“Colleges and universities are major employers in many communities
around the country, offering stable jobs with good wages and benefits to
millions of individuals from many professions and walks of life. While
in principle we support raising the wage threshold, today’s move by the
Department of Labor will harm many higher education institutions,
employees and students.
The new rule will turn many lower level, salaried employees into
hourly workers who are eligible for overtime pay. But requiring such a
dramatic and costly change to be implemented so quickly will leave many
colleges with no choice but to respond to this regulation with a
combination of tuition increases, service reductions and, possibly,
layoffs.
We appreciate the department’s willingness to reconsider slightly its
initial proposal to raise the threshold even higher. But negatively
impacted by the new regulations are a wide array of non-faculty
employees—from athletics coaches and trainers to admissions recruiters
and student affairs officers—whose work is not well suited to hourly
wage status and who will face diminished workplace autonomy and fewer
opportunities for flexible work arrangements and career development.
We are disappointed that the department failed to address so many of
the concerns raised by the entire higher education community. We will
work to help our institutions understand the costs and administrative
complexities of implementing these changes, even as we continue to press
for improvements to the new rules.”