Class Labor Issues and Conflict Management

Your boss comes to you with concerns about what the upcoming overtime rule change will do to the company's bottom line, as there are several currently excluded / exempt employees that regularly work more than 40 hours in a week.  She floats a number of proposals for avoiding this new overtime liability.  First, she suggests assigned new titles to many of the front line employees to make it sound like their jobs are really important and/or high level positions, such as adding "manager" to many of their titles (even though they don't actually manage anyone).  None of these employees has ever been exempt. Then, she suggests sending out a memo to all employees telling them that the company has not authorized overtime for anyone, and so it will not pay anything in addition to regular salary. Any additional hours worked will be considered voluntary time, and not compensatory work time.  Finally, she suggests laying off a significant portion of the workforce in one of the company's main units and replacing the employees with an equal number of independent contractors.  She loves that the company can bring in these people to do the same work, but can avoid the expense of overtime and benefits.  She has asked for your opinion on these suggestions.