The Trump Transition and Wage
Theft
By Phil Mattera
in the Dirt
Diggers Digest
If Donald Trump really were a
champion of the working class, one place you would expect to see it reflected
would be in his plans for the Labor Department. The supposed champion of blue
collar Americans should be making sure that the agency most concerned with the
world of work is reoriented to their needs.
Given what we have learned about
the Trump transition so far, it will come as no surprise to hear that things
seem to be moving in a very different direction. The person put in charge of
the DOL transition is J. Steven Hart, chairman of the firm of Williams &
Jensen, which calls itself “Washington’s Lobbying Powerhouse.” Hart is a lawyer
and an accountant who worked in the Reagan Administration but his firm now
lobbies mainly on behalf of large corporations such as the health insurer Anthem and
Smithfield Foods.
He may provide other services for
big business. In a 2007 article in The Washingtonian about
DC’s top lobbyists, Hart was described as “the man corporations call when they
are having trouble with labor unions.” There is not much in the public record
on Hart’s activity as a union buster, which may mean only that he worked behind
the scenes.
One thing that is known, according to the BNA Daily Labor Report, is that Hart has lobbied recently on behalf of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) on the rule formulated by the Labor Department to update overtime eligibility to thwart abusive employer practices. That association has made no secret of its strong opposition to the rule, which is scheduled to take effect on December 1. It put out a press release denouncing the rule as “burdensome” and vowing to work with other business interests to fight it.
The board of directors of the
IAAPA includes a representative of the Walt Disney Company, which had has
compliance problems with the Fair Labor Standards Act. For example, in 2010
Disney agreed to pay more than $433,000 in back
wages to settle DOL allegations regarding off-the-clock work.
The overtime rule is a glaring
example of the contradictions in the emerging Trump Administration. The rule
would be of enormous benefit to many struggling lower-income workers who are
denied overtime compensation under exemptions that were supposed to apply only
to high-paid salaried employees. Their plight has amounted to a form of wage
theft.
One group of employers that have
frequently been implicated in overtime abuses are dollar store chains such as
Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. These cases often involve assistant managers who
are not really managers and are compelled to perform routine tasks in stores
that are chronically understaffed. After losing an overtime lawsuit and hit
with $36 million in damages, Family Dollar appealed the case all the way to the
Supreme Court (and lost).
It’s likely that Trump supporters
are a lot more familiar with dollar stores than those who voted for Clinton. Do
they really want to make it easier for those corporations to engage in wage
theft against relatives and friends?