Upon the announcement by the state Department of Labor & Industries of a new rule expanding overtime protections for salaried workers in Washington state, Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, chair of the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee, released the following statement:<\/p>\n
“Why have wages remained flat ever since the Great Recession? Here’s one reason: Millions of salaried workers have gone unpaid for the overtime they have worked, Keiser said.<\/p>\n
“Despite federal inaction, Washington state is taking the lead. I strongly support the Department of Labor & Industries’ new rule expanding overtime protections to cover a quarter million more Washingtonians.<\/p>\n
“This rule is the result of extensive data collection and public feedback. L&I has clear statutory authority for this rulemaking, and their process has been thorough and transparent.<\/p>\n
“In response to feedback from the business community, the new rule provides a lengthy seven-year, phase-in period for all businesses and allows small businesses to start the phase-in at a lower threshold.<\/p>\n
“Time is precious. Recognizing the value of workers’ time is good for them and their families. It’s also good for employers and our communities.<\/p>\n
“We are all better off when businesses have lower turnover and workers have more money to spend close to home.”<\/p>\n
Constantine statement<\/strong><\/p>\n King County Executive Dow Constantine also released a statement:<\/p>\n “Working Washingtonians should be able to count on fair treatment and fair pay,” Constantine said. “Modernizing overtime protections will help make that promise real for thousands of workers and families.<\/p>\n “I support this rule – the nation’s strongest – because it is the right thing for workers, and because rebuilding the middle class will strengthen our region’s economy.”<\/p>\n The state Department of Labor and Industries announced rule changes to raise the income threshold of salaried workers eligible for overtime compensation.<\/p>\n The rule change is the strongest in the nation and is expected to cover an estimated 250,000 workers once fully implemented. The previous threshold of $23,660 per year will now be tied to minimum wage and will increase to $83,356 by 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" State raises threshold of salaried workers eligible <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":43506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-43505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-northwest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43505"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=43505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}