A representative of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) said the federal labor department regulations on overtime pay were flawed with methodology and reasoning and “will be devastating to convenience store owners, their workers and customers.”
Lyle Beckwith, NACS SVP of government relations, commented on the regulations set to begin Dec. 1 that will double the previous salary threshold for designating managerial employees as exempt from overtime from $455 to $913 a week. He said the thresholds were an “unreasonably high level that fails to follow past precedent of tailoring dollar tests to reflect the financial characteristics of retailing, and thereby ensuring that resulting salary increases not impose a disproportionate hardship to the sector. DOL also relied on measurements of non-salary income and salaries in high-wage regions in formulating the threshold.”
Beckwith said thousands of store managers and assistant managers, who are paid annual average salaries of $39,528 and $25,771, respectively, will change virtually overnight from exempt status to nonexempt status.
“NACS recognizes that the overtime pay regulations, which are more than a decade old, need to be updated to reflect current economic conditions. However, the workable increase in the threshold for exempt employees will defeat the stated purpose of the regulations by driving down overall wages and employment in the convenience store industry.
“NACS encourages the administration and Congress to withdraw the regulations, re-examine the basis on which they were devised and re-issue them with a new threshold that takes into account the economic realities facing the retail industry and thereby reflects the best interests of these job-creating businesses,” he said.
