DNC Labor Lawsuit: How Can Democrats #Fightfor15 When They Pay Less than $10?
Jared and Elizabeth Lee Beck’s lawsuit charging the Democratic Party with falsely representing its primary election processes to donors supporting Bernie Sanders’ campaign still struggles to get any type of mainstream media attention. The average American has no idea the lawsuit even exists. They also don’t know how horrible and un-Democratic the Party’s responses to the suit have been.
There’s Another Lawsuit
The DNC fraud lawsuit isn’t the only class action filed against the party. On November 9, 2016, DNC campaign groundgame worker Bethany Katz filed suit in Federal District Court in Philadelphia alleging that the DNC had failed to pay overtime to her and other non-exempt employees.
Labor law attorneys Justin Swidler and Richard Swartz filed the suit on behalf of Katz and 6 other plaintiffs from states ranging from Arizona to Missouri. The DNC and each state party organization is named in the suit which is filed under provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938.
In plain English, the DNC, which just distributed $1 million in bonuses to elite employees and volunteers for the July 2016 Philly Convention, was paying its regular campaign workers a flat $3,000 a month. They were working 7 days a week for 80–90 hours during the campaign.
Here’s how Ed Rendell, the chair of the local host committee for the event, divided up funds left-over after the committee paid all regular expenses out of the $85 million raised to cover the costs of the 4-day event:
A lot of people who work for an hourly wage know the law regarding overtime work and pay. They’re accustomed to part-time hours. They know why, also: so the employer won’t have to pay overtime or provide any benefits.
The DNC wanted to save money on its groundgame too, but it didn’t take the approach most employers with functioning Human Resources departments do to keep its payroll costs under control.
All “#Fightfor15” DNC did with its campaign organizers was offer them a flat salary of $3,000 a month. They were treated as “exempt employees,” i.e. salaried employees who had to work any amount of hours to get their jobs done without overtime pay. The national DNC and state party organizations are all responsible to obey Federal labor laws and the laws within their states, some of which can be much more stringent than the Federal law regarding pay and overtime.
I’m not a labor lawyer but I have been involved in labor lawsuits, and have set up personnel policies for dozens of companies, and set up major, $multi-million programs for nonprofit organizations. Exempt employees must be performing “Executive, Administrative and Professional” duties. It doesn’t matter what size a company is, or what type of organization it is, including a political party.
There is no question that campaign organizers performing the duties described in the lawsuit are not Exempt from overtime provisions of the FLSA.
The DNC Labor Lawsuit is another case of the Democratic National Committee not only not obeying the laws championed by some of its most lauded former leaders — in this case, FDR and the first female Cabinet-level official, Labor Department’s Frances Perkins — who initiated the FLSA, the party acted in violation of Obama Administration rules meant to prevent or stop overtime, exempt employment and 1099 contractor abuses.
Salary Threshold
There is a salary threshold beyond which pay is too low for any employee to be called “Exempt” from overtime, and up until 2016, the amount was $23,660 a year, or the equivalent of slightly over $10/hour in full time hourly pay. At $3,000/month, the DNC Campaign organizers were making $17.30/hour if working a straight 40-hour workweek.
The DNC employee lawsuit has no more than two or three national or even regional articles about it, including Philly.com, but there are literally thousands of articles about the 2015 FLSA ruling that raised the $23,660 ceiling to more than $45,000 a year, which formally took effect December 1, 2016.
There were more than 8,000 successful FLSA overtime class action lawsuits filed in 2015 for violations exactly the same as those alleged in the DNC Labor Lawsuit, and more were anticipated during 2016. These employees could be owed more than twice or even three times their actual pay according to the law and thousands of other employers have been made to make similar restitution over many decades. Most people don’t file this type of claim unless they are no longer working for an employer; however, if they do while still employed, the law protects them in case the employer terminates them in retaliation.
And here’s the sad truth: I wouldn’t have classified the campaign workers as “Exempt” back when I was hiring people and setting salary schedules in 1987. I did over 180 business plans in the U.S., Canada and Mexico and never advised a company to pay an employee out of accordance with Federal law that’s been established since 1938. U.S. neighbors north and south also have labor laws that prohibit such abuses.
There’s no excuse for what the DNC did to their campaign workers in this case. Pennsylvania professional campaign organizer Neil Oxman told Philly.com that campaign workers had no right to expect overtime pay.
Oxman is noted for being active in Democratic races in Pennsylvania.
I know the argument DNC and the state parties will make about this pay issue. They will say “but these young people are exempt” and bleh bleh bleh what Neil Oxman said. “They are outside sales.”
Outside sales has to get commission. Neil.
How can an organization like this lead the “Fight for $15?”
And here’s the bonus round:
Much like the Clinton Foundation, the corporate Democratic National Committee isn’t up to the standards of ordinary for-profit businesses that use accounting systems, not Excel, and which obey Federal labor laws, not brag about breaking them.
Whoever expects the people who did all of the above plus lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump to “Fight for $15” should be prepared for having to “Fight for $5” any day now.
Unless a new, more professional, honest group somehow magically appears.
It’s Mother’s Day … I guess I do still believe in magic.
