Tom Harkin: “I am honored to be able to work with him to make sure we continue to support our working families. The Secretary of…”

“I am honored to be able to work with him to make sure we continue to support our working families. The Secretary of Labor just wrote a recent editorial which ran in the Omaha World Herald, which is across the river from Iowa. It is interesting that she wrote my amendment 'if enacted, would be a huge setback for U.S. workers from getting overtime pay for the first time.' What she is talking about there is part of this proposal would increase the threshold for guaranteed overtime pay from $8,060 a year to $22,100 a year. My amendment does not affect that. What we passed here in the Senate protecting overtime pay does not even remotely affect it. If the Secretary of Labor wants to increase the threshold from $8,060 a year to $22,100 a year, what is she waiting for? She can do that tomorrow. It is because certain friends of this administration and industries say they wouldn't support it unless we made other changes to take away overtime protection from other workers. It is true the proposed regulation does increase the threshold. That is fine. Our amendment doesn't touch that. With the other hand they take away overtime pay protection for over 8 million Americans.”