
Judge blocks Obama overtime rule, putting it in jeopardy - protomyth
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/307295-judge-blocks-obama-overtime-rule
======
onchidiacea
I don't know how businesses get away without paying overtime. My life is
finite. My work hours are finite. If you want more hours out of me, you pay
for them.

~~~
refurb
I don't know. I kind of like being exempt. If I get my work done early and I
decide the take the afternoon off, my paycheck is the same.

That said I'm lucky and my company freely comps additional paid time off when
I start working more than 40 hours per week.

~~~
jjoonathan
People talk about "getting their work done" as if an equal amount of work were
doled out every day to each worker and getting it done were a "you eat what
you kill" result of being highly productive. Is this work-assignment principle
common? I could see why a manager might distribute work this way, but I've
never seen it actually happen -- it has always been "oh great, you finished
early today, you'll have twice as much work tomorrow."

The optimistic explanation is that I haven't found a good manager + workplace
yet and I should keep looking. The pessimistic explanation is that "getting
your work done" is a sign of success at the game of politics on one hand and
masterful framing on the other, rather than a result of skillful software
engineering.

I'm right out of school, I've only had one job, so I don't have a very good
sample to make up my own mind from. I'd appreciate hearing opinions on the
matter.

~~~
curun1r
I've always read "getting my work done" as similar to "pulling my own weight"
or "doing my fair share." They're not supposed to be read literally, only to
convey an overall sentiment.

When I managed my team, work was never assigned to an individual. It was
assigned to the team and the team took responsibility for it. Individuals
accepted responsibility for pieces of work as they completed prior work. If an
individual wasn't contributing enough, either the team's productivity would
suffer or other members of the team would step up to fill in the gap. If that
that lack of contribution became consistent, I'd notice, either through poor
team performance or conversations with disgruntled team members who were
covering.

A lot of it was handled by feel and when a member of my team felt like he was
accomplishing enough to keep the team performing well, s/he absolutely had the
discretion to leave early. The key is that when the team is responsible,
people are motivated very differently from when an individual is responsible.
Your team members are often your friends whereas you might have a more
combative relationship with your manager. No one wants to be the one that lets
the team down. And, similarly, if a team is being pushed too hard, everyone
will feel it and everyone can push back together. This makes it really easy to
see, as a manager, when you're asking too much of people.

I'd say if you're looking for a healthy work environment, look for ones that
emphasize team accountability over individual accountability and then try to
find a team where everyone respects each other. That team is, more often than
not, going to do well and you'll share in that success. If you have a slump,
someone will cover for you. If someone else does and you feel up to it, you
can go above and beyond for a bit. It's a lot easier to give that extra effort
when you're doing well than it is when you're struggling.

~~~
nixos
Then if the team works hard (say, they're superhuman and can work 24 hours a
day 7 days a week straight) and do what other teams do in 3 months in one,
will they get the other two off?

If not, you're just pushing responsibility up.

~~~
curun1r
Not exactly, but a similar situation happened with my team.

There was a period where we simply accomplished a lot more than other teams.
It wasn't superhuman effort, which isn't sustainable. Instead, it was better
tool selection and streamlined processes (automation and continuous delivery,
which shed a lot of the baggage that comes with large releases) that accounted
for most of the increase in productivity. In fact, my team worked less hours
and had fewer production issues than other teams.

The organization (eventually) reacted the way that healthy organizations
should...they promoted most of the team into leadership roles in other teams
that weren't performing as well. The reward for our success was more money and
responsibility and the entire organization benefited from what we'd learned.

I say eventually, because I had to fight a pretty big PR battle before
management above me saw the virtue of the way that my team operated. Before
that, there was a tendency to give star performer awards and kudos to people
putting in long hours to make release deadlines or putting in heroic efforts
to keep error-prone production environments up an running. Management saw my
team leaving at a normal time every day and didn't think that was worth
rewarding. It took a mountain of data for me to show that a boring,
predictable production environment that allowed us to push out more features
was better serving customers.

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inthewoods
Interesting unintended consequences with this - my sister-in-law had her job
hours radically shifted to deal with this rule - and not in a good way that
she appreciated.

~~~
ubernostrum
On election day Santa Clara county approved Measure E, which requires any
business above a certain number of employees to offer additional work hours to
existing part-time employees before hiring more part-time employees. The idea
being to make it illegal for a company to just keep hiring more and more part-
timers to avoid ever giving someone enough hours to become full-time.

I suspect if the overtime rule sticks around we'll see similar measures pop up
for it.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Sweet more laws. Maybe when we finally get enough laws we'll become a just and
kind society.

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SubiculumCode
This is shit. The lower limit for salary hasn't changed for years, and has not
tracked inflation. As a post-doc this would have probably really bummed me out
if it wasn't for the fact my union had already signed a new contract with the
university for new pay raises based on the new Obama administration rules. Yay
union.

~~~
hga
You're effectively saying " _[The rule of law] is shit_ ", which as the
article notes, might also result in the new Trump administration refusing to
defend this administrative action (which would be legitimate unlike the cases
where the executive of a government refuses to defend a law passed by the
legislature in front of the court system (just to lay out our general pattern
of 3-4 branches of government (4 when you count the "administrative state"))).

Or more simply, the ends do not justify the means, even if, as you point out
and I agree _in principle_ , the ends in this case are potentially good.

The prospect of Trump in power in what's arguably no longer a republic run
under the Rule of Law has gotten a lot of people to reconsider their position
on this (and I share a concern, despite or perhaps even more because I voted
for him), and I'll close with the classic _Man of All Seasons_ quote:

 _Roper: So now you 'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after
the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you —
where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted
thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut
them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could
stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil
benefit of law, for my own safety's sake._

~~~
sethrin
No, that would be a strawman argument. Whatever legal principles are at stake
here do not rise to a repudiation of law itself.

~~~
hga
Well, I perceive that SubiculumCode is among other things arguing that this
legal procedural issue, and the possibility that the administrative rule
making did not follow the law, something we ought to accept as legit given
that Obama nominated the judge and the hurdle to get a preliminary injunction
is very high, as Sacho abily discusses in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028904),
" _is shit_ ".

I certainly could have gotten his intent wrong, but for now his words have to
stand as written, and the issue of the Rule of Law is both entirely relevant
to this case and to current events in the US.

~~~
sethrin
Even if they were suggesting that the legal process in question was flawed,
that would also not be equivalent to repudiating the rule of law. You may have
an axe to grind on that topic, and I am sure that it's a wonderful rejoinder
to a wide variety of political dissent. It is a strawman argument however you
slice it. If questioning legal processes amounted to an attack on law, then
all lawyers would be anarchists, and Congress would be...a pathology, perhaps.
So far, there are few issues before the American public in which anyone is
claimed or claiming to be above the rule of law, and it has precisely nothing
to do with this case.

The more charitable interpretation of SubiculumCode's words, and the one that
does not need to assume facts not in evidence, would be that "This is shit"
should be taken to mean, "This is terrible news". Which would either way be a
normal human reaction, and a valid opinion, despite your attempts to portray
otherwise.

~~~
SubiculumCode
Indeed it is terrible news: Poverty is rough.

To be precise, the law and regulations were appropriate decades ago, when it
protected workers, but in its current form, oppressed them into long
underpaid, non-livable, labor. In my view, the Obama administration change in
regulation, now blocked, was restoring the original effects and outcomes of
those laws and regulations, and probably as originally intended by those whom
passed it.

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vaadu
The judge was not ruling on the substance of the overtime rule change, only
whether the executive branch had the authority to make the rule change.

The judge determined that the overtime rule, which was created by the
legislative branch, did not give the executive branch the authority to change
the rule in the way the Labor dept. tried to.

~~~
guelo
The overtime law gives the Department of Labor the authority to define who is
exempt. The judge was the one that made up law by inventing a limit to the
authority that congress granted to the Department of Labor.

~~~
Sacho
Here is a source for the judge's order:
[https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/files/epress/Overtime_-...](https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/files/epress/Overtime_-
_PI_Grant_\(11-22-16\).pdf)

I am not a lawyer, so I urge people to read the text and decide for
themselves. Here's my analysis:

In order to issue a preliminary injuction, the plaintiffs must present a
"prima facie" case, essentially, a demonstration that they can win the case
under the assumption that all their factual claims are true. First the
plaintiffs must demonstrate that they are likely to succeed on the merits of
the case. Then they must show they would suffer "irreparable harm",
necessitating the injunction. The court must then consider a "balance of
hardships" \- since in a preliminary injunction, both sides can claim
"injury", the court must "consider the effect on each party of the granting or
withholding of the requested relief". Further, the plaintiffs must demonstrate
a "public interest" in the injunction.

For the "likelihood of success on the merits", the judge analysed each of the
arguments:

1\. Plaintiffs argue that the FLSA does not apply to the States; the judge
decides it does, applying the "Garcia" analysis from the Supreme Court.

2\. Plaintiffs argue that Chevron deference does not apply for this case,
judge agrees. Chevron deference is a legal standard roughly saying that in the
case of an ambiguous law, the Court should defer to the interpretation of the
government body authorized to apply the law(as they are presumed experts in
the field), as long as the interpretation does not contradict the evident
intentions of the law.

3\. Plaintiffs argue that the automatic update mechanism of the Final Rule
violates the APA. The judge does not analyse this, using his previous analysis
of Chevron deference to conclude that the Final Rule is unlawful and that 3)
does not need to be settled.

The rest of the analysis("irreparable harm" etc) from the judge is not as long
so I don't feel it's worth summarizing in any way.

I don't find the judge "making up" any law in their analysis - can you please
be more specific which part of his analysis you disagree with?

~~~
guelo
The meat of the ruling is on pages 12 & 13.

The FLSA says "any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative,
or professional capacity . . . as such terms are defined and delimited from
time to time by regulations” is exempt from overtime.

The judge says that the minimum salary rule cannot be used to determine if an
employee is exempt, even though the existing rule already uses minimum salary
as a criteria. The law itself leaves it completely up to the regulator to
define the criteria. So the judge invented a new limit on the regulator's
authority that does not exist in the law.

~~~
makomk
Obama's overtime rule intentionally extended the threshold to cover employees
who were employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional
capacity. The article mentions that more than 4 million workers would benefit
- this was his administration's estimate of the number of such employees that
would become non-exempt, used to justify the rule change. The previous salary
threshold, on the other hand, was set at a level low enough that any employee
earning below it was obviously employed in a non-exempt role.

------
cyberferret
The timing of this is intriguing. Pretty much last minute change. I do a lot
of accounting & payroll consulting work (not in the US), but I see on a lot of
forums that consultants in the US are panicking because they have spent
_weeks_ getting their client systems ready for the change, and now they have
to maybe undo all of that in short order.

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cowardlydragon
What does it matter anyway? Trump is coming to town. That was one of the first
things he was going to nuke anyway..

~~~
guelo
Republicans were hoping not to have to repeal the rule after it had already
taken effect pissing off millions of workers.

------
Pxtl
People keep talking about how Trump's election was about winning the white
working class. We'll see how interested he is in their right to fair wages.

~~~
refurb
Trump's not even in office and he's getting blamed already. This was a _judge_
who made the ruling. Not Trump.

~~~
noobermin
I think this entire thread is diverging from the article, but the article does
quote Trump:

    
    
       Trump has vowed to roll back Obama regulations that he 
       says are hurting the economy. He expressed support for
       changing the overtime rule during the presidential
       campaign.
       
       “Rolling back the overtime regulation is just one 
       example of the many regulations that need to be 
       addressed to do that,” Trump told Circa in August. “We 
       would love to see a delay or a carve-out of sorts for 
       our small business owners."

~~~
grzm
Quoting blocks of text this way makes it really hard to read due to side-
scrolling, particularly on mobile.

~~~
kaishiro
Agreed. This is completely removed from the context of the article but I
primarily consume HN on mobile and I detest it when quotes are done this way.
I really wish something was added to the FAQ re this.

------
jeffdavis
Why is the President making law in the first place? If this law was made by
Congress, it would be less susceptible to legal challenge now, or reversal by
a future administration.

~~~
guelo
The law gives the regulator the authority to determine who is exempt from
overtime. This is not "making law", it is excersizing authority granted under
existing law.

~~~
jeffdavis
But it's exercising a kind of blank check of power given by Congress. I don't
think Congress should issue blank checks; I think they should do their job.

