Late Tuesday evening, a federal judge in Texas put a stop to new rules planned for December 1st that would extend overtime protection to an estimated 4.5 million workers and strengthen enforcement for another 8 million workers who should have already been eligible.  Judy Conti, Federal Advocacy Coordinator for the National Employment Law Project, described the ruling as extreme and far outside the history of how this regulation has been implemented by the Department of Labor for literally the entire history of the FLSA.

[Judy Conti]: “The judge is going back to what he thinks is clear language in the 1938 statutes, and has looked at dictionaries from 1938 to provide definitions of the words in the statute, but he has ignored the entirety of the Department of Labor’s History of regulating in this, and has ignored the fact that the Congressional amendments in 1961 essentially ratified both a salary and a duties basis test.  So we think that the decision is clearly far outside of the bounds of legal precedent and congressional intent, and we are very confident that when it is viewed on appeal it will be overturned.  Essentially, invalidating this rule is telling employers that you can work your employees more hours for less money.”