Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in opposition to this legislation, which, again, is no stranger, sadly, to this Congress. This is the fifth time that the majority party has introduced it, going back to 1997; and each time, the huge flaws in this legislation have resulted in its complete collapse in terms of getting anything close to real support through both Chambers and through the executive branch. And once again, it doesn't deserve that support in this case.
Despite the representations made in its title, that it promotes workers' flexibility, that it gives workers choice, the fact of the matter is, a closer examination of the bill shows the opposite is true.
The better way to describe this bill is the More Work, Pay Less bill because what it does is take the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which created a bright line to protect people's right to a 40-hour work week, and make sure that that next hour after 40 hours is paid for with the time-and-a-half of wages. And, again, that created the weekend in America. That created the time off that families have taken for granted as middle class Americans for decades.
What this bill does is it blurs that line; it creates total chaos in terms of trying to come up with a system to set up ground rules with a case-by-case contract, written contract, that's mandated by the language of the bill, and then leaves it to the enforcement of State Labor Departments Wage and Hours Divisions, which are totally incapable of going into the tens of thousands of workplaces all across America and trying to figure out whether or not, in fact, the rules have been followed.
A closer examination of the bill shows, on page 8 of the bill, in lines 7-10, that, in fact, all these representations that the worker gets to choose are, in fact, not correct. At the end of the day, the employer has the right to veto any comp time that this bill has allowed to accrue over any period of time. So the notion that somehow a person has that choice to accumulate comp time and then be able to use it for a family vacation, or a family emergency, in fact, does not meet the actual plain language of the bill that is before us today.
And that is why organizations that represent working families, organizations that represent women, organizations that have been part of employment law for years and years and years in this country have resoundingly come out in opposition to this legislation. Over 160 various organizations of every stripe representing religious groups, women's groups, labor groups, groups that, again, deal with employment law have basically looked at this legislation for the fifth time and given it thumbs down.
The fact is we should do that. There's no question, however, that workers do, in fact, need more help in terms of making sure that the wages that have stagnated over the last three decades get more support. And families, again, are strained by the fact that those stagnating wages have required second jobs and multiple spouses in the workforce.
But the fact is that there are much better solutions than this legislation, the More Work Pay Less Act. In fact, what we should do is set up a standard for paid sick leave in this country so that a single parent waking up with a child whose temperature is over 100 degrees doesn't feel that they have no choice in terms of how to deal with that situation, that they have some guaranteed opportunity without losing the pay that they need to put food on the table or put gas in the tank, that they, in fact, have that choice which so many of us here as Members of Congress and our staffs certainly take for granted. We should apply the same standards in terms of sick pay that we enjoy to the working people of this country.
This bill doesn't do it. This bill does not meet that test. Again, it sets up a system that is completely unworkable and unenforceable. It butchers the Fair Labor Standards Act's bright line that has protected the American weekend for decades and decades in this country, and in the name of workplace flexibility, in fact, tips the scales of power within the American workforce, once again against the worker, against the employee, who basically for far too long has suffered in this economy.
We need better solutions. This is not the bill.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, as somebody who was a private sector small employer for over 25 years, I just have to say that today, under existing law, employers already have the flexibility to give workers paid time off. The only new flexibility this bill gives is flexibility for employers to not pay people overtime. The fact is employers have that choice to give their workers paid time off.
With that, I would now like to yield 3 minutes to the esteemed chairman of our committee, who has led the fight for working families for over 30 years in this Congress, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, again, as someone who was a private sector employer for over 25 years, there is nothing under existing law that prevents an employer from giving an employee paid time off. I did it many times.
Now it is my privilege to yield 1 minute to my colleague from the State of Florida, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We've probably reached the point where enough has been said where the full 4 1/2 minutes maybe isn't necessary, but again, I would just like to reiterate a few points. And again, as somebody who was an employer in the private sector for over 20 years, and, again, the notion that somehow existing labor law makes it impossible for employers to respond to their staff's family emergencies, to vacations is really just a myth.
The fact of the matter is that over the last 75 years under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which protects the 40-hour workweek, employers in tens of thousands of workplaces all across America have always made accommodations for their staffs with paid time. What is different about this bill is it's basically tying that flexibility to sacrificing your right under the Fair Labor Standards Act to time and a half for every hour earned over 40 hours. Given the fact that we're living in a time right now where the median income of this country has basically been as flat as a pancake for the last 30 years, that is basically tipping the scales once again against working families in an unacceptable fashion.
If you read this bill closely, you have to execute a written agreement every time you want to set up a comp time arrangement. Can you imagine small employers out there, basically, and their workers have to sit down and write like a mini labor agreement every time they want to come up with one of these arrangements? It doesn't allow for emergencies when you have a system like that.
The enforcement mechanism, which would be through the State Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division--if anybody has ever dealt with them before, they know that is mission impossible. There is no way that that unit--which, again, today benefits from a bright line system where you just check the payroll hours. If you hit 40 hours, you've got to pay the time and a half. Nobody has the time to go through and examine that agreement to see if it was free and voluntary and whether or not the exercise of comp time was done in accordance with it. You're basically creating a labor relations board in every State, in every workplace across America.
Careful what you wish for as employers if you read this bill closer.
But the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, it does not empower employees or workers in terms of giving them the ability to basically support their family and have time to deal with the important family issues, whether it's the birth of a child, making sure you're there on important school dates, or making sure that they're there when they're ill or in need of family and parental assistance.
The fact of the matter is paid sick time is the way that you do that. That's the way you empower people. And that is what exists in the public sector. That's why comp time works in the public sector. Paid sick time is something that is part of every collective bargaining agreement in all 50 States in the public sector.
Small employers, is that what the majority really wants to impose on every private employer in this country?
The fact of the matter is that we need to scrap this bill which is before us for the fifth time since 1996 and go back and have a real dialogue in a real bipartisan collaboration in terms of coming up with real solutions for working families.
I actually am an optimist and believe we can do that. I respect the chairman. I respect my chairman of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. But the fact is we can do far better than this recycled, rehashed bill which, again, has been rejected by over 160 organizations which represent working families and women.
Again, let's vote this bill down, go back, and as a real body, deliberative body, come up with a better solution for working families.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I just want to again recognize my colleague's hard work. He is a person that I respect and admire greatly.
Again, I do not oppose the amendment. It's hard to oppose a GAO study of almost anything because the more we know and the more we learn, it's always a good thing. However, what I would say, just in observation, in passing, is that if you look at the scope of the study, which is to basically look at actual adjudicated complaints before the Secretary of Labor, and looking again at the scope of the U.S. economy in the private sector, the fact of the matter is it is not going to be a very accurate picture really in terms of the operation of this bill--again, an attempt albeit, but nonetheless not something that I think is really going to give us a very accurate picture in terms of all of the day-to-day sort of conflicts. Blurring the lines of the Fair Labor Standards Act and creating an almost chaotic system of executing written agreements in every instance where a person wants to negotiate an overtime comp arrangement really, I think, is even beyond the scope and great powers of the Government Accountability Office--which does do great work.
Because, again, will this study tell us how many workers were fired or discriminated against for their choices? No. Because there is no right to reinstatement or rescheduling under this bill. Will this study tell us how many times a worker was denied the precise day he or she asked for? No. Because the bill provides no right to use comp time on that specific day.
I want to go back to that point. If you go to page 8 of the bill, use of comp time is, again, under the veto power of the employer. The notion that somehow employees have unilateral choice or power over using that comp time is not the way this bill is written.
As far as the public sector is concerned, again, in all of those instances you have an elaborate grievance system which exists at State government levels, city government levels, which doesn't exist in the private sector. And it certainly doesn't exist in the Department of Labor's Wage and Hours Division--which, again, Mrs. Roby and I, in all of our back and forth, fleshed out the fact that that ultimately is where complaints would go and reside.
So, again, a GAO study is fine, and I'm certainly going to join the gentleman in supporting his amendment, but this does not fix a flawed bill. Once we get past this amendment, I think all of the arguments that you've heard over the last hour or so in opposition to the bill still trump any benefit that Mr. Gibson's good-faith amendment brings to the bill.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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