The US Department of Labor is updating its wage/hour/overtime provisions. When the updates are complete, teachers should be included.
Yesterday, I published a post about the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its “educator exemption” from wage/hour laws. In my first draft, I cited the US Department of Labor’s “Final Rule” (effective December 1, 2016) which stipulates a minimum annual salary of $47,476 for workers to be considered exempt from overtime pay. Within an hour of hitting “publish,” though, I was forced to revise my numbers. It turns out, this “Final Rule” exists only on paper — not in practice.
There are a lot of useful links on the “Final Rule” page of the Department of Labor (DOL) website, but clicking on them takes you to whitehouse.gov, and tells you that those links are part of “past administration archives.”
It turns out, the fine print at the bottom of the DOL’s “Final Rule” page actually negates the rule entirely. The DOL, under the direction of Donald Trump, has decided to ignore the rule established during Barack Obama’s presidency.
“Note (added January 2018):
The Department of Labor is undertaking rulemaking to revise the regulations located at 29 C.F.R. part 541, which govern the exemption of executive, administrative, and professional employees from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime pay requirements. Until the Department issues its final rule, it will enforce the part 541 regulations in effect on November 30, 2016, including the $455 per week standard salary level. These regulations are available at: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/regulations.pdf.”
Instead, the US is currently operating on the the same rule that has been in effect since 2004, when the minimum salary for exemption from overtime pay was $23,660 and the average wage was $13,000 per year lower than it is now.
Apparently, the current presidential administration acquiesced to the legal actions and lobbying efforts of for-profit nursing home owners, who understandably want to keep their right to make low-salary employees work unlimited hours without extra pay. These for-profit nursing homes (and the Trump administration) seem to believe that a salary of $23,660 is a living wage, and that nobody earning a salary above this number should need overtime pay or the free time to work a second job.
This is a ridiculous theory, especially considering that the federal poverty line for a family of four is $25,094.
The good news is: The Department of Labor held one more “public listening session” after I wrote this article, on September 24, 2018 in Rhode Island. I found a Arkansan living in Rhode Island who was willing to attend. She spoke up regarding the situation for teachers here! My special thanks to Caroline Morgan for being the only “concerned citizen” in a roomful of lawyers and lobbyists.