Overtime Pay for Long Workdays to Be Restored

The Legislature on Thursday approved and sent to Gov. Gray Davis for his promised signature organized labor’s bill to restore overtime pay for employees who work more than eight hours a day.

The measure would overturn controversial overtime pay changes made in 1997 under former Gov. Pete Wilson. It could affect about 8 million private employees who are not covered by union contracts.

In a compromise gesture to Silicon Valley and other employers, the legislation would also provide flexibility, including allowing a workweek of four 10-hour days without overtime pay for certain employees who want to continue working alternative shifts.

The bill would cover a plethora of occupations, including department store clerks, gas station attendants, dental receptionists, ticket takers, body shop mechanics and waiters. It would not affect managers, professionals, union members, public employees or agricultural workers.

Davis, who campaigned last year in support of restoring the eight-hour overtime pay requirement, was traveling in Southern California with President Clinton on Thursday but sent assurances that he will sign the bill.

“The governor had wanted to sign a bill that was flexible and struck a balance between the needs of business and the needs of working people,” said the governor’s spokesman, Michael Bustamante. “This bill accomplishes just that.”

The measure, AB 60, by Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) was the centerpiece of organized labor’s legislative agenda this year. Davis helped negotiate the final compromise with business and labor representatives.

Under the proposal, covered workers must be paid time and a half for work of more than eight hours a day and double time for more than 12 hours a day.

In an unusual burst of speed, the bill, which had been subject to months of negotiations, easily cleared both of the Democrat-dominated houses within a couple of hours.

The Senate approved it first on a party line 23-15 vote. The Assembly concurred, sending it to Davis on a 47-27 tally.

Democrats celebrated final passage of the bill as an overdue victory for working men and women shortchanged by Wilson’s elimination of daily overtime.

Knox contended that the measure would provide California workers and their employers “with real flexibility.”

But Republicans attacked it as an example of big government seeking to control the business decisions of private employers.

Two years ago under Wilson, the state Industrial Welfare Commission abolished an 88-year-old California requirement that employees be paid daily overtime. Instead, the commission ordered overtime pay only for work extending beyond 40 hours a week, the standard used by the federal government and most other states.

Wilson argued that paying daily overtime placed too heavy a burden on employers, who were emerging from the long California recession. He also contended that new lifestyles and the rapidly changing workplace dictated new flexibility for workers and employers alike.

But organized labor assailed the board’s changes as a major reversal for nonunion employees, particularly temporary hires who often must work more than eight hours a day but less than 40 hours a week.

Most union contracts specify overtime pay rates for work in excess of eight hours a day.

Tom Rankin, president of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, was elated by the approval of the bill; similar versions were vetoed last year by Wilson.

“This bill is important to us because labor is a spokesperson for working people. Whether they are in a union or not, we are the only representative they have . . . for improving the working conditions for everyone,” he said.

Rankin said that after the Wilson administration abolished the daily overtime requirement, some employers attempted at the bargaining table to eliminate daily overtime pay in their labor contracts.

He said they contended that if their “competitors didn’t have to pay daily overtime anymore, they didn’t want to either.”

Although the bill contained several provisions aimed at pacifying business, the California Manufacturers Assn., a major employer organization, remained adamantly opposed and voiced disappointment that the bill will probably become law.

“The bill still does some serious injustices to us,” said association lobbyist Willie Washington. “We’re kind of stuck with it until the people of California begin to see how this works.”

Some California business leaders predicted the bill would reduce the amount of overtime at a broad range of nonunion employers, from California’s booming home builders to ski resorts to home health care providers.

“This bill doesn’t just roll it back to where it was before, it goes 20 steps backward,” said Julianne Broyles, a labor expert with the California Chamber of Commerce.

Broyles went so far as to predict that the shift would worsen rush-hour traffic as more workers left at the same time, as well as trigger higher home prices as builders passed on increased labor costs to consumers.

Larry J. Shapiro, publisher of the California Employment Advisor newsletter, said the bill “makes the state appear inhospitable to business” by what he said was a reduction in flexibility in work hours.

Others also said the bill could lead to a rise in pay for temporary workers, who are in high demand because of the nation’s tight labor market.

Temporary workers “will, generally speaking, get more money,” said Sue Foigelman, area manager for international temporary worker provider Manpower Inc.

In the Assembly, minority Republicans launched a perfunctory rhetorical effort to block the bill, warning that government has no business setting the conditions of overtime pay.

“This bill is socialism, pure and simple,” said Assemblyman Rico Oller (R-San Andreas). “We’ll pay a tremendous price in the loss of our freedom and the economy of California.”

But Democrat Dick Floyd of Wilmington, a longtime labor ally, brushed the warnings aside. “God, I love it when the sky is falling and Chicken Littles are scrambling all over the place. Who the hell suspended the eight-hour day? The tooth fairy? It was Gov. Wilson. He was part of the government.”

Times staff writer Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.

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Daily Overtime Returns

Major provisions of the overtime legislation would:

* Require employees to be paid time and a half for working more than eight hours in a day and double-time for working more than 12 hours.

* Allow employees who now work flexible shifts, such as four 10-hour days, to voluntarily continue to do so without overtime pay.

* Permit workers, with the employer’s consent, to take time off for personal obligations and make up the time during the same week without being paid overtime.

* Allow certain businesses, such as the ski industry, to continue to require employees to work more than eight hours a day without overtime until next July 1. The Industrial Welfare Commission then will decide whether these employees--who work long seasonal hours--should be included in the eight-hour requirement.

* Allow employees to petition employers to institute alternative, flexible work schedules that would not require overtime.