CLEVELAND, OH – U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) released the following statement on the Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule:
“If you put in extra work, you should earn extra pay – it’s that simple. This rule is an important step forward that will mean more than a hundred thousand Ohioans finally receive overtime pay when they put in overtime work. This progress for workers comes after years of effort, and this fight isn’t over yet. I will keep pushing my colleagues to pass my Restoring Overtime Pay Act so that we can finally ensure that when Ohio workers put in overtime, companies pay them for it.”
Brown has led the fight to expand overtime pay for millions of Americans who are working long hours without fair pay. Earlier this year, Brown introduced the Restoring Overtime Pay Act of 2023 which would permanently enshrine overtime protections into law and guarantee that 55 percent of all salaried workers will be eligible for overtime pay. The legislation would protect workers’ financial security by ensuring that overtime pay is protected — regardless of who is in the White House.
Brown has fought for years to ensure that when workers put in extra hours, they get extra pay. In 2015, he pushed the Obama administration to adopt a new rule that would increase the overtime salary threshold and helped announce the new rule in Ohio in 2016. This rule was blocked by a federal judge in 2016 who issued a nationwide injunction that effectively denied 4.2 million workers overtime benefits. The proposed rule led to more Ohio workers becoming eligible for the overtime pay they’ve earned. When the Trump administration proposed a new rule that would have set the overtime salary threshold at $35,000 — down from $47,476 set by the Obama administration — Brown led the fight to restore the threshold to what it should have been under the Obama administration. In 2017, Brown introduced legislation to guarantee expanded overtime pay.
Most recently, Brown has urged the Biden administration to take strong action to restore overtime pay protections for millions of workers.