Bill Would Help Stop Part-Timers Being Treated as 2nd-Class Citizens

It’s a common refrain--part-time workers don’t get any respect. More important, they often don’t get any pension, health benefits or unemployment compensation either.

“Many employers regard part-timers as second-class workers, rather than bona fide members of the work force who have special skills and experiences to offer,” Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) says.

Schroeder, chairman of the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, recently introduced legislation to give part-time workers equity in the workplace. Called the Part-time and Temporary Workers Protection Act (HR 3793), it would require the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics to gather additional information about part-time and other contingency workers.

A recent study by the General Accounting Office found that much of the information about part-time workers seems to fall through the cracks. Schroeder wants to know how much of the work force is part-timers, why people choose to work part time and what the long-term impact of part-time work will be on the workers themselves. She also wants to know about the impact of part-timers on Social Security and pension benefits and the overall economy.

In addition, the bill would require employers who offer health insurance to full-time employees to also offer it to part-time and temporary workers on a pro-rata basis. Workers would not be disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation if they seek a part-time rather than full-time job.

“We definitely support this legislation that would require health care benefits for part-time and temporary workers as a step in the right direction,” said Barbara Otto of 9 to 5 The National Assn. of Working Women. “We hear stories all the time about full-time employees pushed down to 37 hours a week to make them part time so that their employers will no longer have to pay benefits. Or stories about temporary workers who actually work 40 to 60 hours a week, but because they don’t stay with one company for all those hours, they don’t get any benefits.”

A recent survey by Hewitt Associates found that although 93% of employers offer medical benefits to full-time employees, the figure drops to 73% for employees working 30 hours a week and 20% for those working 20 hours a week. And a recent General Accounting Office study found that part-time workers earn 38% less per hour than comparably employed full-time workers.

“These numbers should not necessarily lead us to the conclusion that there should be fewer part-time jobs,” Schroeder says. “Three-quarters of part-time workers are voluntarily employed in that capacity. But because contingent workers are a growing segment of the labor force, we certainly cannot afford to abandon these workers, whether they choose to work part time voluntarily or not.”

Congressional staff members expect job protections and other benefits for part-time workers to be an important issue in Congress next year.

Some Tax Credits Saved at Last Minute

With no tax bill on which to hitch a ride through Congress this year, a dozen popular tax breaks, including several that are important to business, were saved from extinction by a last-minute reprieve--but only for six months.

Among the tax breaks continued by Congress before the Thanksgiving recess were subsidies for investing in low-income housing, a 25% deduction for health care costs for self-employed workers and a $2,400 credit for businesses hiring new disadvantaged workers.

Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, says each of the 12 tax breaks will be examined individually by his committee before June 30. Rostenkowski has indicated that he is not enamored with most of the credits, which may doom some.

The tax-writing committees of the House and Senate agreed to the six-month extension and the measures passed with little opposition on the floor of each body. The agreement was a last-ditch effort to save the tax breaks, which have broad appeal to business and various other interest groups.

Such credits have always traveled as a group, gaining political strength in unity and attaching themselves to a major tax bill. Because Congress has not considered a tax bill this year, the credits were left to stand alone.

Tough fights are expected next year to save some of them, but Rostenkowski’s support for two virtually assures a longer life. His favorites are the tax credit for investing in building or rehabilitating low-income rental housing and the health care deduction for the self-employed.

“Of the 175,000 multifamily housing units that will be built in 1991, 60,000 will have been financed under the low-income tax credit,” said Jay Shackford, chief spokesman here for the National Assn. of Home Builders. “The market is already in the tank. If you take away the tax credit, it will be crippling.”

Still, the last-minute maneuvers necessary to extend the tax breaks underline longstanding questions about the effectiveness and efficiency of the year-by-year approach to these credits. Many experts are calling for their abolition in favor of a new mechanism to pay for those breaks deemed most worthwhile.

“It is not wise to put these credits off time and time again,” said Eugene Steuerly, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. “The answer is to find something on which people can plan. Months and years are needed to plan things like a low-income housing project. The uncertainty of the tax credit actually increases planning costs and weakens the impact of the credit.”