Association of Washington Business (AWB) President Don Brunell has called upon Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to reject an attempt by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to block the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) process to revise the nation’s antiquated Fair Labor Standards Act.

“If the amendment to the Department’s appropriations bill passes, then DOL would have to stop the planned revision process because it would have no funds to continue,” Brunell said.

DOL wants to revise the outdated regulations, last substantially updated in 1949, with salary levels last increased in 1975. These vagueness of the regulations have become a cash cow for trial lawyers who routinely use them to sue employers.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 is the federal labor law establishing standards for minimum wage, overtime pay and child labor. The law also established an exemption from the Act’s overtime provisions for employees in certain professional, executive, administrative and outside sales employees.

Many of the terms used in the regulation, such as such as “straw boss,” “gang leaders” and “leg men,” are from a bygone era and have no applicability in the modern workplace. The outdated nature of the regulation makes it difficult for employers to determine who is entitled to overtime and who is not.

This has lead to a great deal of unnecessary litigation. In fact, FLSA class actions are now more prevalent in federal courts than civil rights actions.

Employers want clarity. Factory line workers, technicians, and other blue collar employees are entitled to overtime now and will be under the proposal. The gray area to which the DOL seeks to bring clarity are the vast number of white-collar jobs that have arisen in the new economy since these regulations were written a half-century ago.