Outrage Over Overtime Plan

Toting placards reading “Hands Off My Overtime Pay,” at least 3,200 workers and labor representatives staged a raucous rally Friday morning in downtown Los Angeles against plans to change the way overtime is compensated in California.

The demonstration took place outside the State Office Building at 1st Street and Broadway, where the state Industrial Welfare Commission was holding the last of three public hearings on proposals to end a requirement that overtime be paid after an eight-hour day.

The commissioners, all appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, are likely to approve rules that would require employers to pay their workers overtime only after they put in more than 40 hours in a week--a move that would bring California rules closer to federal standards.

Only two other states--Alaska and Nevada--have laws guaranteeing workers overtime after an eight-hour shift.

State law already allows unions to negotiate labor contracts waiving an employer’s obligation to pay overtime any time a worker puts in more than eight hours in a given day. But labor activists fear that if 40 hours a week becomes the overtime threshold for all workers, unions will lose some bargaining leverage--and, as a result, receive less overtime pay and reduced benefits.

The proposed change “would be devastating,” said Darren Parker, one of dozens of Communications Workers of America members at the rally.

Parker said a large percentage of his paycheck comes from overtime. “That money makes a difference in where you live and how you live,” he said.

Felix Hernandez, a Teamsters Union organizer, said: “They want to destroy everything that we have.”

The protest, sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, tied up morning rush-hour traffic for miles around the Los Angeles Civic Center. The rally attracted a host of politicians and union members, ranging from restaurant workers to film industry technicians, from sheet metal workers to teachers.

“We are sending a clear message: ‘If you want to fight with labor, Pete Wilson, let’s get it on,’ ” said county AFL-CIO head Miguel Contreras.

Critics of the proposed changes say that overtime pay based on hours worked per week--rather than per day--means employees could be forced to work 12-hour days.

“When they are forced to work more hours for lower pay, working people lose money,” Contreras said.

But proponents say the 40-hour plan would allow for greater flexibility in work schedules.

Under the proposed rules, a worker could take time off to stay home with a sick child one day and make up the time by working additional hours later. Current law requires businesses to pay time-and-a-half to that employee if he or she makes up the lost time by working more than an eight-hour day.

In addition, proponents say, workers would “enjoy more overtime and higher earnings with a switch to the 40-hour week,” according to a state economic study presented to commissioners on Friday. The panel is scheduled to vote on the changes April 11.

Both sides acknowledge that part-time workers would be hurt most by the proposed change.

As a compromise, Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte) have introduced bills that would override the changes in overtime pay.

Their bills include provisions that would allow employees to choose whether to work five 8-hour days per week or four 10-hour days. But even if the bills pass, Wilson is expected to veto them, observers said.

Legislators have also questioned the legality of the commission’s proposed changes in overtime pay, and have suggested that they may sue to stop implementation.