Nominees Rebuffed After Overtime Vote

The Democratic-controlled Senate Rules Committee refused Monday to confirm two controversial appointees of Gov. Pete Wilson to a state board that recently abolished daily overtime pay in California. The action, applauded by organized labor, made good on a promise by Senate Leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who warned last winter that Wilson-appointed members of the state Industrial Welfare Commission faced rejection when they appeared for confirmation.

Wilson criticized the committee’s action as “simply a matter of union politics.”

In a series of actions that culminated April 11, the commission voted 3 to 2 to scrap a 79-year-old rule that requires overtime pay for work in excess of eight hours a day. In its place, the commission adopted the federal rule that requires overtime pay after 40 hours worked in a week.

The new requirement, backed by major industries and employer organizations, will take effect Jan. 1. and will apply to about 8 million mostly nonunion workers.

Employers and some workers said the change will provide them with more flexible schedules that reflect workplace realities of the 1990s.

But organized labor charged that the change will subject workers to arbitrary schedules for which there will be no overtime compensation--such as four consecutive 10-hour days.

“Workers will probably lose about $1 billion a year in daily overtime pay,” said Tom Rankin, president of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

Led by Lockyer, a supporter of organized labor, the Rules Committee refused to endorse Commission Chairwoman Robin A. Black, a Fresno grower, for reappointment, and new nominee Syed P. Alam, a state government engineer, for a four-year term. Both had voted for the rule change.

However, in a break with usual practice, Rules Committee Democrats did not defeat Black and Alam outright. Instead, the committee sent the nominations to the full Senate with a recommendation that they be scuttled on the floor. The outcome is expected to be the same.

Lockyer opposed the commission’s initial vote last winter to abolish daily overtime. He warned that the Democratic-dominated Senate would retaliate by dumping Wilson nominees who voted for it.

Under fire from labor witnesses, Black and Alam calmly explained their reasons for supporting the new 40-hour overtime rule as a progressive step in giving hourly employees, especially women, greater flexibility to meet child care and other family demands.

But Lockyer said he believed the commission “is tilting away from its statutory purpose . . . which is basically a pro-employee tilt.”

He also charged that the commission exceeded its legal authority in voting to abolish the historic eight-hour overtime rule. He said such significant policy changes are the province of the Legislature.

At one point, Lockyer told Black, who represented employers on the commission, that he hoped Wilson would appoint her to a different position.

But whether she would accept a new post, if offered, was uncertain. She told the committee that the angry fight over the eight-hour rule had left a sour taste in her mouth.

She noted that at the commission’s raucous meeting April 11, a man took the witness stand and was pulling out a loaded revolver when he was tackled by a police officer and arrested. Wilson aides said the man was charged with attempted murder.

Black also complained that her home telephones, which are publicly listed, were inundated with nasty threats, some of which her young son heard. She said she had decided to quit the commission but decided to appear at the confirmation hearing to tell her side.

In a statement, Wilson deplored the “harassment, physical intimidation, death threats, and in one shocking example, an attempt on [the lives]” of his nominees.