Texas Judge Temporarily Blocks Labor Department’s Extended Overtime Pay Regulation

What will this mean for the 400,000 Texas workers the rule would have affected?

By Rhonda FanningNovember 23, 2016 11:41 am

Tuesday a federal judge in Sherman, Texas granted a preliminary injunction that will delay an Obama administration’s attempt to extend overtime eligibility to more than four million workers nationally. The rule was set to take effect Dec. 1.

Politico is calling it a “stunning blow to the Obama administration’s economic legacy.”

Texas was among the 21 states filing for a preliminary injunction. Texas Public Radio’s Shelley Kofler spoke with Marc Rylander, a spokesman for the State’s Attorney General’s office, who said the ruling was good for Texas businesses.

“By us filing and receiving this preliminary injunction we were able to help private businesses, as well as state and local governments, stop what we believe was an overreach of the Obama administration,” Rylander said.

Professor Richard Carlson specializes in employment and labor law at South Texas College of Law Houston. He says Judge Amos Mazzant has clearly indicated that he agrees that U.S. Department of Labor’s wrongly issued the regulations. It’s not a final decision, Carlson says, but it’s a good indicator.

“What the opponents [to these rules] have argued is that the Department of Labor has simply changed the definition to a minimum salary requirement,” Carlson says. “Which is to say it doesn’t matter what somebody’s actually doing – whether it’s executive, administrative or professional. What matters is whether they have received the minimum salary.”

What you’ll hear in this segment:

– Why states are opposing the regulations

– Whether President-elect Donald Trump would be able to exempt small businesses from the regulation if it were to pass

Post by Beth Cortez-Neavel.