On May 11, ABC, as a steering committee member of the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity, as well as 92 other organizations, sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh urging him to abandon or at least postpone issuing the U.S. Department of Labor’s announced proposed rulemaking altering overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Read PPWO’s press release on the letter.

In the letter, PPWO states, “Due to significant concerns with supply chain disruptions, workforce shortages, inflationary pressures, and the shifting dynamics of the American workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic, any rule change now would be ill-advised. Importantly, DOL last updated the overtime regulations only three years ago, which strongly suggests there is no need for urgency in issuing more changes.”

Over the last two months, the employer community, including ABC, has participated in DOL listening sessions warning that “the economy today cannot support changes to the white-collar exemptions under the FLSA.”

In 2016, the Obama-era DOL issued a final overtime rule that would have doubled the minimum salary level for exemption from $23,660 to $47,476 per year. ABC, along with several other business groups, sued the DOL in federal court and succeeded in blocking the rule from taking effect.

In 2019, the Trump administration issued a new overtime proposal to formally rescind the 2016 rule and readjusted the salary threshold to $35,568 per year.

ABC will continue to include updates on the DOL-announced overtime proposal in Newsline.