Collin County chambers join lawsuit against DOL overtime ruling

The Plano Chamber of Commerce joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Association of Business, more than 40 other chambers of commerce throughout the state of Texas, and other business organizations and sector-specific business groups in filing a lawsuit against the new Department of Labor overtime rule, which goes into effect December 1.

Other Collin County chambers also joined the lawsuit.

The lawsuit advances three kinds of legal arguments against the Department of Labor’s overtime rule:

1. the excessively high salary threshold contradicts the intent of Congress to have executive, administrative, and professional employees exempt from overtime;
2. the new automatic update provision, which would impose new salary thresholds every three years without going through rulemakings, is not authorized by the FLSA, and in fact the FLSA directs the secretary to make changes to these exemptions through the notice and comment regulatory process; and
3. the Department acted arbitrarily and capriciously in promulgating its new overtime rule, in violation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act.

U.S. Secretary of Labor – Thomas Perez – said in a statement that he expected the overtime rule to withstand legal scrutiny, dismissing the lawsuits as a partisan attempt to undermine the Obama administration’s labor policies.

Randy Johnson is the U.S. Chamber vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits.

The DOL said about 4.6 million employees currently exempt from overtime pay would receive overtime protection under the rule, which the department argues would help those workers receive fair compensation for their work.