New Overtime Rules To Take Effect in August White-collar employees earning up to $100,000 may be eligible for overtime pay under the Labor Department’s final rule. Last year the department had proposed setting the threshold for “highly compensated employees” at $65,000. The change is one of several in the final rule that would make more people eligible for overtime pay. The changes did not satisfy all critics. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) said he would move to overturn the final rule. Both houses of Congress voted last year to block the proposed rule. The rule, the first complete update of overtime regulations in 50 years, was published in the April 23 Federal Register and takes effect Aug. 23. The department is providing fact sheets and interactive training at www.labor.gov/fairpay. The rule provides exemptions from overtime pay for executive, administrative, computer and outside sales employees who are paid less than $100,000 if their primary duties satisfy certain definitions. The department dropped its proposed redefinition of a “learned professional,” who is exempt from overtime. The proposed rule would have recognized training in the military, a technical school or a community college as qualifications for the professional exemption. The final rule states, “’Work requiring advanced knowledge’ means work which is predominantly intellectual in character, and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment.” It mentions fields such as law, medicine, theology, accounting, actuarial computation, engineering, architecture, teaching, various types of physical, chemical and biological sciences and pharmacy as examples. The final rule requires that overtime must be paid to “manual laborers or other ‘blue collar’ workers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy.” It specifically extends coverage to police officers, fire fighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians and licensed practical nurses. Employees earning $23,660 or less ($455 per week) would be entitled to overtime regardless of their job title. The department said this will extend coverage to people in retail and restaurant businesses who are classified as managers or assistant managers. It estimated that 1.3 million additional workers will be eligible for overtime under the new threshold, while 107,000 people making $100,000 or more would lose eligibility. Union officials dispute the figures. The rule will not pre-empt state or local laws that make it more difficult to exempt employees from overtime. The Labor Department received more than 75,000 comments on the proposed rule, but it said more than 90% of them were form letters generated by unions.