SENATOR OBAMA:
Thank you very much, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of
the Senate. This bill relates to overtime regulations and what
we need to do here in Illinois to ensure that workers who are
currently receiving overtime continue to receive overtime. The
legislation provides that executive, administrative or
professional employees are exempted from the time and a half
overtime rate as defined by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act
and by federal rules under that Act as they exist on March 30th,
2003. The basic intent of this bill is to maintain the status
quo with respect to who qualifies for time and a half overtime
pay and who does not. As some of you are aware, the Bush
administration and Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor, without
negotiations with labor, initiated this change. It stands to
eliminate overtime for eight million workers across the country
and three hundred and seventy-five thousand here in Illinois.
What this bill does is, it says that we are decoupling from
those rules at the federal level and maintaining the status quo
here in Illinois. It is true, and this was discussed in
committee, that there is a component of the federal rules that
would basically adjust for inflation in terms of what hourly
wage levels qualify for time and a half overtime. And the
argument was made in committee that, well, isn’t that a benefit
to workers? Doesn’t that balance off the -- the benefits that
were made by -- or -- or, the losses the workers might suffer on
the other side? And as I indicated in committee, all that the
federal rules have done that we’re maintaining is to adjust for
inflation those wage rates at which overtime no longer applies.
Otherwise, what we’re doing is we’re maintaining the status quo
and making sure that nurses and other workers who, by any
category, are struggling working families continue to benefit
from overtime rules that have been in place for years. I’m
happy to answer any questions.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
Thank you, Senator. Senator Hendon, for what purpose do
you rise, sir?
SENATOR HENDON:
Thank you, Mr. President. I move the previous question.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
Okay. The gentleman has moved the previous question. We
have one, two, three people seeking recognition. Is there any
discussion? Senator Roskam, for what purpose do you rise?
SENATOR ROSKAM:
Thank you, Mr. President. To the bill.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
To the bill, sir.
SENATOR ROSKAM:
You know, I think we need to be very, very care -- careful
here in what we’re doing. And I understand part of Senator
Obama’s ability and his tremendous way of gathering votes and
support is that he is very persuasive and puts on a terrific
presentation. And that’s a sincere compliment. Here is the
danger of what we’re going to be talking about if this becomes
law. Illinois will be the first state in the union to decouple.
Think about that. The first state in the union. That puts us on
an island. We talked about this last week. We’ve talked about
this during the course of various events in the last several
months. We’re trying -- everybody uses the language of trying
to create an environment where more people want to come into
business and do business in Illinois. But the effect of this --
think about it. If you’re a -- if you’re a -- a member of a
board of directors of a company and you have an office in New
York City and you’re sitting around, and they have various sites
and various locations, and the State of Illinois pops up in the
discussion, and they say, “Well, you know, maybe take a look at
Illinois. Consider Illinois.” And then some wise, young staff
person says, “Oh. I don’t know if you want to do that. Let me
give you a transcript of the speech that the Governor gave a few
weeks ago. The Governor basically said corporations in Illinois
are tax cheats.” That’s the bumper sticker version of the
Governor’s proposal. And now -- now with this proposal we’re
saying, “Oh, the State of Illinois be -- be the only state in
the country among forty-nine other states that decouples.” The
only state that makes it more expensive to -- to be a place to
do business. This is a continuing drumbeat. It’s a continuing
litany of bad ideas. And we cannot act surprised when
businesses say, “You know, we -- we can’t do it. We can’t do it
anymore. We’ve got to move somewhere else.” I’ve heard Senator
Rauschenberger describe the administration coming in and -- and
taking a look at what it’s like. The administration is
basically running off of a Chicago playbook that raises taxes on
business, and Chicago businesses are basically landlocked. They
don’t have the ability to go anywhere else. But you know what?
Businesses in all the other municipalities don’t have that same
underpinning where they’re linked to a municipality. This bill
says to -- says to companies, “We are complicated people to do
business with. We’re a hassle to do business with. We’re not
really serious about you wanting to do business with.” That’s
why the Illinois State Chamber is against this bill. The NFIB
is against this bill. The business groups are against this bill.
I urge a No vote.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
Thank you, Senator. Senator Forby, for what purpose do you
rise?
SENATOR FORBY:
Thank you, Mr. President. I stand in support of this bill.
You know, one of the biggest things I think everybody in this
room has, and I’ve got many phone calls. “You know, I’m working
fifty-five, I’m working sixty hours a week.” He said, “I don’t
have no time with my family. I can’t think. I can’t do stuff
right,” and all that kind of stuff. If we do not pay overtime
after forty hours there is a problem. We’ll have people with
less employees working hours and hours with stress and
everything else, where you could go ahead and hire another
person and work forty hours. I think this bill is really good.
Where I come from we have high unemployment. And the people
down there that don’t work much at worse times, if it wasn’t for
their overtime, they wouldn’t be making the wages where they
could feed their family. So, I stand in support -- stand in
support of this bill and I think it’s a really good bill. So I
hope everybody in this -- votes Aye today. Thank you.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
Thank you, Senator. Senator Brady, what purpose do you
rise, sir?
SENATOR BRADY:
To the bill.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
To the bill, sir.
SENATOR BRADY:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Senator Roskam put it right and --
and so did the sponsor, Senator Obama. This is a bill that does
take the provisions of the federal negotiated bill by the
Department of Labor to improve the system and then creates an
environment -- a negative environment on Illinois businesses.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is an anti-jobs bill. I know the
Senator’s intentions are well, but we have got to stop taxing
and feeing businesses to death out of this State. It’s also a
bill that, frankly, was supported by the FOP. I have a letter
here from the website of the FOP stating the National Fraternal
Order of Police President Chuck Canterbury announces his full
confidence in the success of the federal law. They are
confident and feel it’s important that the federal provisions
stay in effect so that police officers, in this case, will
continue to receive overtime benefits. This only affects those
managerial individuals who are salaried, not hourly like Senator
Forby was referring to, but salaried individuals who are working
as management within the management structure to help make a
business work. One of the reasons for this bill was a multi-
million-dollar lawsuit that benefited only the trial lawyers,
because they came in and sued under these provisions. The Bush
administration has worked hard to increase the -- the minimum
pay requirements and better clarify the exempted job
descriptions, and it’s important that we embrace that. It’s
important that we embrace that so that Illinois can send a
message that we want you to employ people here, that we want to
help your businesses prosper, because, Ladies and Gentlemen, the
only way we’re going to correct our financial problems is not to
tax and fee and run businesses, but to encourage businesses to
employ jobs. A vote for this legislation is an anti-job vote.
And I ask for you to oppose it.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR DeLEO)
Thank you, Senator. Senator Obama -- seeing no further
discussion, Senator Obama, to close.
SENATOR OBAMA:
Thank you very much, Mr. President. Let me just respond in
order. There were a number of terrific points. First of all, I
am a member of the mutual admiration society with Senator
Roskam. I -- he -- he’s always terrific, and I know he’s got
his family here today. He -- he’s produced some beautiful
children, which clearly shows to me that he knows how to choose
a -- a spouse. And we were just talking about the fact that we
both improved our DNA with our -- with our -- our choices of
spouses. Having said that, have I said that he’s wrong? I -- I
love him, but he’s wrong. And -- and -- and let me just correct
a couple of things. Number one, we are not the only state in
the union that has rules regulating overtime that are different
from the federal law. Alaska, Kentucky, California did so prior
to, actually, this particular piece of overtime regulation. So
we’re not the only ones who have made a decision that we’re
going to shape our overtime rules differently from what the
federal -- federal folks have decided to do. And we are at a
stage right now in which a number of states actually have this
same piece of legislation in the pipeline. It just so happens,
and appropriately so, that Illinois is first out of the gate on
what is a good bill. The second thing that I wanted to raise
was the issue that Senator Brady talked about. He characterized
this as basically only affecting managers. That is simply not
true. What you have is the potential for people who are paid
salaries, in the sense that they’re paid on a weekly basis, that
are making not much more than the minimum wage - twenty-two
thousand dollars a year - who are being characterized as
potential managers or professionals when, in fact, they’re low-
wage workers. Now, what we don’t want is a -- a situation - and
that’s what these rules are designed to protect and ensure - a
situation where we decide to call the janitor in the building a
sanitation engineer, and because we happen to be paying him
weekly as opposed to hourly, that somehow we’re exempting him
from overtime regulations. So the intent of this bill is to
make sure that low-wage workers who happen to be paid a salary,
as opposed to hourly, are still assured the basic protections
that businesses are very familiar with, that businesses have
been practicing for many years. We are not somehow making it
worse for them. We are essentially preserving the status quo.
And the final point I have to make is that Senator Brady
mentioned federal negotiations. These were not negotiations
between labor and management. They may have been negotiations
between Elaine Chao and companies that wanted to reduce their
overtime. But -- but those are hardly the kinds of negotiations
that I, at least, want to place a rubber stamp on. This is good
legislation. It retains the status quo. Those of you who are
concerned about workers, making sure that they are able to bring
home a living wage, I would urge an Aye vote.