Monday morning musings for workplace watchers.
Playing for Time on Overtime|Targeting Amazon Warehouse Safety
Rebecca Rainey: Business groups are redoubling their efforts to get both the US Department of Labor and the courts to delay the Biden administration’s new overtime rule’s effective date of July 1, warning of the compliance whiplash that could come from a last-minute reversal of the policy.
Last week, the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity, which represents 95 business organizations, sent a letter to the DOL requesting a stay of the rule while litigation against it proceeds. It cautioned that if the rule is eventually blocked by the courts, both the agency and businesses covered by the regulation will waste resources as they attempt to come into compliance with or implement the rule.
So far, there have been three legal challenges filed in Texas federal courts alleging the rule goes beyond the agency’s authority.
“For example, if the overtime rule is implemented, it will trigger significant costs for the employer community, but these costs can be avoided if a stay is granted by the Department of Labor and the courts eventually invalidate the rule,” the June 12 request said.
The DOL said it’s received the new letter and “will respond to the stakeholder accordingly.”
Industry groups and the state of Texas say they are concerned about the new payroll costs created by the policy. The DOL’s new rule would update an exemption to overtime pay requirements for certain salaried “executive, administrative, and professional” employees so that workers making less than $58,656 annually are automatically due time-and-half-pay when they work more than 40 hours a week.
The rule has set the overtime exemption’s salary level to first rise to $43,888 on July 1, up from its current $35,568. That bump is expected to make 1 million workers newly eligible for overtime. And another 3 million will become eligible when the salary figure goes all the way up to $58,656 on Jan. 1.
The agency has already denied a May request from 88 business groups for a two-month delay to the effective date of the rule.
“The Department continues to believe that it is important to update the standard salary level on July 1, 2024,” Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman wrote in a May 24 response to the request, noting that economic conditions have changed since the exemption was last updated in 2019.
She said the department believes the effective date provides sufficient time for employers to adjust to the initial update to the salary level test because the methodology behind the first step of the rule was used in previous overtime regulations and “is familiar to the regulated community.”
Even though the agency hasn’t budged on the implementation date, the federal courts are expected to chime in on the deadline soon. Businesses opposed to the rule, as well as the state of Texas, have made emergency filings asking judges in two Texas federal courts to step in before the rule goes into place.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas will hold a hearing June 24 to consider a motion from the state of Texas to freeze the rule. And a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas has requested that briefing on a software company’s request to issue a restraining order or stay against the rule wrap up by June 24.
Chris Marr: New York’s legislature is the latest to tackle high injury rates among warehouse workers, passing a bill to mandate safety protocols for
The issue of warehouse worker injuries has caught the attention of lawmakers across the country, as well as enforcement staff at the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA has targeted Amazon repeatedly for safety violations in its warehouses, while also citing other warehouse operators including
The legislation headed to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) (S5081 / A8907) is New York lawmakers’ second shot at warehouse safety, expanding on a law enacted in 2022 to restrict the way warehouse employers use work-speed and productivity quotas—often monitored by electronic systems that critics call “robot bosses.”
A spokesman for the governor, Justin Henry, didn’t answer whether Hochul plans to sign the legislation, saying only that she will review it.
The 2024 New York bill takes a more traditional, ergonomics-based approach to safety. It would mandate that large warehouse operators provide employee training on injury prevention, use a certified safety professional to evaluate workplace hazards, and minimize risk factors, potentially including a reduction in work-speed expectations. It also would require that employers include employee representatives in designing an injury prevention plan.
“It’s clear that this act is aimed at not just the type of movements and repetitive movements, but also the pace at which it’s required to be done,” said Stefan Borovina, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in New York whose focus is workplace safety.
The bill specifically calls for the safety professional’s evaluation to consider whether employees face possible disciplinary action if they fail to meet work-speed expectations, he said.
The legislation is aimed at reducing the risk of musculoskeletal injuries such as wrist, spine, and knee injuries that affect warehouse workers and cause them to miss work at higher rates than their counterparts in other industries. The problem is the result in part of the fast-paced work environment that requires frequent lifting, bending, stooping, and twisting, the bill sponsors said in their memo introducing the measures.
California in 2021 passed the nation’s first law targeting the safety risks for warehouse workers who face work-speed and productivity quotas, with requirements such as ensuring workers have access to the work-speed data that’s used to evaluate them and that the quotas don’t prevent them getting bathroom and rest breaks. Since then, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Washington state passed similar laws focused on warehouse worker quotas.
About a dozen more state legislatures have considered and could pass similar proposals that are also mostly focused on work-speed quotas, including Connecticut, Illinois, and New Jersey.
Supporters of the laws point to data indicating warehouse operators in general and Amazon specifically record heightened rates of workplace injuries.
Amazon didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company has previously disputed the criticisms, saying its injury rates have declined and it doesn’t prioritize work speed over safety.
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