burden for government, employers, and individual taxpayers. 

When the Department of Labor released its proposed revisions to the FLSA regulations in March 2003, APA and its members were very enthusiastic about the prospect of these sweeping and necessary changes. APA believes that the changes proposed by the DOL are needed to benefit both employers and workers so that legal 

controversies about worker classification matters as they pertain to overtime pay 

can be eliminated or minimized. The ‘‘duties’’ tests of the existing regulations, which 

describe the type of work that is exempt from overtime, have not been changed since 

1949. However, the workplace has certainly changed a lot since then, and there are 

countless jobs held by workers today that didn’t even exist at that time. With rules 

and examples that don’t recognize today’s workplace, it is very difficult for an employer to make the decision as to exempt status. 

The task of classifying workers correctly is a very important one in ensuring that 

workers are properly paid what they are entitled to receive under the law. But, as 

one can observe in the various courthouses throughout the country, worker classification lawsuits are on the rise because the outdated overtime exemption regulations provide little guidance to help employers properly classify their workers in today’s dynamic and modern work place. Since payroll professionals work closely with 

their human resources counterparts in today’s work environment, these proposed 

regulations are very important to APA. 

As previously summarized in a letter to the DOL in June 2003, APA and its members are in favor of the direction taken by the proposed regulations and suggest the 

following improvements upon the DOL’s already sound proposal. These suggestions 

would make it easier for employers to make the appropriate and correct worker classification determinations for their employees: 

—The DOL should strengthen its guidance by providing additional, real-life examples of the types of jobs that would qualify for the exemption, including guidance relating to customer service employees, entry-level researchers and various 

types of trainers, including those who provide software or other technical training away from their employer’s primary place of business. This expanded guidance would help employers a great deal when applying the new ‘‘primary duties 

test’’ to make an accurate classification determination. 

—Additional guidance should be provided to address the circumstances of those 

workers who may meet the ‘‘position of responsibility’’ test by virtue of the fact 

that they are the only individuals in certain positions performing the functions 

of those positions (i.e., ‘‘one-person departments’’). 

—The Department should provide more comprehensive guidance addressing the 

application of the exemption in hospitals and other environments where employees are given supervisory duties on a rotating basis. 

—The Department should provide additional guidance addressing instances in 

which an FLSA-nonexempt employee temporarily takes on the duties of an exempt employee; for instance, in the common situation where a nonexempt employee is filling in temporarily for a supervisor who has taken family or medical 

leave or is on vacation. Clarification is also needed for the reverse situation, 
53 

where an exempt employee fills in for a nonexempt employee or takes on some 

extra nonexempt work in another area to earn extra money. 

—The DOL should provide a definition of ‘‘other non-discretionary compensation’’ 

which employers must use to determine if a worker meets the proposed $65,000 

annual salary threshold that would classify workers as exempt from the overtime laws if they meet any one of the components of the proposed primary duty 

tests. 

APA also believes that the Department’s proposal does not go far enough to define 

the types of infractions of company rules for which an employer may legitimately 

dock the pay of an exempt employee. 

Finally, the proposal needs to be more specific about whether employers may subtract from leave balances when exempt employees take off fractions of workdays for 

personal reasons. 

APA is confident that the additional guidance that we are requesting on behalf 

of employers would help avoid confusion, conflict, and litigation in the future. And, 

most importantly, employers and workers would be able to believe that there are 

clear and concise labor regulations to which they can refer when worker classification issues arise. 

APA thanks you for your time and the opportunity today to comment on this important labor issue and would be pleased to answer any questions that the committee may have. 

Senator SPECTER. Thank you very much, Mr. McDevitt. 

STATEMENT OF PATTY HEFNER, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN 

NURSES ASSOCIATION 

Senator SPECTER. We now turn to Ms. Patty Hefner, staff nurse 

at Sewickley Valley Hospital, representing the American Nurses 

Association; R.N. diploma from St. Margaret Memorial Hospital in 

Pittsburgh, and a bachelor of science degree in health education 

from Point Park College in Pittsburgh. 

Thank you for joining us, Ms. Hefner. And we look forward to 

your testimony. 

Ms. HEFNER. Thank you, Senator. 

On behalf of the American Nurses Association, I would like to 

thank you for allowing me the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes to the overtime provisions. As you stated, I am a 

staff nurse at Sewickley Valley Hospital in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. And I have been a registered nurse since 1969. 

At the outset of my testimony, I would like to address the Labor 

Department’s claim that these proposed changes would not affect 

registered nurses. To be considered an exempt employee, nurses, 

like all professionals, have to meet strict educational requirements. 

Under the proposed rule, work experience may be substituted for 

all or part of the educational requirement for any learned profession, including nursing. This will allow employers, under the proposed rule, to exempt all registered nurses regardless of their level 

of education from overtime compensation. 

Our members represent the interests of registered nursing practicing in hospitals, nursing homes, and a wide range of other 

health facilities. The implementation of these proposed revisions to 

the Fair Labor Standards Act will have implications to their practice, their work environment, and, most importantly, the quality of 

patient care they provide. 

Under these proposals, millions of workers, including nurses, 

who enjoy overtime protection, would no longer qualify for overtime 

pay. These proposed changes to the overtime regulations will mean 

a huge pay cut for these workers. For nurses, it will mean longer 

hours with less pay, and likely mandated hours. 
54 

Mr. Chairman, the nursing profession is at a crossroad. Our Nation is struggling with a growing shortage of registered nurses. And 

this impacts our hospitals, our long-term care facilities, home 

health agencies, and public health clinics on a daily basis. The 

shortage is growing just as the need for nursing services is mounting. America’s demand for nursing care is expected to balloon over 

the next 20 years, as a result of an aging population, advances in 

technology, and various economic and policy factors. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that attrition and retirement will create more than 1 million openings for R.N.’s between 2000 and 2010. More money by itself will not, of course, 

solve these projected shortages. But no labor shortage has ever 

been solved without a market-based set of economic incentives. 

Mr. Chairman, I know of no nurse who went into this profession 

hoping to become a millionaire. Enhancing the professionalization 

stature and respect of all nursing will make this profession more 

attractive. One of the main reasons 500,000 registered nurses have 

left the profession is conditions at the workplace. Nurses across the 

Nation are reporting a dramatic increase in the use of mandatory 

overtime. 

Today, mandatory overtime is the most common method used by 

facilities to cover staffing insufficiencies. This dangerous staffing 

practice is having a negative impact on patient care. It is fostering 

medical errors, and it is driving nurses away from the bedside. A 

recent survey by ANA of nearly 5,000 nurses across the country revealed that more than 67 percent are working unplanned overtime 

every month. Increased reliance on mandatory overtime has occurred at the same time that patient acuity has increased, the use 

of sophisticated technology has increased, and the length of hospital stay has decreased. 

The IOM study, keeping patients safe, transforming the work environment of nurses, recommends limiting the number of hours a 

nurse can work to 12 hours in any 24-hour period and 60 hours in 

any 7-day period. Currently, nurses where I work and across the 

country are paid for overtime, whether this is voluntary or forced. 

Overtime pay is not money that most families use to pay for extras, such as luxury items and lavish vacations. For most of us, 

overtime pay is used to put food on the table, to pay for clothes for 

our kids, and to fund their college educations. Expanding the number of professional workers, such as registered nurses, who are exempt from overtime protection, will lower the marginal cost for the 

employers. 

Under this misguided proposal, nurses will be working the same 

long hours they now work, in fact, probably longer hours without 

overtime compensation. This proposal will take away the one thing 

that discourages hospital administrators from forcing overtime, and 

that is the cost factor. 

PREPARED STATEMENT

Mr. Chairman, the public understands the vital role that nurses 

play in delivering quality healthcare to our patients. Just last 

month, the annual survey by Gallop on the honesty and ethics of 

various professions again rated nurses at the top. We speak on behalf of all of our patients when we say that these proposed regula-
55 

tions will lead to more nurses leaving the profession, resulting in 

reduced care, increases in the errors, and the potential for tragic 

results with our patients. I urge you to help prevent these proposed 

regulations and changes to the overtime provisions. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for this opportunity to speak to 

you. 

[The prepared statement follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PATTI HEFNER

Chairman Specter, members of the Subcommittee, my name is Patti Hefner and 

I am a Registered Nurse at the Sewickley Valley Hospital in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. I have been a registered nurse since 1969. 

On behalf of the American Nurses Association (ANA) which represents the nation’s registered nurses through its 54 constituent member associations including 

state and territorial nurse associations thank you for allowing me the opportunity 

to comment on the proposed changes to the overtime provisions. 

At the outset of my testimony, I want to address the Labor Department’s claim 

that these proposed changes would not affect registered nurses. To be considered an 

exempt employee, nurses like all professionals have to meet strict educational requirements. Under the proposed rule, as both the text of the rule and the regulatory 

analysis make plain, work experience may be substituted ‘‘for all or part of the educational requirements’’ for any learned profession, including nursing. This will allow 

employers, under the proposed rule to exempt all registered nurses regardless of 

their level of education from overtime compensation. 

Also, according to Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute, the new regulations will make it much easier to establish that ‘‘a’’ primary duty of a nurse is 

administrative or executive. An otherwise non-exempt nurse who spends 90 percent 

of his or her time providing patient care could still be found to have a primary duty 

that is administrative or executive, especially since the administrative duty tests 

have been substantially weakened. 

Our members represent the interests of registered nurses practicing in hospitals 

and nursing homes and a wide range of other health facilities. The implementation 

of these proposed revisions to the Fair Labor and Standards Act (FLSA) will have 

implications for their practice, their work environment and the quality of patient 

care they provide. Under these proposals millions of workers, including nurses who 

enjoy overtime protection would no longer qualify for overtime pay. Make no mistake about it. The proposed changes to the overtime regulations will mean a huge 

pay cut for these workers. For nurses, it will mean longer hours with less pay and 

likely mandated hours. 

Mr. Chairman, the nursing profession is at a crossroad. Our nation is struggling 

with a growing shortage of registered nurses (RNs) which impacts our hospitals, 

long-term care facilities, home health agencies and public health clinics on a daily 

basis. 

The shortage is growing just as the need for nursing services in mounting. America’s demand for nursing care is expected to balloon over the next twenty years as 

a result of the aging population, advances in technology, and various economic and 

policy factors. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that attrition and retirement will create more than one million openings for RNs between 2000 and 2010. 

More money, by itself, will not solve the projected labor shortages, but no labor 

shortage has ever been solved without a market-based set of economic incentives. 

Mr. Chairman, I know of no nurse that went into the profession with the hope of 

becoming a millionaire. Enhancing the professionalization, stature and respect of all 

nursing will make the profession more attractive. 

One of the main reasons 500,000 registered nurses have left the profession is conditions at the workplace. Nurses across the nation are reporting a dramatic increase 

in the use of mandatory overtime. Today, mandatory overtime is the most common 

method used by facilities to cover staffing insufficiencies. This dangerous staffing 

practice is having a negative impact on patient care, fostering medical errors and 

driving nurses away from the bedside. A recent ANA survey of nearly 5,000 nurses 

across the country revealed that more than 67 percent are working unplanned overtime every month. Increased reliance on mandatory overtime has occurred at the 

same time that patient acuity has increased, the use of sophisticated technology has 

increased, and the length of hospital stay has decreased. 

Last November, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report which shows 

a clear link between the nursing work environment and patient safety, and rec-
56 

ommends improvements in health care working conditions that would lead to safer 

patient care. The study, Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses recommends to limit the number of hours a nurse can work to 12 

hours in any 24-hour period and 60 hours in any seven-day period. 

Currently, nurses where I work, and across the country are paid for overtime, 

whether voluntary or forced. Overtime pay is not money that most families use to 

pay for extras such as luxury items or lavish vacations. For most overtime pay is 

the money used to put food on the table and clothes on the backs of their children. 

Expanding the number of professional workers, such as registered nurses, who are 

exempt from overtime protections, will lower the marginal cost of overtime for the 

employers. Under this misguided proposal, nurses will be working the same long 

hours they now work—in fact, probably longer hours, without overtime compensation. This proposal will take away the one thing that discourages hospital administrators from forcing nurses to work overtime—the cost factor! 

Mr. Chairman, the public understands the vital role that nurses play in delivering 

quality health care to their patients. Just last month Gallup’s annual survey on the 

honesty and ethics of various professions rated nurses at the top. We speak on behalf of the patients when we say these proposed regulations will lead to more nurses 

leaving the profession resulting in reduced care, increases in medical errors, ending 

in potentially tragic results for the patients that we serve. I urge you to help prevent these proposed regulations and changes to the overtime provisions. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you once again for this opportunity to speak to you on this 

important matter. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

Senator SPECTER. Ms. Hefner, thank you very much for your testimony. 

I regret that we are not going to have time for very extensive 

questioning because the caucuses are now meeting as we prepare 

for a cloture vote a little later this afternoon. But we will be submitting questions in writing, which we would appreciate your response to. 

Ms. Hefner, starting with you, there is no doubt about a major 

nursing shortage in America. That is something I say from the 

chairmanship of this Subcommittee on Health and Human Services 

and also from the chairmanship which I hold on the Veterans’ 

Committee. I have looked at the point and counterpoint with the 

concerns about whether nurses will be covered and a response that 

they will not lose overtime pay. But this is an ambiguity which we 

do not have an answer to. 

Mr. McDevitt, as a proponent of the regulations, can you respond? Will nurses be covered? And will there be a risk of nurses 

losing overtime pay? 

Mr. MCDEVITT. You know, I am not—I would not call myself a 

healthcare field expert. So I really could not answer that question. 

Although what I could do is go back to my association to talk to 

members that are in that field and submit my response to you in 

writing. 

Senator SPECTER. Well, I would appreciate that. 

Mr. Fortney, I would appreciate it if you and Dr. Bird would respond as well, so we can have an idea as to the impact on nurses, 

and whether you could amplify it as to whether there will be any 

impact on other healthcare professionals. 

Mr. FORTNEY. We would be happy to. And nurses, specifically, 

Mr. Chair, in fact are exempt today under the regulations. Under 

the proposed regulations, they would continue to be exempt. Remember, the law—— 

Senator SPECTER. Would you give me the backup on that? 

Mr. FORTNEY. Oh, yes, I will. 
57 

Senator SPECTER. I am sorry I cannot go into it in any greater 

detail now. 

Dr. Bernstein—— 

Mr. FORTNEY. The market factors actually is what compels people to receive overtime today. 

Senator SPECTER. Dr. Bernstein and Dr. Bird, you two gentlemen 

have come to diametrically opposed positions here, our two Ph.D.s 

as to what is what. Dr. Bird, what do you think of Dr. Bernstein’s 

analysis? 

Dr. Bernstein, I am going to ask you the identical question. But 

you only have 1 minute to answer. 

Dr. BIRD. Thank you, sir. I think that we are dealing here with 

asking very different questions. Dr. Bernstein has said that the Department of Labor, in his analysis, said that the Department of 

Labor made an error, a serious error, by not including in its analysis people who may or may not lose a hypothetical protection. The 

Department of Labor, in its analysis, focused on people who were 

actually likely to have their right to overtime either added to or, 

in the case of 600,000—— 

Senator SPECTER. Dr. Bird, I am going to have to ask you to conclude. 

Dr. BIRD. Okay. In fact, I think that the Department of Labor did 

it the right way, because their obligation under the regulatory impact analysis rules was to estimate the cost to employers and to industry and to the economy of adding the protection, primarily of 

adding the protection that is associated with raising the threshold. 

They did it correctly. 

Senator SPECTER. Dr. Bernstein, do you have—— 

Dr. BERNSTEIN. No. That misrepresents actually both our and 

their approach. I mean, we examined all workers who are currently 

covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime protection. And 

that is historically what has always been done in this analysis. We 

in fact not only use the same methodology, we actually purchased 

the computer code that had been used to do this by the DOL historically. And in every single case, the analysis has been on all covered workers, because they are the group that stands to lose, 

whether they work overtime or not. 

In fact, when we look at salaried workers, as we show on our 

chart over there, the Department of Labor and EPI comes to almost 

precisely the same numbers. They find that about 2 million workers would likely be exempt. We find 2.5 million. So our methods are 

not that far apart, except for this one difference. And I think any 

policy analyst who evaluates the impact of such a policy would 

have to agree that all the workers who are covered are in danger 

of losing coverage. And therefore, they are the appropriate group 

to examine. 

Senator SPECTER. Let me ask all of you to respond to these questions in writing. I wish we could take the time now, but, as I say, 

we are past the 1 hour and 45 minute mark. This hearing has gone 

considerably longer than we had expected. 

Question one. Do you all agree or disagree with Mr. McDevitt’s 

suggestion that the Department of Labor should strengthen its 

guidance by providing additional real life examples of the types of 

jobs which would qualify for the exemption? 
58 

Question two. When Dr. Bird testifies about the 8 million figure 

and he uses the words ‘‘subjective guessing about duties,’’ I would 

like all of your responses as to whether that really is not an underlying problem with the new regulations, as well as the old regulations? 

Question three. Then I would like you to respond to the analysis 

on the examples, which I cited for Secretary Chao, as to whether 

you think there is a significant improvement in the new regulations and whether you could suggest language to the subcommittee 

which would realize the agreed objective of trying to eliminate litigation? 

WRITTEN RESPONSES TO COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

The subcommittee thanks you all for coming. Again, we wish we 

could spend longer. But if you would supply those written answers, 

we would appreciate it. And we will have some more for you, as 

well. 

[The following questions were asked at the hearing for written 

responses:] 

RESPONSES OF RICHARD TRUMKA TO COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

Question. Do you all agree or disagree with Mr. McDevitt’s suggestion that the 

Department of Labor should strengthen its guidance by providing additional real life 

examples of the types of jobs which would qualify for the exemption? 

Answer. A number of employers submitted comments to the Department of Labor 

(DOL) last June suggesting that the final 541 overtime regulation list particular occupations that are presumptively exempt. Please see attached list of employer comments (also available at http://www.epinet.org/newsroom/releases/03/09/ 

030903topemployer.pdf). 

We do not believe DOL should expand the scope of the overtime exemptions in 

this way. As DOL likes to emphasize, the duties tests apply to the job responsibilities of individual workers, rather than entire job occupations. Listing occupations 

as presumptively exempt threatens to deny overtime protection to individual workers whose job responsibilities do not warrant exemption. 

Further, absent a change in the law itself, we think it would be entirely inappropriate and indefensible for DOL to determine that any occupation is presumptively 

exempt from any section of the FLSA. The courts have consistently held that employees are presumed to enjoy the protections of the FLSA, and that the burden is 

on employers to prove exemptions. For DOL to determine that any employee, by virtue of his or her occupation, is presumptively exempt would thus be contrary to the 

language of the FLSA and consistent case law. 

Question. When Dr. Bird testifies about the 8 million figure and he uses the words 

‘‘subjective guessing about duties,’’ I would like all of your responses as to whether 

that really is not an underlying problem with the new regulations, as well as the 

old regulations? 

Answer. There are two issues raised by this question. One is the difficulty of estimating the aggregate effect of the proposed regulation; the other is the application 

of overtime eligibility rules to individual employees. Dr. Bird seemed to be referring 

to the former. 

Certainly, the accuracy of any estimate of the aggregate impact of proposed regulatory changes will be strengthened by the maximum amount of data on job responsibilities of workers in individual occupations. At a minimum, any serious regulatory 

impact analysis would need to begin by estimating the impact on individual occupations and then aggregating those figures. This is the methodology employed by DOL 

in the past, and it is the methodology used by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) 

in its 2003 report. Unfortunately, neither Dr. Bird’s organization nor DOL has bothered to estimate the impact of the proposed overtime regulation on workers in individual job titles. It should also be noted that, even in the absence of additional data 

on job responsibilities, there are many regulatory changes DOL could make with objective certainty that loss of overtime rights would not result. 

The second issue is the application of eligibility rules to individual employees. We 

believe DOL greatly exaggerates the ambiguity of the current overtime eligibility 
59 

rules. Application of the current rules does not generally require ‘‘subjective guessing.’’ By and large, employers and courts are very familiar with the current standards and understand their meaning quite well. When overtime litigation occurs, it 

is generally not because employers cannot manage to decipher arcane overtime 

rules. It is generally because employers are cheating their workers out of overtime 

pay in order to minimize labor costs, and DOL enforcement is so ineffective that litigation is the only recourse for cheated workers to enforce the statute. It should be 

noted that DOL’s proposed regulation would eliminate the much more detailed and 

precise ‘‘long’’ duties test that provides superior guidance to employers, and DOL 

would replace it with the vaguer ‘‘short’’ test that is more likely to lead to unnecessary litigation. In other words, an even vaguer and more subjective test is certainly 

no cure for any problems in the existing rules. 

Finally, we reiterate that employees are presumptively entitled to overtime protections. Thus, to the extent that an employer may find the existing rule (or proposed rule) requires subjective judgments, it should err on the side of determining 

that workers are protected. 

Question. Then I would like you to respond to the analysis on the examples, which 

I cited for Secretary Chao, as to whether you think there is a significant improvement in the new regulations and whether you could suggest language to the subcommittee which would realize the agreed objective of trying to eliminate litigation? 

Answer. We do not believe that the proposed new criteria for the administrative 

exemption are in any way superior to the current criteria. We believe that DOL’s 

proposed language would not only expand the administrative exemption, but would 

also result in widespread confusion and increased litigation. This litigation would 

be precisely the kind that can and should be avoided because it does not result in 

the vindication or enforcement of workers’ overtime rights. 

We do believe there are a number of ways DOL could reduce unnecessary litigation of the kind that does not vindicate workers’ overtime rights. 

First, DOL could abandon its proposed regulatory changes that would add considerable ambiguity and confusion to the overtime eligibility regulations and would, as 

Administrator Tammy McCutchen admitted to the Chicago Tribune, result in a ‘‘deluge of lawsuits.’’ 

Second, DOL could apply its inflation adjustment to the salary levels for the clearer and more unambiguous ‘‘long’’ duties test, as it has on the occasion of every previous inflation adjustment. 

Third, we support suggestions made by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) at 

your hearing of July 31, 2003 (e.g., eliminating any ambiguity that the professional 

exemption requires a professional degree, and eliminating any ambiguity that exempt workers must spend more than 50 percent of their time performing a primary 

duty of exempt work). 

Fourth, if DOL were to insist on a comprehensive revision, we believe it would 

be possible to simplify the overtime rules dramatically by refocusing them on the 

original purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA was intended 

to discourage excessive hours, to reward workers who work overtime, and to encourage job creation. However, these purposes are not served by applying the 40-hour 

workweek to management and independent professionals, who presumably control 

their own workload and work schedules. Greater emphasis on actual and real employee control over work loads and work schedules could dramatically simplify the 

overtime rules, and would undoubtedly extend overtime protection to more workers, 

consistent with the original intent of the FLSA. 

The bottom line is that clarity and certainty could be easily achieved in ways that 

maintain or expand overtime coverage, but DOL has shown no interest in this kind 

of clarification. In fact, DOL has vehemently opposed the Harkin amendment, which 

would allow DOL to clarify the rules in any way that does not restrict overtime eligibility. Our disagreement with DOL is not about whether the rules should be clarified to reduce unnecessary litigation, it is about whether overtime eligibility should 

be restricted. 

ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE

TOP EMPLOYER GROUPS NAME SPECIFIC OCCUPATIONS AND ACTIVITIES TO BE

INELIGIBLE FOR OVERTIME UNDER NEW REGULATIONS

The U.S. Department of Labor obviously knew about an old saying in legal circles 

that goes something like, ‘‘never ask a question you don’t already know the answer 

to,’’ when it invited comments from top employer groups on which occupations 

should be included in the final rule as examples of exempt jobs (68 Fed. Reg. 15559, 

15564), i.e., those not eligible for overtime pay. 
60 

Not only did eight of the nation’s largest employer groups respond to DOL’s invitation, they also proposed specific occupations, as well as exempt duties to be included in the final rule. Their responses clearly demonstrate that employers are 

eager to take advantage of the changes in the proposed regulations to make millions 

of employees ineligible to receive any extra pay for hours worked beyond 40 per 

week. 

These responses from employers make clear that the proposed regulations could 

result in substantial changes—despite DOL’s assertions to the contrary. The employers who responded clearly interpret the proposed revised regulations as giving 

them leeway to reclassify employees as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime protection. 

Moreover, once occupations are reclassified by employers, the only recourse for a 

worker is to challenge the employer’s action, which is almost certain to involve hiring an attorney and lengthy litigation. This recourse is not financially feasible to 

the vast majority of adversely affected workers. 

COALITION, REPRESENTED BY MORGAN, LEWIS & BOCKIUS, LLP

This Coalition is described as ‘‘a significant number of employers which conduct 

business in a cross-section of industry and service sectors, including banking, financial services, education, information technology, aerospace/defense, manufacturing, 

construction, Internet services, staff, professional consulting services, telecommunications and call center operations.’’ It proposes to: 

‘‘Add the following types of work to the list of those that are related to management or business operations of the employer’s clients or customers [thus able to be 

reclassified under the revised administrative exemption]: 

—tax experts, 

—stock brokers, 

—registered broker assistants, 

—mortgage brokers, 

—loan officers, 

—insurance advisors, 

—financial consultants, 

—benefits consultants & administrators, 

—travel consultants, 

—dietary managers in retirement homes, and 

—staffing recruiters.’’ 

‘‘Add the following types of work to the list of those that are related to management or business operations of the employer [thus able to be reclassified under the 

revised administrative exemption]: 

—actuary, 

—forensic accounting, 

—computer network, database and Internet administration, 

—pension & benefit plan administration, 

—advice to clients on industry and product trends, 

—management of customer relationships, 

—customer service, 

—organizational development, 

—training, 

—travel & event planning, and 

—projects/process management.’’ 

‘‘Work of substantial importance. The Coalition suggests the addition of the following activities to the list of exempt activities [for purposes of revised administrative exemption]: 

—representing and preserving the image and reputation of employer to the public, 

—representing the company to regulatory bodies and industry groups, 

—maintaining client relationships, 

—determining financial direction of company or its clients, 

—filling employee/contractor vacancies, and 

—qualifying borrowers for loans and managing the application process to a closing.’’ 

‘‘High level of skill or training. The Coalition suggests the addition of the following types of work to the list of those that satisfy the [new] high level of skill 

or training’ standard [in the revised administrative exemption]: 

—sales representatives who manage sales process for specialized scientific or technical products or services, 

—computer network and database administrators, 

—benefit plan administrators, 

—mortgage brokers, 
61 

—loan officers, 

—insurance advisors, and 

—travel consultants.’’ 

AMERICAN COUNCIL OF ENGINEERING COMPANIES

Proposes the following examples of work of ‘‘substantial importance’’ or requiring 

‘‘high level of skill or training’’ under the revised administrative exemption: 

—Computer Aided Design (CAD) technicians and operators, 

—Web designers, 

—Engineering designers and senior designers, 

—IT department managers without college degrees, 

—Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technician/specialist, 

—Right of Way agents, 

—Construction management representatives or commissioning agents, 

—Project managers, 

—Financial services analyst. 

Proposes the following occupations as examples for the revised learned and creative professional exemptions: 

—Any registered engineering and design professionals, including: 

—engineers, 

—surveyors, 

—architects, 

—landscape architects, 

—planners, 

—highway, bridge and rail inspectors, 

—computer graphics professionals. 

FLSA REFORM COALITION

This Coalition, represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, describes itself as ‘‘a 

group of leading national employers and trade associations who have been working 

together for sensible reform of the FLSA exemption regulations for almost ten years. 

[representing] employers with significant ‘white-collar’ workforces, in diverse field 

and industries including aerospace, automotive, defense, engineering, insurance, logistics, retail and social services.’’ 

The Coalition requests that the following occupations be included in the final regulation as examples of exempt occupations under the revised administrative exemption: 

—assistant program director of social services organization, 

—case manager at social services organization, 

—engineering designer, 

—expedition leader, 

—financial statement accountant at retail organization, 

—logistics specialist in aerospace industry, 

—manufacturing technology analyst, 

—quality of care staff for social services and medical providers, 

—therapists and counselors for social services organization. 

The Coalition requests that the following occupations be listed in the final regulation as examples of exempt jobs under the revised learned professional exemption: 

—engineering and architectural designer, 

—financial statement accountant (not a CPA), 

—logistics specialist, 

—manufacturing technology analyst, 

—therapists and counselors for social services organization. 

NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

NAA proposes that DOL include a discussion of applicability of the learned professional exemption to journalists. ‘‘[t]o ensure that there is no confusion about the effect of the revised Learned Professional Exemption to the traditional roles of editors, 

reporters and photographers.’’ 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS

NAB requests that the proposed exemption for creative professionals explicitly include: 

—radio news writers, 

—broadcast journalists, 

—television reporters, 
62 

—producers, including field producers, 

—news directors, 

—television news camera operators. 

NATIONAL RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION

Speaking of the revised exemption for ‘‘learned professionals’’ the NRA ‘‘applauds 

DOL for recognizing professional workers who acquire their knowledge through alternative means to certain educational levels . . . In this sense DOL acknowledges 

that chefs in the restaurant industry are examples of such a mix of acquisition of 

advanced knowledge.’’ 

NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION

The NRF gives the following as examples of jobs that should be included as examples of exempt under the creative professional standards: 

—graphic artists, 

—designers, 

—display designers, 

—clothes designers, 

—visual managers. 

The NRF gives the following as examples of occupations exempt as administrative 

that should be included in the final regulation: 

—compensation analysts, 

—financial analysts, 

—field project managers, 

—assistant buyers, 

—merchandise coordinators, 

—human resources assistant managers, 

—clothing designers, 

—textile designers, 

—visual presentation managers, 

—staffing managers. 

AMERICAN HOTEL & LODGING ASSOCIATION

The AHLA requests that the following activities be included as examples of exempt duties: 

—market research, 

—designing marketing strategies, 

—entertaining potential customers, 

—formulating sales bids, 

—event planning, 

—coordinating the work of multiple departments, 

—monitoring customer satisfaction. 

RESPONSES OF RONALD BIRD TO COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

Question. How many registered nurses are potentially affected by the current and 

proposed regulations? 

Answer. The nation’s 2.4 million employed registered nurses (2003 annual average) included 1.8 million paid on an hourly basis (and therefore entitled to overtime 

pay when working over 40 hours per week) and 612,000 paid on a salaried basis. 

As professionals, all registered nurses are potentially exempt under the current and 

proposed FLSA duties test regulations. The fact that 74.8 percent are nevertheless 

paid on an hourly basis—making them non-exempt by the salary test of FLSA regulations—suggests that the method of pay and classification status are influenced significantly by market factors that go beyond the literal language of the duties tests 

in the regulations. Having duties that could make one exempt does not mean that 

one will be treated as exempt. Since the status of nurses as potentially exempt professionals is unchanged by the proposed regulation, there is no basis to expect that 

any nurses would experience a change in status if the proposal is adopted. It is likely that 74.8 percent of nurses will continue to be paid on an hourly basis and qualify 

for overtime pay because that is the work arrangement that is mutually beneficial 

to themselves and their employers. Their current and future pay status reflects such 

mutual choices and is not determined by current or proposed regulatory language 

regarding presumptively exempt duties. 
63 

Question. How will the proposed changes in the regulation affect my conclusion 

that estimates of numbers of persons who are exempt or non exempt under duties 

tests are inherently speculative? 

Answer. The speculative nature of estimates of number of persons exempt or nonexempt arises from the inadequacy of available data rather than from ambiguity in 

the current or proposed regulation. The available data provides only occupation titles. It does not provide any information about job duties of individual’s who hold 

jobs with particular titles. Since both the current and proposed rules define exemption in terms of duties, the available data cannot provide an accurate count of persons who would meet the exemption criteria. Any estimate of the proportion of people with a given job title who also have exemption-eligible duties is inherently subjective and speculative unless it is based on a survey that examines both the occupation title and the job duties reported by employees and employers on a job-by-job 

basis. 

Only the salary threshold (currently $155 per week and proposed at $425 per 

week) provides a criterion that is unambiguous in relation to the available data. We 

can estimate with statistical precision that 6.9 million salaried workers who currently earn less than $425 per week will be changed to hourly over-time eligible status by the proposal. 

Question. Do you agree or disagree with Mr. McDevitt’s suggestion that the Department of Labor should strengthen its guidance by providing additional real life 

examples of the types of jobs which would qualify for exemption? 

Answer. The common sense value of real-life examples is obvious. Illustrations 

should reflect practical job analysis situations that human resource professionals encounter. Input from experienced human resource management practitioners would 

insure that illustrations are relevant. 

Question. Do you think that the proposed regulations provide a significant improvement to reduce litigation, and could you suggest language to the subcommittee 

which would realize the objective of trying to eliminate litigation? 

Answer. The proposal is a significant improvement. It is clearly written and relevant to the realities of the contemporary workplace. Clearer language is likely to 

reduce litigation. The fact that the increased salary threshold removes any question 

about status for over 34 million workers is also an important factor that will contribute to reduced litigation. I have no recommendations for improved language. 

I hope that these responses will be helpful to you and to the other members of 

the subcommittee. 

AMERICAN PAYROLL ASSOCIATION, 

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC, March 17, 2004. 

Hon. ARLEN SPECTER, 

Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, and Education, U.S. Senate, 

Washington, DC. 

DEAR SENATOR SPECTER: The purpose of this letter is to formally respond to the 

three specific questions that you posed to the American Payroll Association and 

other organizations represented at the January 20 hearing that your subcommittee 

held to discuss the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposal to modernize the white-collar overtime pay regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In addition, 

APA would like to thank you again for providing our organization the opportunity 

to publicly voice our position on this important labor issue. 

As I mentioned at the beginning of my testimony, the APA is a non-profit professional association representing 21,000 companies and individuals in all 50 states 

and Canada. APA’s central mission is to educate its members and the entire payroll 

industry about the best practices associated with paying America’s workers their 

wages while successfully complying with all federal, state, and local employment, 

tax withholding, and information reporting laws. APA’s secondary mission is to 

work with legislative and executive branches of all levels of government to find ways 

for employers to meet their requirements under law and support government objectives, while minimizing administrative burden for government, employers, and individual taxpayers. 

In the spirit of APA’s secondary mission, APA has prepared the following responses to your questions: 

Question. Do you all agree or disagree with Mr. McDevitt’s suggestion that the 

Department of Labor should strengthen its guidance by providing additional real life 

examples of the types of jobs which would qualify for the [overtime] exemption? 
64 

Answer. Since this question was intended for the other panelists to respond to, 

APA would like to simply reiterate that it believes that the DOL should incorporate 

‘‘real life examples,’’ within the proposed regulations, that highlight the types of jobs 

that would qualify for the exemption, including guidance relating to customer service employees, entry-level researchers and various types of trainers, including those 

who provide software or other technical training away from their employer’s primary place of business. This expanded guidance would help employers a great deal 

when applying the new ‘‘primary duties test’’ to make an accurate classification determination. This would be an excellent addition to the proposed regulations that 

could help to eliminate or minimize the worker classification lawsuits that have 

been on the rise in recent years. 

Question. When Dr. Bird testifies about the eight-million figure and he uses the 

words ‘‘subjective guessing about duties,’’ I would like all of your responses as to 

whether that really is not an underlying problem with the new regulations, as well 

as the old regulations. 

Answer. Since the DOL released its proposed white-collar overtime pay regulations on March 31, 2003, various employer, labor, and public policy organizations 

have debated their potential impact on today’s nonexempt workers. One highly debatable figure in this debate estimates that eight million workers may lose the ability to qualify for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a work week. 

This debatable figure is a result of how various labor law and policy experts have 

read and interpreted both the new and old duties-test language within both versions 

of the regulations to determine the future nonexempt status of today’s non-exempt 

workers. 

When Dr. Ronald Bird of the Employment Policy Foundation testified at the hearing and commented on this debatable eight million figure, he states: 

‘‘Estimates of the number [of workers] affected have been published based on subjective evaluations of how changes in the wording of duties definitions [between the 

new and old regulations] would change the percentage of exempt people under each 

occupation title. At their foundation, however, these estimates are purely speculative and subjective.’’ 

However, Dr. Bird also states: 

‘‘The reality is that such claims are only a wild guess. There is no objective data 

about the job duties at a sufficient specificity to determine whether the proposed 

change in wording [of the duties test] will change the result for anyone. To the extent that anyone [worker] might become exempt who is not exempt now, it is also 

reasonable to consider that some who are now exempt might become nonexempt.’’ 

APA believes that ‘‘the subjective guessing about duties’’ would not be an underlying problem with the new regulations if employers were actually provided with 

some real life examples of specific jobs and duties that would help clarify who is 

and who is not exempt from overtime pay. 

Perhaps the DOL could determine if there are specific job types and/or duties that 

are creating the bulk of the growing number of overtime pay litigation cases in the 

country and provide guidance on these specific jobs within the final regulations so 

that employers are able to determine the exempt or nonexempt status of workers 

in these positions. This strategy may help minimize litigation cases that employers 

are experiencing. 

APA also believes it is worth reiterating the following statement contained within 

Dr. Bird’s testimony when he comments on the impact of the revised salary thresholds in the proposed regulations: 

‘‘Because employee salaries are more readily known than job descriptions, we can 

be more certain that raising the salary threshold for exemption will increase the 

number of workers who are absolutely eligible for overtime regardless of what their 

duties are today and regardless of how their duties may evolve in the future so long 

as their pay stays below the threshold.’’ 

Dr. Bird also makes an interesting observation to addresses the potential impacts 

of the proposed regulations on workers who earn over $425 per week and would be 

subject to the new standard duties test: 

‘‘Also, one should consider whether any rational employer would reclassify an employee and cut effective pay in a job market where most people are not trapped and 

where many of us have more options and opportunities than we did 50 years ago. 

Unilateral reclassification is likely to increase turnover, and turnover cost is a much 

more critical concern for today’s human resource managers than overtime payroll 

cost.’’ 
65 

APA agrees with these assertions made by Dr. Bird and would hope that policy 

makers consider them as they evaluate the entire DOL proposal in question. The 

idea of delaying or impeding the implementation of these proposed regulations because of the varying and diverse opinions about their potential impacts would only 

allow the costly legal struggles that employers are currently facing to continue indefinitely. What harm would there be to employers and workers to at least take a 

step forward in attempting to improve today’s worker classification system that we 

all know is truly broken? If it is later determined that parts of the proposed regulations have not solved all the worker classification litigation concerns that have been 

raised, the DOL and stakeholders could take a pragmatic approach and reexamine 

any potential shortcomings of the proposed regulations and work toward creating 

additional solutions that would benefit all parties involved. 

Question. And then I would like you to respond to the analysis on the examples, 

which I cited for Secretary Chao, as to whether you think there is a significant improvement in the new regulations and whether you could suggest language to the 

subcommittee which would realize the agreed objective of trying to eliminate litigation. 

Answer. APA believes that there are significant improvements within the entirety 

of the DOL proposal and that litigation could be eliminated or minimized by incorporating our suggestion that additional ‘‘real life examples’’ of jobs that would qualify for the exemption be incorporated into final version of the regulations. APA 

would also suggests that the DOL to establish a practice of evaluating these 

whitecollar overtime regulations every 3–5 years to ensure they are updated appropriately to follow trends in U.S. labor practices, the job market, DOL audits, and 

FLSA-based lawsuits. This would be more effective than the infrequent modifications and reviews that have been initiated by the DOL in the past 66 years. 

Thank you again for providing APA and its 21,000 members the opportunity to 

publicly comment on this important labor issue and provide further input in answer 

to your questions. Should you or your subcommittee staff require any additional information from APA, please do not hesitate to ask. 

Sincerely, 

ANDREW J. MCDEVITT, 

Manager, Government Relations, American Payroll Association. 

RESPONSES OF DAVID S. FORTNEY TO COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

Question. Do you all agree or disagree with Mr. McDevitt’s suggestion that the 

Department of Labor should strengthen its guidance by providing additional real life 

examples of the types of jobs which would qualify for the exemption? 

Answer. In the Proposed Regulations, the Department of Labor has, in fact, provided many ‘‘real life’’ examples of the types of jobs that would fall within a specific 

exemption. The Proposed Regulations are replete with examples not only of the 

types of jobs that would fall within an exemption category, but also of the types of 

duties that would bring an employee within the four corners of an exemption classification. This is clearly in furtherance of the DOL’s commitment to issuing regulations that are both substantively/legally sound and reasonably easy for the employer 

community to understand and apply. Although it is impossible to predict to what 

extent such examples will remain in the final regulations, it would appear likely 

that such provisions, which are meant to further compliance by eliminating confusion and promoting consistency of application, will remain in the final version of the 

regulations. Moreover, DOL requested that parties submit as part of their comments, examples that could be incorporated into the final rule to further explain the 

application of those rules. 

Question. When Dr. Bird testifies about the 8 million figure, and he uses the 

words ‘‘subjective guessing about duties,’’ I would like all of your responses as to 

whether that really is not an underlying problem with the new regulations, as well 

as the old regulations. 

Answer. Under the current regulations, there is quite a bit of ‘‘subjective guessing 

of duties.’’ Indeed, this is one of the primary reasons why it is so important that 

these regulations be updated. The Proposed Regulations seek to remedy this problem by providing explicit and detailed examples of duties and types of jobs that will 

qualify for each exemption. So, where the concepts themselves cannot be better set 

out, the examples provide guidance and clarity, thus allowing the employer community to apply properly the overtime rules. 

Question. Please respond to the analysis on the examples, which I cited for Secretary Chao, as to whether you think there is a significant improvement in the new 
66 

regulations and whether you could suggest language to the subcommittee that 

would realize the agreed objective of trying to eliminate litigation. 

Answer. The Proposed Regulations include significant improvements, including 

the numerous examples designed to create clarity where now there is often confusion. Generally, if included in the final regulations, the streamlined tests for executive, administrative and professional exemptions and the examples designed to illustrate the application of such exemptions should make compliance easier and provide 

greater certainty. This result directly benefits all stakeholders—employers, employees and the Labor Department. Greater compliance should directly result in lower 

litigation claims and resulting exposures. 

Question. How will the new regulations impact nurses? Will they be covered? And 

will there be a risk of nurses losing overtime pay? 

Answer. The status of registered nurses under the Proposed Regulations is exactly 

the same as it is under the current regulations, and any attempt to imply otherwise 

is misleading. Under the current regulations, registered nurses are exempt from the 

overtime provisions under the professional exemption provisions. In practice however, in large part because of the nursing shortage, which creates a huge demand 

for nursing services, nurses are demanding and being paid overtime because of the 

market demand for their services. Nurses are being paid overtime, not because the 

law requires it, but because that is what the market will bear. 

Under the Proposed Regulations there will be no change in the status of nurse 

compensation. Nurses will continue to be exempt as professionals, and undoubtedly, 

to the extent the nursing shortage continues, nurses will continue to demand and 

command overtime pay. Again, under the Proposed Regulations, just as under the 

current regulations, which have been effective for decades, payment of such overtime is not required by law but merely by market pressures. 

CONCLUSION OF HEARING

Senator SPECTER. Thank you all very much for being here. That 

concludes our hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 12:47 p.m., Tuesday, January 20, the hearing 

was concluded, and the subommittee was recessed, to reconvene 

subject to the call of the Chair.] 

Æ