A False Choice Between Time and Money

House Republicans would like us to think they’re family friendly. But their nearly party-line vote of 223-204 on the “Working Families Flexibility Act” is just the latest piece of GOP legislation that does the exact opposite of what its name suggests.

H.R. 1406 is an attack on the 40-hour work week. A revision of the decades-old “comp time” legislation, it claims that it would give employees the option of turning their overtime hours into paid time off for personal reason, so parents can attend soccer games or attend parent-teacher conferences. The reality is that it’s an excuse for employers not to pay workers overtime.

Economist Eileen Appelbaum explains:

The proposed legislation undermines the 40-hour work week that workers have long relied on to give them time to spend with their kids. The flexibility in this comp time bill would have employees working unpaid overtime hours beyond the 40-hour workweek and accruing as many as 160 hours of compensatory time. A low-paid worker making $10 an hour who accrued that much comp time in lieu of overtime pay would effectively give his or her employer an interest-free loan of $1,600 -- equal to a month's pay. That's a lot to ask of a worker making about $20,000 a year. Indeed, any worker who accrues 160 hours of comp time will in effect have loaned his or her employer a month's pay. This same arithmetic provides employers with a powerful incentive to increase workers' overtime hours. Instead of having to pay time-and-a-half wages when an hourly-paid employee works longer than the standard 40-hour work week, the employer incurs no financial cost at the time the extra hours are worked.

It’s no wonder that the National Partnership for Women and Families said the bill was “based on smoke and mirrors.”

Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.), sponsor of the bill, recently said, “I understand valuing time over cash payments.” Well, American workers understand a false choice when they see one.