Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1406, Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOXX. House Resolution 198 provides for a structured rule providing for consideration of H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013.
Madam Speaker, it's hard to raise a family and earn a living at the same time. The reality is that every hour you spend working to provide for your family is an hour you can't spend with your family, seeing your children off the first day of school, taking them to a doctor's appointment, or attending parent-teacher conferences. As a mother who worked while my daughter was growing up, I understand the firsthand struggles of working parents. That is why my colleagues and I have introduced H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act.
This commonsense legislation will allow private sector workers to choose paid time off instead of cash wages as compensation for working overtime, which is the same privilege that Federal, State, and local government employees have been able to choose for over 30 years.
The Working Families Flexibility Act is pro-family, pro-worker legislation that gives workers the flexibility to spend time with family, attend parent-teacher conferences, care for aging parents, or attend to other family needs that may arise.
If an employer and an employee agree on comp time, then the paid time off must be granted at time-and-a-half for each hour of overtime worked. Labor unions support flexible overtime compensation for their own members, and this benefit is already included in many public sector union collective bargaining agreements.
The flexible approach offered by this bill has worked for public sector employees since 1985. If the policy works for our public service employees, it will work for our private sector employees, as well. Fair is fair, Madam Speaker.
The bill maintains protections for workers to ensure that this new flexibility is not abused by making the decision to receive comp time completely voluntary and allows an employee to change his or her mind if he or she initially chooses comp time but later decides to receive cash wages for overtime. All existing protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act remain in effect under this legislation, and it is up to the employee when he or she decides to use accrued comp time. Additionally, an employee cannot be intimidated, coerced, or otherwise forced to accept comp time in lieu of cash wages for overtime.
The legislation also maintains all existing enforcement remedies for employees if an employer fails to uphold the agreement, and employers must provide 30 days' notice to employees if comp time will no longer be offered.
H.R. 1406 provides proper protection and flexibility for employees and will help American workers better balance the needs of family and the workplace. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the gentleman from Colorado.
Madam Speaker, this bill sounds good because it is good. This is the theme from our colleagues across the aisle: everything about the private sector is bad; everything about government is good. That is their constant theme. This bill allows voluntary participation by employees. It does not require things.
I would also like to point out to my colleague from across the aisle, who is very quick to point out any mistake that I might make, is we did not have an amendment from Representative Bishop in the Rules Committee yesterday. Representative Bishop's amendment was offered in the Education Committee, but was not offered in the Rules Committee yesterday.
I would also like to say that government employees do not get interest paid on the time that they eventually get paid for instead of comp time, so we are not setting up a double standard here. What we're trying to do is eliminate a double standard, again, that our colleagues across the aisle love to have--bash the private sector.
Madam Speaker, we live in the greatest country in the world, and what made us a great country? Look at the rest of the world. What's made us a great country is the rule of law, which means we believe everybody should be treated the same way. It's our capitalistic system which has worked wonderfully well for this country, and every other system has failed all across the world. We don't need to do much but to look at what is happening in the rest of the world and how sorry their economies are, and it's our Judeo-Christian underpinnings. Those are the things that I think have made us great, Madam Speaker, and this bill will allow us to give people who work in the private sector, which is part of what's made us such a great country, the same privileges that people get who work in the public sector.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would believe that the comments of my colleague from Connecticut would be a little more sincere if she would direct the issue of pay disparity to the White House. The White House needs to do something about pay disparity. If we had leaders who led by example, then the White House would straighten out the pay disparity that exists there.
Also, my colleagues don't seem to want to talk about the bill before us today because it is such commonsense legislation. They have no real arguments to offer about defeating it, so they want to distract the American people onto other issues.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
As my colleague from California knows, I am very fond of her and respect her a great deal; but I want to say that this bill is not a bad bill. This bill does not roll back the rights of workers at all.
And if the bill is so bad and what it does is give fairness to people in the private sector and it gives to the people in the private sector the same rights and privileges that people in the public sector have, then why are my colleagues not trying to roll back those rights for the public sector? It would make sense that all the horrible things they've said about this bill which apply to the public sector you would want to protect the public sector.
But that's not what my colleagues are doing. They're simply saying it isn't right to let the private sector employees have the same rights and privileges that public sector employees have. It doesn't make any sense for them to make that argument. It just doesn't make any sense to do that.
Mr. Speaker, the Working Families Flexibility Act makes it easier for American workers to juggle the needs of family and the workplace. That's what it accomplishes.
I want to urge the people watching this debate to read the bill. Unlike the thousand-page bill that came out that people have to ``wait until it passes'' before they understand what's in it, before we understand what's in it, this bill is basically 8 pages long. Any American can read this bill and understand it. So I would say to you, if you doubt what we are saying on our side of the aisle, read the bill. That is the best way for the American public to be informed.
Mr. Speaker, as we consider it, there are some things to keep in mind.
First, it in no way undermines longstanding essential worker safeguards or forces workers to give up overtime pay if that's how they choose to be compensated. It simply provides an additional level of flexibility that government workers already enjoy. I don't know how many more ways we can make that point, Mr. Speaker, but we will continue to do that.
Further, the bill does not allow employers to bully employees into picking comp time over cash payment. It provides new important safeguards to ensure that the choice to use comp time over cash wages is truly voluntary. Employees can change their minds and request overtime cash payment in lieu of unused comp time.
For employees represented by a labor organization, the labor organization and the employer must first reach an agreement to provide this benefit before the employee can choose to exercise it. For an employee who is not a member of a labor organization, the agreement is between the employer and the individual employee and must be entered into knowingly and voluntarily by the employee and may not be a condition of employment.
The bill does not change the 40-hour workweek or how overtime is currently calculated and accrued, and it does not affect comp time provisions regarding employees of Federal, State, or local governments.
Mr. Speaker, in fiscal year 2012, IRS employees accrued 246,450 hours of comp time in lieu of overtime pay. That amounts to 30,806 full 8-hour days. Employees at the Department of Labor accrued 51,097 hours of comp time, or 6,387 full 8-hour days. Employees at the Department of Education accrued 12,408 hours of comp time, or 1,551 full 8-hour days.
It's clear that Federal employees appreciate this flexibility. What is unclear is why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so hell-bent on denying private sector employees this same flexibility. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
We hear the word ``fairness'' from the other side of the aisle constantly. This bill is fair, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 1406 simply affords private sector employees the same flexibility that Federal, State, and local government employees have enjoyed for over 30 years. It is unconscionable to me that our colleagues would vote against this and say you should be a second-class citizen if you work in the private sector.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
A little while ago we had a debate about the pay in the White House. I have an article from the Daily Caller that I would like to enter into the Record, and I will quote briefly from the article. The article is dated January 15, 2013, posted by Caroline May:
While President Obama handily won the women's vote by 11 percentage points in November over Republican nominee Mitt Romney, his administration paid the women on his payroll less than his male employees last year.
A Daily Caller analysis of the administration's ``2012 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff'' shows that while women comprised about half of the 468 staffers--as the President touted during his press conference Monday--they also earned about 13 percent less, on average, than their male counterparts.
The median 2012 salary for female employees of the White House was $62,000; for men that number was $71,000.
The article ends with a quote from New York Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel. He, however, called Obama's failure to appoint more women and minorities to high-profile positions ``embarrassing as hell.''
``The questions I've heard are fair,'' RANGEL said January 10 on MSNBC. ``The record does speak for itself.''
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of this bill. I can't understand why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so opposed to fairness when fairness applies to the private sector.
I would like to point out to my colleague that we would have entertained amendments in the Rules Committee had they been germane or if they had not been withdrawn. As he well knows, being a member of the Rules Committee, the amendments that were introduced by his colleagues were withdrawn before the committee had an opportunity to consider the amendments or were ruled nongermane.
I also assume that, based on the comments our colleagues have made across the aisle, that because the rights and privileges that are given to public employees are so horrible that they cannot be extended to the private sector, that they will probably be introducing a bill to withdraw those rights and privileges because they're only hurting public employees, and our colleagues don't want to be hurting private sector employees.
Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are committed to providing more opportunities for more Americans and helping make life work for more families. This legislation is a great step in that direction.
The rule before us today provides for consideration of a bill that gives employees across the country the flexibility that they deserve so they can better manage the many daily challenges of family life. Whether the employee is a new parent who wishes to stay at home with a newborn, a proud aunt who wishes to attend her nephew's baseball game, or a son or daughter who wants to care for an elderly parent, America's private sector employees should be able to determine for themselves what to do with the overtime compensation that they have earned.
Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and the underlying bill.
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