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#FlashbackFriday: New York Times Says “Workers Deserve a Choice”

 

Time. It’s something everyone seems to need more of. For many individuals, it’s difficult to balance the demands of work, family, and personal obligations. That’s why for years Congress has tried to give workers eligible for overtime pay a choice between comp time or cash wages.

This option has long been available to public-sector workers. But outdated federal rules prohibit private-sector workers from having the same flexibility. The Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017 (H.R. 1180) would eliminate this double standard. Unfortunately, some Democrats in Congress would rather side with powerful special interest groups than give workers the choice they deserve.

It’s the same old story we’ve seen time and again. The never-ending opposition by Big Labor and the Democrats to this positive reform was even rebuked by the New York Times editorial board back in 1997:

The “comp time” bill passed by the House gives workers the attractive option, impossible under current law, to take their compensation for overtime work in time off rather than extra pay. It might seem odd that Democrats would oppose a sensible idea that most workers say they want. But sensible or not, comp time is opposed by labor unions, which paid over $30 million during the fall campaign to guarantee Capitol Hill Democrats would do their bidding …

Under current law, workers must be paid one and a half times their hourly wage for every hour they work over 40 in a week. The Republicans would allow workers, at their discretion, to forgo higher wages and take their compensation in the form of one and a half hours of time off. The existing requirement for paid compensation might have made sense when it passed in 1938 — a time of widespread unemployment that put a mostly male work force at the mercy of employers.

Sixty years later, competition largely dictates how employers treat workers, and according to polls, female workers yearn for the opportunity to cash in their overtime for time at home. Comp-time options work well in the one place they are currently legal — for Federal, state and local government workers.

As Chairwoman Foxx said during the committee markup on the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017, “Progressives and the far-left are running out of excuses not to support this commonsense legislation.” It’s time for Democrats in Congress to join Republicans in providing more freedom and flexibility to working Americans.

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