State Action - Issues : Overtime Pay

State Action - Issues : Overtime Pay: "A trickle-down effect will hurt employees not directly covered by the new overtime regulations.

After employers reclassify workers from nonexempt to exempt from overtime pay, they will likely assign much more overtime work to exempt employees and much less overtime to nonexempt employees. This hurts all workers. The exempt employees will be compelled to work harder for less pay while the nonexempt employees will lose opportunities to earn the overtime pay that so many depend upon. The result is a massive subsidy to employers at the expense of employees.

States can follow the lead of Illinois which recently passed a law guaranteeing the right to overtime pay.

Illinois legislation, passed in March 2004, essentially blocks new federal overtime rules from being implemented in Illinois by adopting as state law the rules that were in effect before the Bush Administration regulations were proposed. The legislation, SB 1645, was sponsored by Senator Barack Obama and approved by two-to-one majorities in both the House and Senate. "