For Immediate Release
Contact: Caren Benjamin
[email protected]
202-776-7700
Overtime Rule a Step Forward in Agenda Supporting Dignity of Work
NETWORK Calls for More Movement toward Living Wages, True Anti-Poverty Agenda
WASHINGTON, May 18, 2016 – NETWORK applauds the Department of Labor’s new rules expanding overtime eligibility and potentially raising wages for hundreds of thousands of workers in the U.S.
“Today’s announcement is a step toward mending the wage gap in our society,” said Sister Simone Campbell, SSS, executive director of NETWORK, a national organization of social justice advocates inspired by Catholic sisters. “Strengthening the overtime pay rules will reduce the exploitation of low wage workers and give them needed increase in pay.”
The expansion of overtime eligibility is an important step toward ensuring a living wage and, in doing so, affirming the dignity of all work and all workers. Catholic Social Justice teaches that a just wage is one in which workers can not only afford to meet their daily needs and expenses but also enjoy the fruits of their labor by spending time with their families and taking part in their communities.
Such a living wage is a step toward building an inclusive and sustainable economy, one that will not eventually collapse under the weight of inequality. An inclusive economy, one in which poverty is not treated as a disease that can simply be cured with safety net programs but rather a symptom of a larger structural imbalance to be righted through a broader and more just approach to workplace policy.
“This is one structural change that we need in order to make sure that workers have time with their families as well as just pay for long work hours,” Campbell continued. “Pope Francis calls us to create an economy of inclusion and this is a step forward towards justice. We at NETWORK are all for it.”
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NETWORK, advocates for justice inspired by Catholic sisters, educates, organizes, and lobbies for economic and social transformation. They have a more than 40-year track record of lobbying for critical federal programs that support those at the margins and prioritize the common good.