My civilian employment requires a bit of smarts to effectively do and not kill people. We area also mostly paid by the hour because no sane person would work the 50 and 70 hour work weeks we do regularly or the 12/16/24 hour shifts most work as a salary job. (many 24 hour shift workers are exempt from the time and half OT for up to 72 hours in a week unless your contract says otherwise)
So I was surprised that Friday as we were stocking the squads and checking our equipment (off the clock of course), some of my co-workers were complaining that the new OT rules were going to cost everyone money.
Some how they had heard that the “Obama OT law” was going to result in workers getting their hours cut and make them lose money. They asked me if the new law was going to change our OT rate because we work 12 hour shift with mandatory 4 hour holds on a 3 on 2 off 2 on, 3 off set up (one week with 48 hours base and one week with 36 hours base, with contract language of any worked time over 40 is 1.5)
They did not know that the rule change (not law) was for salaried employees that make less than $42k a year. They did not know that the rule change was not about getting workers more pay either.
Many salaried employees work 50 to 60 hours a week for a 40 hour pay check. The idea was to get businesses to either increase the salary above the limit or to hire someone else to do the work, or reduce the work load.
This got my partner to say, “so it will take money from them by cutting their hours.” My partner is not stupid, is very informed normally and is pretty quick on the uptake. But they missed the whole point. If the employer cuts the hours worked to say 40 a week from 60, the pay will stay the same as it is now but they won’t have to work as hard, because they are not being paid for the 20 hours a week they are working now. If the employer hires someone else to work that time, the current employee will go to 40 hours a week and have the same pay...because they are not being paid for the 20 hours now.
You can’t lose money you are not getting now. But I don’t think they really understood. I think since they have never worked a salaried job, they still do the combat math that the 20 hours a week is being paid for and if the hours are cut, the base pay will be also.