The Frances Perkins Building of the U.S. Department of Labor headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Ed Brown)
The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) is celebrating a significant legal victory for travel advisors across the country after a federal court ruled against the Department of Labor's (DOL) controversial final rule on overtime.
Last week, the federal district court hearing the case of State of Texas v. U.S. Department of Labor, et al. issued an order invalidating the DOL's stance, arguing that the agency exceeded its authority in issuing the rule.
ASTA strongly opposed the rule—which increased the minimum salary for exempt workers to $43,888 beginning on July 1, 2024, and jumping to $58,656, effective January 1, 2025—as early as the draft phase.
As a result of the court's ruling, the minimum salary threshold for overtime-exempt workers reverts to the 2019 level of $35,568. Meanwhile, the threshold for highly compensated employees returns to $107,432.
In comments submitted last year, ASTA's Peter Lobasso, Senior Vice President & General Counsel noted that DOL lacked "the statutory authority to affect...updates to the salary level outside of the notice-and-comment rulemaking process prescribed under the Administrative Procedure Act."
While the Biden administration could appeal the decision to the Fifth Circuit, ASTA believes that it's very unlikely that the incoming Trump administration would continue to defend the final rule, citing a similar situation at the tail-end of the Obama administration in 2016.
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