Nine national associations this week joined local businesses and business groups in filing a legal challenge to stop the Department of Labor’s new overtime final rule from taking effect. The rule, issued April 23, would dramatically increase the number of employees who are subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime requirements.
The rule increases the salary level below which an employee is automatically subject to the FLSA’s overtime and minimum wage requirements, from the existing $35,568 threshold to $43,888 as of July 1, and then to $58,656 as of Jan. 1, 2025. The plaintiffs said that the rule contravenes the court’s 2017 order that permanently enjoined the final rule issued by President Obama’s DOL, which also raised the salary level significantly.
In related news, the American Bankers Association earlier this month joined 87 trade associations in a letter urging DOL to extend to Sept. 1 the implementation date of the first increase in the salary threshold. The DOL “is providing the regulated community with only two months to analyze the rule, determine what changes to their operations and payrolls will be necessary, explain to the impacted workers how and why their pay, titles or workplace responsibilities will change, and then implement those changes,” the groups said. “This is an arbitrary and burdensome timeline for the regulated community to meet, especially smaller businesses that do not have the resources to make such changes quickly.”
