Future incomes affected by proposed overtime revisions
by Rawly Bransom, Reporter

   Students often visualize themselves as receiving good pay after going to any college.
   TCC has a diversified group of students.
   Many plan to move on to four-year universities; others are updating their skills.
   With TCC's wide range of technical offerings, others are enrolled in specialized programs that will allow them to immediately enter into their chosen profession.
   Still, no matter what area of work, pay rate ranks as a very important factor, and often overtime pay makes up a large percentage of that factor.
   Under the federal government's Fair Labor Standards Act, people who fall between $8,060 and $13,000 a year could be considered exempt from overtime wages if they are executives, administrators or outside sales representatives.
   This figure was calculated by testing the minimum income areas with what labor experts call the long test and the maximum with the short test.
   Created in 1938, the law has not been updated.
   "How many executives, administrators or sales representatives do you know that make only $13,000 a year," Brian Farrington, a labor relations consultant, said about FLSA.
   The Bush administration proposed changes to FLSA, which could take place early 2004. The changes would raise the minimum salary to $22,100 a year, giving overtime status to all people earning that or less, no matter their job description.
   Still, many labor organizations oppose the changes to FLSA because the new standards would place many union jobs into the exempt status.
   Many of these jobs include nurses, firefighters, paralegals, medical technologists, office workers and journalists, just to name a few.
   The Bush administration says only 644,000 workers will lose overtime status.
   The Bush administration also reports that employers will, and should, increase their employee salaries to make up for the lack of income from losing overtime status.
   Labor unions cite a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a more liberal think tank in Washington, saying that more than eight million workers will be affected by this law and will lose overtime status.
   "The proposal eliminates the high tier," Farrington says. "The test for exceptions will be much easier to claim exemption because of increase in income," he said.
   Many people will lose eligibility for overtime status because of an increase in the duties test," the consultant added.
   Future TCC graduates in certain fields could earn up to 25 percent less than current worker now receive because of the lack of overtime wages.