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MESSAGE
FROM THE ASBA CEO
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 Rick
Murray, Chief Executive Officer
Arizona Small Business Association
4600 E. Washington St., #340, Phoenix
602.306.4000 - rmurray@asba.com
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NEW FEDERAL RULES COULD CAUSE THE LOSS OF JOBS IN ARIZONA
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Once
again the federal government is trying to tell you how much to pay your
employees. The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed rules on overtime
pay that, if enacted, will have a chilling effect on job growth and economic
development in Arizona and across the country.
In
additional to the massive threshold increase from the current $23,660 to
$50,400, below which employees must be paid overtime, the DOL gave only 60
days for stakeholders to study the far-reaching impacts the rule will
have. ASBA has been lobbying our delegation in Washington to help
extend the comment process. But with the summer recess Congress takes,
coupled with a mere 60-day comment period and a dismissive refusal to extend
the comment period by the DOL, indicates a clear intent to stymie
small-business input into the process.
Among
the key issues raised: the cost of compliance for small businesses will be
much greater than the DOL estimate; changes to the duties test are likely to
miss the fact that there is no bright line between "exempt" and
"non-exempt" in the typical small business workplace; the creation
of new hourly reporting and tracking requirements are likely to be a
disproportionate burden on smaller firms; the rule could force struggling
small firms to reduce employee hours; and employee morale will take a
significant hit where employees must be "downgraded" from
exempt managers to non-exempt workers.
Small businesses are often not equipped to monitor the
activities of their employees in order to regulate their time. Companies with
fewer than 20 employees rarely have a dedicated HR department, so the creation
of new hourly reporting and tracking requirements are likely to be a much
greater burden on these companies that do not currently face them. The result
will be confusion and excess cost for individual business owners. Tracking
the offsite use of company cell phones and computers will be especially
difficult for these smallest companies, who are likely to limit the issuance
of such devices.
For these reasons, we have been urging our representatives in
Washington to ask the Department of Labor to reconsider significant portions
of the proposed rule, and recognize the significant new burdens and
complications that such a regulation would create for small employers and
their employees.
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