Monthly Archives: June 2015

Today President Obama announced plans to extend overtime protection to salaried workers earning up to about $50,000 per year. The current threshold for earning overtime pay as a salaried worker ($23,660) hasn’t been raised in ten years and leaves millions of workers cut out of overtime protection.

UFCW union contracts already protect most UFCW members and guarantee them their earned overtime pay. But economists like those at the Economic Policy Institute estimate more than 5 million workers will benefit from this new regulation – specifically white-collar workers in food service, retail sales supervisors and health care workers like pharmacists. The National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts that millions of hours will be shifted to part-time workers in these industries as employers try to cut overtime obligations to higher paid supervisors and managers.

Action to increase wages for middle income earners is a good thing for our nation’s economy and for our industries – including the possibility of more hours for part-time workers and our members.

The UFCW will launch a story collection tool next week for local unions to help identify workers in our membership or from organizing campaigns who would qualify for overtime under this new regulation. Stay tuned for more resources and actions to support the new regulation in next week’s OnPoint.

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) insurance subsidies with 6-3 ruling.  The decision is a victory for the millions of Americans who need financial assistance to purchase health insurance, and means that tax credits for middle and low-income Americans will be available in all 50 states.

The King v. Burwell case argued that the federal government exchange, Healthcare.gov, did not have the legal authority to distribute tax credits to help middle and low-income Americans purchase coverage. Since 34 states rely on Healthcare.gov as their health insurance marketplace, a decision in favor of the challengers would have undermined the entire purpose of the ACA and put health coverage out of reach for 6.4 million people.

The Court’s decision finally secures state health exchanges in every state and puts the country in a position to move forward and focus on improvements to the law.