Workers to get overtime boost starting during holidays

Unions and worker advocacy groups praised the move as helping to lift the stagnant wages of workers who have been working beyond 40 hours a week without additional compensation.

"Overtime abuse happens with alarming frequency throughout the economy and especially in low-wage sectors such as fast food, retail and other service industries," said Christine Owens, executive director of National Employment Law Project, a think tank aligned with labor unions and workers' rights groups that supported the measure.

To avoid the rules, companies will change some workers to hourly status (which guarantees overtime) and cause those workers to "lose much of the flexibility and upward mobility they value," said the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which includes Coca-Cola, J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Target, Home Depot and Dollar General.

The measure was also opposed by The Business Council of New York, which last fall told federal labor officials that workers who gain overtime will "have less workplace autonomy and fewer opportunities for flexible work arrangements, career training and advancement than their colleagues who are exempt."

Another industry group, Associated Builders and Contractors, said increased overtime will "rob employers of needed flexibility and employees of career advancement avenues, and it will have a disruptive effect on the construction industry as a whole."