(The Associated Press distributed the following article by Leigh Strope on April 28.)
WASHINGTON — The Labor Department, facing political heat over new overtime pay rules, is creating a new enforcement task force it says will focus on protecting workers’ eligibility rights.
The department’s new rule, issued last week, overhauls the regulations that determine what white-collar workers are eligible for overtime pay under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act.
The rule takes effect in August and does not require congressional approval.
The task force, made up of Wage and Hour Division officials, is being created because of “our concern that the massive misinformation campaign against the new overtime security rules could undermine efforts to make employers live up to their new obligations under the rule and jeopardize workers’ overtime pay protections,” Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said.
AFL-CIO officials said the task force could be useful but that Chao also should promise when she testifies at a House hearing today that new regulations will not exempt overtime for any worker now eligible.