WASHINGTON (Sept. 30, 2016) — The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is urging the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that would postpone for six months the effective date of the overtime pay revisions issued by the U.S. Department of Labor.
“It's impossible for many small businesses to meet the Dec. 1 deadline, and the clock is ticking,” said NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan in support of the bill introduced Sept. 28 by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “In just a few weeks, many thousands of small businesses could face heavy penalties for being out of compliance.”
The Lankford bill would postpone the effective date of the new overtime pay rules until June 1, 2017. The U.S. House of Representatives passed on Sept. 28 an identical bill seeking to postpone the overtime pay revisions.
Issued in May 2016, the overtime pay rules would nearly double the threshold at which businesses would have to start paying overtime to salaried employees — to $47,476 from $23,660.
In a Sept. 13 letter to the Labor Department, the NFIB said large businesses would be able to meet the new rule by Dec. 1, but small businesses could not reasonably be expected to do so.
“Small business owners and managers lack the internal resources needed to effect prompt compliance with the final rule, and they lack the wherewithal to hire outside resources such as lawyers and accountants to substitute for the lack of internal resources,” the NFIB said.
Most small business organizations also seek mitigation for their members on the overtime pay standard, including the Tire Industry Association which, in August, threw its support to a bill that would phase in the new threshold over the next three years.