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While the Obama administration is weighing a proposal that would change labor laws to increase the number of workers eligible for overtime, the impact on Long Island employers is likely to be less than their counterparts in other parts of the state and beyond.
The U.S. Department of Labor plans to increase the standard salary benchmark for full-time salaried workers from the current $455 a week, or $23,660 annually, to $970 per week, or $50,440 annually, President Barack Obama announced June 30. The proposal would more than double the threshold at which employers can avoid paying overtime.
Under current regulations, full-time employees are entitled to 11/2 times their regular salary for any hours they work past 40 hours a week. Under the new proposal, salaried workers who earn less than $50,400 would get paid time-and-a-half overtime wages if they worked more than 40 hours a week. Those employees earning more than the threshold can be denied overtime if they are classified as managers.
Among the workers who would be covered under the new plan are food service managers, supervisors of food preparation and serving workers, retail workers, customer service representatives, legal support workers, counselors and insurance sales agents. Attorney John Ho of Bond, Schoeneck and King, a Garden City-based labor and employment firm, said it is more common in the retail industry to have a front-line supervisor working at a fast food restaurant who earns between $35,000 and $45,000 annually.