奥巴马政府昨日宣布了加班费新规
The Obama administration yesterday announced rules to ensure millions more workers are eligible for extra pay when they work overtime, handing a victory to unions.
奥巴马政府昨日宣布了新规，根据新规，又有数百万劳动者符合了加班时可获得加班费的条件。此举向工会奉送了一场胜利。
The Department of Labor rules will extend overtime protection to 4.2m Americans who are not eligible under federal law, in a move that the White House predicts will boost wages by $1.2bn a year.
依照美国劳工部(Department of Labor)的新规，420万根据联邦法律不符合条件的美国人将获得加班保护。美国白宫(White House)预测，此举将让美国劳动者的年工资收入增加12亿美元。
The rule will double the salary threshold to $47,476 per year under which most salaried workers are guaranteed overtime when working more than 40 hours a week. That is below the $50,400 level announced in a proposal from the administration last summer, but well above the current level of $23,660 a year, which has been unchanged for more than a decade.
劳工部新规将符合条件的年工资上限提高了一倍，至47476美元；根据新规，大多数工薪劳动者都符合在工作时间超出每周40小时后可领取加班费的条件。这个标准低于奥巴马政府在去年夏季的一份提议中宣布的50400万美元的水平，但远远高于当前的每年23660美元（当前标准已10年多没有变过了）。
The new threshold, which takes effect on December 1 2016, will be updated every three years, the White House said. The move was welcomed by Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, who called it a “major victory for working people that will improve the lives of millions of families”.
白宫表示，定于2016年12月1日生效的新标准，将每三年更新一次。此举受到劳联-产联(AFL-CIO)主席理查德•特拉姆卡(Richard Trumka)的欢迎。他称之为一场“劳动人民的重大胜利，将改善数百万家庭生活质量”。
However, some employers’ groups have warned that the reforms could have negative side-effects. David French, senior lobbyist for the National Retail Federation, said on the group’s website that the rules would block upward career mobility, hit businesses with administrative costs and fail to generate an increase in take-home earnings, with employers limiting hours or cutting base pay.
然而，一些雇主团体警告称，这项改革可能产生副作用。美国零售联合会(National Retail Federation)的资深游说人士大卫•弗伦奇(David French)在该团体的网站上表示，新规将切断员工向上发展的通道，增加企业的管理成本，并且考虑到雇主可以限制员工的工作时长或削减基础薪资，员工的实际收入将不会增加。
President Barack Obama in 2014 signed a memorandum instructing the Department of Labor to modernise the country’s overtime rules. Overtime eligibility has eroded over time because of changes in the law and the failure of the threshold to keep pace with inflation.
2014年，美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)签署了一份备忘录，指示劳工部更新美国关于劳动者加班的规定。由于法律变化，加上年工资标准未跟上通胀的步伐，符合加班费获得条件的人数随着时间推移越来越少。
The share of full-time workers qualifying for overtime based on their salaries has slid steadily from 62 per cent in 1975 to 7 per cent today. Unions have argued the current threshold is below the poverty line for a family of four.
工资水平符合加班费获得条件的全职劳动者的比例，已从1975年的62%持续下降到如今的7%。工会一直在说，当前的年工资标准低于四口之家的贫困线水平。
The overtime reform comes amid widespread frustration in the US population over subdued income growth in recent years. There have been tentative signs of rising wages in recent months, but average hourly earnings growth still remains well below the year-on-year rates of close to 3.5 per cent seen at the tail-end of the last decade.
美国推进加班费改革之际，美国民众普遍对近年来收入增长低迷感到沮丧。有初步迹象表明，近几个月工资水平正在上升，但平均时薪的增速仍远远低于上一个十年末期接近3.5%的同比增速。
Low-wage workers have been benefiting from increases in state and local minimum wages in some areas, as well as decisions by some big corporations to lift entry-level pay. However, efforts by Mr Obama to boost the federal minimum wage have faltered in Congress, leaving overtime one of the key methods available to him to lift earnings
在某些地区，低薪劳动者一直受益于州与当地最低工资水平的上升；一些大公司提高入门级岗位工资的决定也一直让低薪劳动者受益。然而，奥巴马提高联邦最低工资水平的努力在国会受挫，使得加班费成为他能借以提高劳动者收入的关键方法之一。
The Department of Labor said employers could respond to the new rules by either paying time-and-a-half for overtime, raising workers’ salaries above the new threshold, or limiting their hours to 40 a week.
劳工部表示，雇主可以用三种方式应对新规：支付1.5倍的加班费，把员工工资提高到新标准之上或者把员工每周工作时长限制在40个小时以内。
Ross Eisenbrey, vice-president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, said: “The new salary threshold will provide millions of workers with higher wages or more time with their families. It will also give hourly and part-time workers the opportunity to pick up work that might have otherwise been done during overtime by their full-time, salaried colleagues.”
立场偏左的智库经济政策研究所(Economic Policy Institute)的副所长罗斯•艾森布里(Ross Eisenbrey)说：“新的工资标准将让数百万工人获得更高的收入，或者有更多时间跟家人相处。这也将让小时工和兼职工有机会获得更多工作，这些工作原本可能是全职的工薪劳动者在加班时做的。”
