by Mike Hall, Aug 1, 2006

Knowing the Bush administration, maybe it’s not such a surprise that President Bush wants a former lawyer for Wal-Mart—with a long paper trail outlining his opposition to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) overtime pay and other provisions—to run the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD).

After all, one of Bush’s major domestic goals was to gut the FLSA’s overtime eligibility rules. The new rules, muscled through in 2004, mean millions of workers no longer have overtime pay protection.

During the debate on those new rules, Paul DeCamp, Bush’s WHD nominee, wrote that the proposed changes in overtime laws represented:

a window of opportunity, particularly in light of the federal elections of 2002, for the business community to achieve positive results that can bring the FLSA into the 21st century.

During this morning’s Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s confirmation hearing, AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel testified that DeCamp’s long legal career has been spent:

defending employers against workers in a wide range of employment matters, including FLSA collective actions and sexual harassment individual and class actions, and he has served as counsel to Wal-Mart appealing the certification of a nationwide class of 1.6 million women alleging systematic gender discrimination in pay and promotions.

The Wage and Hour Division is charged with protecting workers from employer violations of the minimum wage, child labor laws, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and prevailing wage requirements under the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act.

At least that was its original mission.

A brief look at DeCamp’s record highlights how his appointment may distort that mission.

• As a lawyer in private practice, DeCamp represented Wal-Mart’s efforts to prevent a class of 1.5 million women—the largest employment class action ever certified—from suing the company for discrimination in pay and promotions.
• His proposals for taking away overtime from workers are even more extreme than those ultimately passed by Congress—and he has suggested easy ways for bosses who misclassify workers as not eligible for overtime pay, “so that the changes draw less attention.”
• He has provided legal counsel for corporations opposing union organizing campaigns and fighting unfair labor practice charges.
• He has represented an employer appealing a record $40 million sexual harassment verdict.
• He has fought on the bosses’ sides on collective and individual actions involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act and state wage and hour laws.

The AFL-CIO opposes DeCamp’s nomination, Samuel says, because:

Mr. DeCamp’s written views on the FLSA are very much out of the mainstream, and show no sign of appreciating the purposes and importance of FLSA overtime protection. His criticisms of the recovery of back overtime pay, his questioning of the fundamental purposes of the FLSA’s overtime provisions, his advocacy of FLSA changes to keep employers from having to “dramatically reduce the number of employees they designate as exempt,” and his specific proposals to broaden the overtime exemptions all raise questions about his ability to carry out the duties of [Wage and Hour Division] Administrator in the interests of American workers.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article | Comments (0)