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Military stint may cost Boeing workers overtime

By Kirstin Downey
The Washington Post

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Boeing, the nation's largest aircraft manufacturer, wrote the Labor Department in June, saying it "strongly supports" the revisions, particularly one that would classify employees who had received military training as "learned experts" who could lose access to overtime pay.

"Boeing observes that many of its most skilled technical workers received a significant portion of their knowledge and training outside the university classroom, typically in a branch of the military service, where through a combination of classroom training and field experience they become 'learned experts' on very sophisticated aerospace products or services," wrote Cheryl Russell, Boeing's director of federal affairs. "Boeing thus supports the department's focus on the knowledge used by the employee in performing her job, rather than the source of the knowledge or skill."

The overtime-pay revisions have become a contentious political issue in recent weeks, with Democrats in Congress saying they will cost millions of workers extra compensation. Under federal law, workers who are "learned professionals" are presumed to have control of their own time and are exempt from receiving overtime pay. In proposing changes in the rules last spring, the department said in the Federal Register that "the exemption is also available to employees in such professions who have substantially the same knowledge as the degreed employees, but who have attained such knowledge through a combination of work experience, training in the armed forces, attending a technical school, attending a community college or other intellectual instruction."

Some veterans and workers groups have expressed concern about such an interpretation.

Victoria Lipnic, assistant secretary of labor for employment standards, said the Labor Department reference to military training was just an attempt to clarify which workers must receive overtime pay under existing rules and case law.

Boeing spokeswoman Amanda Landers said yesterday that the company thinks "you should look at all the knowledge and skills" an employee has in deciding workers' employment status.

"There are tons of Boeing employees who are retired Air Force, retired Navy," said Cynthia Cole, a Boeing engineer in Seattle who has studied the proposed regulations. "They're told go into the Air Force, and get training, and it'll make you good to go get a job, and now they're told, 'Oh, you got the job, but we'll take away your overtime (pay) because you were in the military.' It's a Catch-22."

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