LANSING –Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) on Sept. 15 signed onto a lawsuit with 21 states to stop the Obama Administration’s new overtime rule, which would extend mandatory overtime pay to 100,000 Michigan workers. Schuette putting his name on the document was a move blasted by the Michigan AFL-CIO

“This lawsuit is a slap in the face to working people in Michigan,” said Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO. “By suing to stop the Obama Administration’s new overtime rule, Bill Schuette is putting himself squarely on the side of corporate CEOs who want to continue denying overtime pay to Michigan’s working men and women. That’s just wrong."

The new overtime rule raises the salary threshold under which most white-collar salaried workers are eligible to receive overtime pay from $455 a week ($23,660 a year) to an estimated $970 a week ($50,440 a year) in 2016. 

“This new rule is long overdue," Bieber said. "Overtime protections have been gutted over the past four decades without a significant adjustment for inflation. The new rule will help protect wages from being eroded by rising costs, and ensure that working people get paid for the work they do. Bill Schuette needs to stop carrying the water of big corporations, and start protecting the paychecks of Michigan workers.”

Signers-on to the lawsuit sued the U.S. Department of Labor, and claimed that the new rule would make about 4 million higher-earning workers eligible for overtime pay, calling it an inappropriate federal overreach by the Obama administration.

Leading the legal charge against the new overtime rules is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “The DOL went too far in the new overtime regulation,” said Randy Johnson, senior vice president of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits for the U.S. Chamber. “We have heard from our members, small businesses, nonprofits, and other employers that the salary threshold is going to result in significant new labor costs and cause many disruptions in how work gets done. Furthermore, the automatic escalator provision means that employers will have to go through their reclassification analysis every three years. In combination, the new overtime rule will result in salaried professional employees being converted to hourly wages, and it will reduce workplace flexibility, remote electronic access to work, and opportunities for career advancement."

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez described the legal action as partisan and obstructionist. He noted that higher pay allowed by federal overtime protection has dipped, now applying to just 7 percent of the U.S. workforce, compared to 62 percent of the full-time workforce in 1975.

 "The overtime rule is designed to restore the intent of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the crown jewel of worker protections in the United States," Perez said. "I look forward to vigorously defending our efforts to give more hardworking people a meaningful chance to get by."