“The Labor Department doesn’t give a damn.”

By: Conner Drigotas

A Hog in Sunday School

Speaking from his home office to discuss his ongoing lawsuit, Robert Mayfield is fired up:

“The Labor Department doesn’t know any more about the business world and management than a hog does about Sunday school,” he exclaims, “If this is allowed to continue, it’s going to tie the hands of every business in the country.”

He’s referring to changes made by Department of Labor (DOL) officials whom he believes are overstepping their authority by dictating salary level requirements for exempt employees. The escalating interference impacts managers at each of his thirteen Dairy Queen franchise locations, as well as his Wally’s Burger Express, all of which are in the Austin, Texas, area.

Mayfield is concerned about the impact of turning his salaried management team into hourly employees, an undesirable action that will become necessary if the DOL policy goes into effect as scheduled in January 2025. It would, as he sees it, undermine the very nature of their work. “I can guarantee you this. If we put our management back on hourly, they will be hurt.” He says, “Dammit, these people have worked all their lives to get up to the level they are. They want to be in charge. They want to be in management. The Labor Department doesn’t give a damn.”

The current policy, enacted in 2019, is built on a 1938 law that has been used by Labor Secretaries to claim authority over salary levels, not just “to clarify the duties that executive, administrative, or professional (“EAP”) employees must perform to be classified as exempt” which is the extent of what Mayfield’s legal team argues is permissible. “Congress cannot give the Secretary an unbridled power to decide what salaries employers should pay their exempt employees.”

In other words, DOL officials are inappropriately defining what it means to be a manager and trying to set pay limits without understanding the consequences.

Mayfield had been writing letters to DOL officials since 2004, shortly after a similar mandate was enacted, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He says he essentially wrote, “You guys [DOL officials] don’t know what you’re doing,” but there was no response. “No one said anything, they didn’t care what we thought.”

So, when the opportunity came to file a lawsuit and ensure his voice was heard, Robert jumped at the opportunity.

“That’s the difference between being a citizen and a subject,” he says, “I wanted to participate and say this is wrong. This is going to hurt someone, you [DOL officials] need to hear another side.”

Hobson’s Choice

Mayfield’s lawsuit alleges that DOL officials have left him with a “Hobson’s Choice,” a so-called free choice where only one thing is actually offered. In the initial complaint, filed in August 2022, Mayfield’s legal team stated that Robert “must either make difficult restructuring decisions that will hurt some of his managers by making them ineligible for bonuses, or he must pay higher salaries knowing that this will reduce bonuses available to his management team.”

In other words, by forcing employers to change the way they do business, DOL officials are hurting the very people they set out to support and, according to Mayfield’s legal arguments, stepping in where they are neither wanted nor needed.

“It is an infestation that is taking place,” Mayfield says, clearly frustrated, “The Labor Department doesn’t give a damn. They think they are smarter than everybody else… that’s the kind of rot that’s out there.”

Mayfield believes that officials are overlooking, or perhaps outright ignoring, basic leadership principles, and likens successfully managing a business to coaching.

“I think everyone can think of it like a basketball coach.” He says, “Do they get paid by the hour? No. There’s a reason for that. They get paid a salary and they get better pay or bonuses based on how good they do. Same thing with management.”

He goes on to speak to the heart of the legal challenge, which demands that Congress fulfill its responsibility as an accountable elected body. “What I don’t like to see, what no American should like to see is laws being made by administrative agencies.”

It makes sense, do you want an unaccountable bureaucrat interfering in your life?

Mayfield also wonders why officials would spend so much time and money defending a policy that does so much damage. “Who has even thought this through?” he asks, “You guys must be crazy. I just want to say that to the Labor Department. How’s this going to work? Do you believe in management at all?”

Agency officials may believe they are stepping in to improve human lives, they say as much in their filings, but their effort is reminiscent of the Shel Silverstein poem about the nature of helping others, which concludes:

“some kind of help is the kind of help

That helping's all about

And some kind of help is the kind of help

We all can do without.”

Double Standard

Mayfield, his legal team, and his work family of talented managers are up against a deadline. Their lawsuit has already stretched on for two years, and there are now only a few months until the new rule goes into effect.

As they fight this years-long legal battle while simultaneously preparing for the worst, there is also the frustration of special treatment for government employees. A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction preventing the final rule from being implemented or enforced against the State of Texas in its capacity as an employer. In other words, Texas State employees have been exempted from following the same rules that will force Mayfield to upend the lives of more than a dozen of his key managers. “I can’t see a difference between Texas state employees and Dairy Queen employees,” Mayfield says.

As of publication, Mayfield, his legal team, and his management team are in limbo. Respect America first interviewed Mayfield and his attorney shortly after Chevron was overturned but before their hearing in front of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on August 7, 2024.

You can listen to the audio of the August 7, 2024, hearing, here: https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/OralArgRecordings/23/23-50724_8-7-2024.mp3

In his interview with Respect America, Mayfield’s Attorney, Luke Wake, says Chevron being overturned is “the death knell for the Department of Labor here,” but as of publication, a decision has yet to be rendered by the Appeals Court.

No matter how the Fifth Circuit rules, there is a plan in place to further stay the harm. “If we receive an adverse decision, absolutely, the plan is to bring a certiorari petition to the Supreme Court,” Attorney Wake says, “Frankly, we think we should win in the Fifth Circuit, and we would be more than happy to be a respondent when the Department of Justice asks the Supreme Court to take the case.”

Robert smiles, hearing these words, and adds: “That’s why I signed up with them. I have some good help, and I think I’m ready. I’ll do what I need to do.”