[mgj-discuss] Fw: Mon. in Washington: Rally to protect overtime pay

[Nadine Bloch]

> The Bush administration's proposal to take overtime pay away from 6
> million working families is scheduled to take effect August 23rd.
>
> Please come to a lunchtime rally August 23rd in Washington to tell the
> Bush administration:
>
>   Back Off Our Paychecks, Don't Take Away Overtime Pay.
>
>   What:  Rally in the nation's capital to tell President Bush and his
>          Labor Department to protect, not cut, our overtime pay.
>
>   Who:   AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, U.S. Senator Tom Harkin
>          (D-Iowa), union members, progressive activists and other
>          speakers.
>
>   When:  Monday August 23, 12:15 - 1:00 p.m.
>
>   Where: In front of the U.S. Department of Labor, meet at the corner
>          of 3rd St. and Constitution Ave. NW, in Washington DC
>
>   For more information contact: 202-637-5077.
>
> The Bush overtime proposal would be the biggest pay cut for American
> workers in the 70-year history of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
>
> See below for more information on this issue.  Please come to this
> event if you possibly can.
>
> Thanks for all you do.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> - Peter Schurman
>   MoveOn.org
>   Thursday, August 19, 2004
>
> Here's some background information from the AFL-CIO:
>
> On August 23 the Bush administration's Department of Labor will enact
> new regulations stripping 6 million workers of the protection of the
> 40-hour week and time-and-a-half for overtime.  The biggest impact
> will be on middle-class workers earning between $23,660 and $100,000
> a year.  No group is completely safe from losing their rights,
> including blue-collar workers, police officers, and nurses.
>
> The new regulation:
>
> -- Eliminates overtime protection for large numbers of employees
> currently protected, even those earning as little as $23,660 per year.
>
> -- Classifies more kinds of workers as "exempt" from getting any
> overtime pay, and a greater proportion of the overall workplace.
>
> -- Strips overtime protection from blue-collar workers, because any
> supervisory responsibility might now qualify these blue-collar
> workers as "management."
>
> -- Fails to restore overtime protection to lower-to-middle-income
> workers who lost it to inflation.  Instead of keeping up with
> inflation since the last salary level was set in 1975, the
> administration's new salary level cutoff is still $4,000 too low.
>
> -- Hurts lower-to-middle-income workers even more in the future.
> Because the new salary level is not indexed to inflation, it will
> fall even farther behind in the future, leaving even more workers
> without their overtime pay.
>
> For these reasons and more, the new overtime regulations will harm
> U.S. workers and their families, benefiting only corporate executives
> seeking to cut labor costs.  America's workers are already struggling
> with job loss, outsourcing, unaffordable health care, and
> disappearing retirement benefits.  Now they want to hit us with the
> largest pay cut in the 70-year history of the Fair Labor Standards
> Act.
>
> Please bring your friends and family to this event and tell the Bush
> administration: No Way: Don't Take Our Overtime Pay!
>
> Could you lose your overtime pay? Visit Working America at
>
>   http://www.workingamerica.org/issues/ot.cfm
>
> to find out. You can get the facts there, and you can also take a survey
> or use a free "Ask A Lawyer" service to find out about your situation
> specifically.
>
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>
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