Dear Working Families e-Activist:

A lot happened this weekend in the fight to stop President
Bush's overtime pay take-away. After weeks of strong-arming,
President Bush succeeded in keeping the ban on his overtime pay
cuts out of end-of-year legislation, even though bipartisan
majorities in the U.S. Senate and House had voted with
workers--and against President Bush. These are the same
strong-arm tactics the Bush administration used on Medicare and
other issues. Once Bush's Department of Labor announces a start
date (which could be in December) the new overtime rules will
sadly go into effect and strip overtime pay from millions of
ordinary working Americans.

URGENT ACTION is required, and in response the AFL-CIO is
calling for an OVERTIME PAY NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION starting
Dec. 1 when we'll ask you to help spread the word about Bush's
overtime pay take-away. Talking to your friends, family and
co-workers about President Bush's attack on overtime
protections, the 40-hour workweek and the weekend is the most
important thing you can do. Our best hope for beating Bush's
overtime pay take-away is to involve millions of Americans in
this growing movement.

And, since you may have already written a letter to your
senators and representative, please send a note to your friends and family and coworkers.


If you'd prefer to send your own e-mail message, you can copy
and paste the text below into your e-mail and send it to
everybody in your e-mail address book.

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Dear Friend:

President Bush is pushing a massive overtime pay take-away that
would strip overtime protections from millions of working
Americans. More than 8 million people will lose their overtime
pay possibly as soon as December. The AFL-CIO has a page where
you can send a fax for free to your senators and representative
on overtime pay. You don't have to be a union member. Please
click on the link below to help protect overtime pay.
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/otlastchance/

After you take action, please spread the word.

Thanks.

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Look for an e-mail on Dec. 1 to announce the first part of the
week of action. Before then, you can get ready by building and
collecting an e-mail list you'll forward notes to during the
week of action. For the first time ever, we'll also be asking
you to print out some materials from a website and distribute
them in your workplace or your community.

Here is some of what the Bush overtime pay take-away would do as
part of the biggest rollback of overtime protections in U.S.
history:

+ Millions of salaried workers making between $22,100 and
$65,000 could be reclassified as "executives" or
"administrative" employees-and would no longer qualify for
overtime pay.

+ Relatively low-salary earners who have supervisory
responsibilities could be penalized. Workers who make $23,000 a
year could be classified as executives.

+ Workers with training or education could be hurt. This
includes medical training and IT training. Some of the jobs that
might lose overtime pay could be nurses technicians and medical
therapists but also hundreds of others.

+ Many employers would assign overtime work to newly exempt
employees and eliminate overtime work opportunities for other
overtime-eligible workers. Everybody loses.

+ Anyone making $65,000 or more a year doing office or
non-manual work would lose the right to overtime pay.

We need to stop these awful Bush overtime pay cuts so please
remember to check your e-mail on Dec. 1.

Thanks for all you do.

In Solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
Nov. 24, 2003

MORE: News story on the AFL-CIO website
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/17z4XuE1z13F//

MORE: Flash Cartoon on Overtime Pay by Mark Fiore
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/1pz4XuE1z13-//