Boxoffice - March 2016

The EEOC’s new requirements stem directly from its activities as
a member of the National Equal Pay Task Force. In 2010, President
Obama established this task force, bringing together four federal
agencies: the EEOC, the Department of Labor, the Department of
Justice, and the Office of Personnel Management (an agency that
manages the federal workforce). He charged them with examining
challenges in equal-pay enforcement and with creating solutions to
address these issues. Collecting data on the private workforce was one
of the five recommendations made by the task force in order to better
understand and tackle unequal pay.
Business groups have been vocal in their criticism of the proposed
changes to the EEO-1 survey. The Retail Industry Leaders Association,
which represents major retailers such as Target, Whole Foods
Market, and Foot Locker, issued a statement decrying the new
requirements as a “tremendous” administrative burden. NATO will
continue to monitor the proposed changes.
Overtime Changes
In March 2014, President Obama directed the Department of
Labor (DOL) to rewrite overtime regulations to expand the number
of Americans eligible for overtime pay. DOL released proposed
changes to the rule in the summer of 2015. During the public
comment period following the publication of the rule making, over
290,000 comments were submitted by the business community,
labor organizations, and individuals on both the merits and the
disadvantages of DOL’s suggested modifications to the current
overtime structure.
DOL has projected that the rule will be completed by July 2016.
The changes to overtime will come over 10 years since DOL last
updated its regulations, and if the parameters of the proposed rule are
an indication of what the final changes will be, employers will see significant
increases to annual costs. While the rule cannot amend the
federal statute exempting movie theater employees from overtime, because
some states do not exempt theater employees, exhibitors should
be aware that the new federal standards may apply in those states.
In order to be exempt from overtime, an employee must meet
three criteria: be paid on a salaried basis (“salary basis test”); earn a
fixed minimum salary per week (“salary level test”); and perform a
job that primarily involves executive, administrative, or professional
duties (“duties test”). The most significant changes awaiting employers
will impact the salary basis test and the duties test. No modifications
have been proposed to the salary basis test.
DOL has proposed to raise the exempt salary threshold to $970
per week, or $50,440 annually. This would more than double the
current exempt salary threshold of $455 per week, or $23,660
annually. The rule would put in place automatic annual increases
to the salary threshold by permanently setting the level at the 40th
percentile of weekly earnings for full-time salaried workers. DOL is
also considering including nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive
payments in the salary-threshold calculation. By contrast, DOL did
not offer many specifics regarding modifications to the duties test.
Rather, the agency wrote that it was soliciting stakeholder feedback
on what changes, if any, should be made to the duties test, including
adopting the same model as the State of California.
Given that overtime changes may be final within a matter of
months, exhibitors may want to consider reviewing the overtime
statutes of the states in which they operate to determine whether the
new federal standard will affect their employees. n
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