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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories June 9, 2003 Alex Coolman Male Rape in US Prisons Elaine Cassel Ashcroft is Coming! Lee Sustar Is Iran Next? Agustin Velloso Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many Poor Gila Svirsky Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others Dr. Gerry Lower Human Worth in Bush's America Michael S. Ladah A True Liberation Ishmael Reed Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder Steve Perry How to Beat Bush, part 1   June 7 / 8, 2003 Alexander Cockburn The Terrible Truth Jeffrey St. Clair Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species Joanne Mariner Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers Steven Sherman A Different Theory of Everything Ron Jacobs Sports, Politics and the 60s M. Shahid Alam Pauperizing the Periphery Amelia Peltz If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost Shelton Hull Another Powell, Another Capitulation Binoy Kampmark Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea Ben Tripp A Fish Story Sen. Robert Byrd Where is the Outrage? Robin Philpot Congo Distortions Julie Hilden Murder and the Matrix Laura Flanders An Interview with Isabel Allende David Lindorff The Last Byline Adam Engel Talk Dirty Scary Monsters Poets' Basement Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod   June 6, 2003 Elaine Cassel Ashcroft the Insatiable David Krieger The Big Lie Ramzy Baroud Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers Anthony Gancarski Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege" Sam Hamod His Own Little Country Sean Carter Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay? David Lindorff Cracks in the Consensus Stew Albert Ari's Great Set Steve Perry Greens and Moore in 04? No   June 5, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina Imraan Siddiqi Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth Michael Leon Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done Robert Jensen Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy Ann Harrison Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over Paul Dean How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush Gary Leupp When Spooks Speak Out Website of the Day Evidence in Black and White?   June 4, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal Walks Lisa Walsh Thomas The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity Jason Leopold Manufacturing the Iraq War John Chuckman Blackmail as Policy Mazin Qumsiyeh Summit: Peace or Pretense? Issam Nashashibi Sharon's Sword of Damocles Steve Perry Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript   June 3, 2003 Chris Floyd Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and the Slaughter in Aceh Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Tells All Elaine Cassel We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!" Tom Crumpacker The Politics of US Cuba Policy William S. Lind Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq Sam Hamod The Final Brick in the Wall Uri Avnery The Altalena Affair Hammond Guthrie Stepping into Some Deep DARPA Steve Perry The WashTimes' al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive" June 2, 2003 Arundhati Roy Day of the Jackals Norman Madarasz Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato, Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter Anthony Gancarski Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now Standard Schaefer Wasted at the Pentagon Jason Leopold Rocky's Advice to the Dems Guthrie & Albert HUAC 58 Years Letter Steve Perry The Politics of Terror Alerts   May 31, 2003 Alexander Cockburn A Whiner Called Horowitz Gary Leupp The Frauds of War Dave Lindorff Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment Tom Stephens Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied? Sasan Fayazmanesh Who Is Next? Joanne Mariner Trivializing Terrorism Wayne Madsen Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week Larry Magnuson Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard? Elaine Cassel Wake Up, America! Gila Svirsky Waiting for the Lament to End Susan Davis Kitchen Dreams Chris Clarke Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite Chris Floyd Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God Adam Engel Gravity's End Zone Poets' Basement Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert   May 30, 2003 Ben Tripp Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda Neve Gordon The Bad Fence Todd Steiner Endangered Ocean Robert Freeman Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity Sean Carter Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions Daniel Bacher How Bush's War Violated International Laws Tariq Ali Re-Colonizing Iraq Steve Perry Bush Wars Web Log   May 29, 2003 CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Jason Leopold Despite Thin Intelligence Reports, US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime Ron Jacobs Popular Uprising, Inc. Michelle Ciaccorra Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do Yves Engler The Economics of Health Care in America: Pay More to Die Sooner Kimberly Blaker Vouchers for Jesus Harry Browne Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at the Top of the IRA Stew Albert Cops of the World Steve Perry Greens 04: In or Out?       Hot Stories CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

June 11, 2003 Eliminating Overtime Pay? A Republican Attack Americans Will Remember at Election Time By DAVID LINDORFF If ordinary working people needed some hard evidence that this Republican government in Washington is not on their side--that it is, in fact, out to get them--they finally have it in a very simple form: the effort in Congress to eliminate overtime pay. It's easy for Bush and Republicans in Congress to trick people into supporting a massively regressive tax cut package. They offer crumbs to the middle class while handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks to the rich, and everyone thinks it's a good thing. But the bill now being considered in Congress, which will make it much easier for employers of people making less than $65,000 a year to take away their overtime pay is a straight-forward, unambifuous screw job. For years, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, the government has been chipping away at the 40-hour week, one of the central victories of the labor movement during the early years of the 20th Century. They exempted salaried people, they exempted people classed as management even if their salaries were pathetic. Still, up to now most people who work for a living could count on getting time and a half for being required to work more than a 40-hour week (or in some professions, like trucking, for having to work more than an eight-hour day). The purpose of the overtime law, known as the Fair Labor Standards Act, was to create an economic disincentive both to discourage employers from overworking their employees, and to encourage them to hire more people. The idea was, if you wanted your employee to work longer, it would cost you more. Employers, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, when health and other benefits became more common, hated the idea of time and a half pay for overtime. They didn't want to have to hire more workers, because then they had to pay more healthcare benefits, and more unemployment insurance if they had to later lay people off in slower economic periods. Yet if they didn't add employees, they had to pay time and a half to existing workers to get the job done. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and other business lobbying organizations have been lobbying to get rid of overtime for a long time. The irony is that employers in the ever more dominant service sector--touted by business lobbyists as the reason that overtime pay is obsolete--don't really face much in the way of extra costs for hiring extra employees these days anyway, since so few of them employ people full time these days, or pay them benefits. Still, the very idea of having to pay time and a half to workers sticks in the craw of most employers, who seem anxious to return to the good old days of the 19th Century. With Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, and Bush in the White House, they see their opportunity to do just that, and they're pushing hard for it now. (At this rate, we'll probably see them pushing next for an end to child labor bans.) The U.S. labor movement is fighting a rear-guard battle against the bill, but the odds are against them. Only 13 percent of U.S. workers are now in unions, and half the Democrats in Congress wouldn1t know a real worker if they saw one. Meanwhile, for Republicans, this bill is red meat. Weakened as it is, the organized lobbying effort by the labor movement has scored a victory in the initial battle. After over 250,000 people contacted their congressional representatives telling them to oppose the measure, the House Republican leadership postponed a vote on the bill, fearing that they didn't have enough votes for passage. They've vowed to bring it back after they've had a chance to work over those party representatives who appeared to have defected. If the measure passes, it will be a huge financial disaster for the 75 million American workers who are currently covered by the overtime rules, who stand to lose billions of dollars a year in pay. While it would not, at least immediately, change the overtime rules for workers earning less than $22,100 a year, it would hit hard at those earning between $22,100 a year and $65,000 a year--the pay range within which the law would allow employers to finagle their way out of paying time and a half. The trick would be to classify those workers as "professionals" or "management"--an easy sleight of hand in a time when the Labor Department, which technically monitors such things, is a lapdog of management. As well, under the bill, employers would be free to "offer" workers an option of comp time in lieu of mandatory overtime. While the law says employers could not coerce employees into selecting comp time instead of overtime, critics say that it would be almost impossible to enforce such a rule. Employers would have too many ways to retaliate against workers who made the wrong choice--denial of favored vacation dates, denial of promotions, etc. Such punishments would be hard to link to a worker's decision to exercise their right to choose overtime over comp time. The U.S. Chamber, a prime mover behind the drive to eliminate overtime, insists that all it is trying to do is "clarify the rules," but with billions of dollars a year in overtime pay at stake, it is clear that this is really nothing but a power play aimed at wresting a hard-won New Deal-era right away from American workers in order to fatten the wallets of management. This is one Republican power grab that American voters will not likely forget come November 2004, though. Indeed, it's November and December--the run-up to the Christmas holiday season--when most workers earn their fattest paychecks, thanks to overtime. If this bill goes into law, this next Christmas season, and the one following, will see workers coming home with substantially thinner pay envelopes. Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html Weekend Edition Features Alexander Cockburn The Terrible Truth Jeffrey St. Clair Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species Joanne Mariner Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers Steven Sherman A Different Theory of Everything Ron Jacobs Sports, Politics and the 60s M. Shahid Alam Pauperizing the Periphery Amelia Peltz If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost Shelton Hull Another Powell, Another Capitulation Binoy Kampmark Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea Ben Tripp A Fish Story Sen. Robert Byrd Where is the Outrage? Robin Philpot Congo Distortions Julie Hilden Murder and the Matrix Laura Flanders An Interview with Isabel Allende David Lindorff The Last Byline Adam Engel Talk Dirty Scary Monsters Poets' Basement Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /