The New York Times reported this morning that President Obama will ask the United States Department of Labor to revamp its regulations on the so-called “white collar” exemptions to the federal overtime laws.

Specifically, he will direct the DOL “to require overtime pay for several million additional fast-food managers, loan officers, computer technicians and others whom many businesses currently classify as ‘executive or professional’ employees.

The article also suggests that “he will try to change rules that allow employers to define which workers are exempt from receiving overtime based on the kind of work they perform. Under current rules, if an employer declares that an employee’s primary responsibility is executive, such as overseeing a cleanup crew, then that worker can be exempted from overtime.”

As of mid-morning, the order was still not available on the White House’s website but you can check here. 

However, based on the article, it seems that the executive and professional employee exemption would be most directly impacted, but it is unclear what the impact would be on the administrative exemption.

But before you start throwing out your position descriptions just yet, realize that the President’s direction is just the first step in a process, not the last.

The regulations still need to be drafted, proposed and then adopted by the United States Department of Labor. It is certainly possible that further revisions will occur during that process.  The timing of this is still unclear.

For employers in Connecticut, understand that if these new proposals do come into effect, it would provide a new “floor” for wage & hour laws in Connecticut and many employers would have to adopt them, even though Connecticut’s own rules would be different.  As I’ve noted before, when federal law provides more protection to employees than state law, federal law will control. (The vice versa also applies too.)

However, this suggests the most significant change we’ve seen in the wage and hour area in a decade and could potentially open up a new front on the wage & hour class action battles.

So stay tuned.