Democrats Vow to Fight Changes in State Overtime Law

SACRAMENTO —  Democratic legislators vowed Monday to wage an all-out fight to keep overtime pay after an eight-hour day the law in California, while acknowledging that it may be a losing battle.

Democrats were reacting to a 3-2 decision made Friday by the Industrial Welfare Commission, appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, to require employers to pay overtime only after a worker puts in 40 hours a week--in any combination of hours per day.

The ruling could affect up to 8 million California workers not covered by union contracts.

Senate leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) vowed to deny Senate confirmation to the three “antilabor” appointees who voted for the rule change.

But Lockyer conceded that denying confirmation to the three would not reverse the commission’s decision. He said, however, it would enable majority Democrats to “make our statement about what the right policy should be.”

“In effect, you have three people making decisions that are hostile to the perspectives of working women and men without elected representatives [in the Legislature] being involved in any manner,” Lockyer told reporters.

He targeted for rejection by the Senate the governor’s appointment of commission Chairwoman Robyn Black of Visalia, a real estate agent; Syed Alam of Sacramento, a state government engineer; and Terry Arnold of Bakersfield, owner of a fast-food store. All three are Republicans.

Although they were appointed by Wilson, each requires Senate confirmation to remain on the panel for a full four-year term. Because of the timing of the appointments, Black and Alam are expected to still be members of the panel when it makes a final decision--as early as April--on the overtime change .

On the legislative front, Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno) said the Assembly’s Democratic majority will fight to stop the attempt, initiated by Wilson in September 1995, to scrap the eight-hour rule.

“It will be a caucus position,” Bustamante said, meaning he expects the Assembly’s Democratic majority to support bills to maintain the status quo, although with some “flexibility.”

Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte) have introduced separate bills that, if passed, would override the Industrial Welfare Commission’s ruling.

Both bills, while protecting the eight-hour overtime rule, would allow some variance. For example, each bill would let workers in a factory or office take a vote on whether to switch to a 10-hour, four-day workweek.

However, Wilson is considered likely to veto these or any measures that tamper with the proposed 40-hour overtime schedule. It is unlikely Democrats could engineer the override of such a veto.

“The governor clearly supports reforming the state’s overtime rules,” said his spokeswoman Lisa Kalustian.

The change would improve California’s competitive edge with 47 other states that already have the 40-hour rule in place, as does the federal government, and the new flexibility would benefit bosses and workers, Kalustian said.

But Democrats were just as firm in pressing to hold the line on the eight-hour day.

“Whether the governor is adamant or not,” Bustamante said, “that’s not going to force the Democrats to act a certain way.”

Liberal Democratic Assemblywoman Carole Migden of San Francisco said of the eight-hour overtime rule: “It’s our line in the sand.”

President Tom Rankin of the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, said the emergence of the eight-hour overtime dispute “will be a major issue” for the 1997 Legislature.

He said that the federation is backing the Solis bill in the Senate as the preferred legislation of organized labor.

“Our bill would allow someone to take up to four hours a week off for personal business, such as a doctor’s appointment, and make it up the same week without overtime pay,” Rankin said. “It answers the argument that employers are reluctant to give people time off for personal business because they have got to pay them overtime [to make it up].”