House OKs Bill Allowing Time Off in Lieu of Pay

The House narrowly adopted a measure Wednesday that would allow workers and private-sector employers for the first time to negotiate time off in lieu of overtime pay, a bill that Republicans touted as showing their commitment to working families.

President Clinton, however, has suggested that he would veto the measure if it is sent to him in its current form. Many Democrats and their union allies argued that the bill would permit businesses to cajole employees into working extra hours without extra pay.

The legislation, which would amend a landmark labor law in place since 1938 that requires overtime pay for most private-sector employees who work more than 40 hours a week, is the centerpiece of a GOP effort to compete with the Clinton administration on “family-friendly” initiatives.

A similar measure is coming before the Senate in April. The bill’s prospects are uncertain there but the Senate’s GOP leadership has tagged the measure as a priority for passage.

After Wednesday’s vote, lawmakers on both sides of the issue predicted that, when the bill is taken up in the Senate, the administration would push for stronger worker protections that would avert a veto.

House passage of the Working Families Flexibility Act came in a 222-210 vote, largely along party lines. And the debate demonstrated the evolving nature of workplace issues.

House Republicans contended that the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act--passed when men comprised the vast majority of the work force and designed to protect employees from exploitation--does not take account of the needs of contemporary working women who are juggling family responsibilities with job demands in greater numbers than ever. They pointed to polls showing that three in four Americans would welcome a choice between paid time off and cash for accumulated overtime--an option not permitted for private-sector employees under current law.

“Fortunately for American families, help is on the way,” said Rep. Tillie Fowler of Florida, one of several Republican women who pushed the GOP leadership to make the measure a top priority in the 105th Congress. “Let’s bring labor law into the present and give working parents a break.”

But despite GOP efforts to make the measure more palatable to labor organizations, the bill was excoriated Wednesday by unions and their congressional allies.

Foes charged that the measure would give employers a powerful new tool to cut labor costs by pressuring workers to accept time off instead of overtime pay. The unions also fear that the House bill, and a broader Senate bill that would allow negotiated changes in workers’ schedules, would erode the standard 40-hour workweek that has become the benchmark of U.S. pay scales.

“This bill is going to actually repeal Saturdays and Sundays,” charged Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) on the House floor Wednesday. “How could that possibly be family friendly?”

In a statement after the vote, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney acknowledged that working families need more flexibility but said that the House bill “does nothing to prevent an employer from discriminating--in hiring or in the award of overtime--against those employees who want overtime compensation.”

“This is the wrong direction for Congress to go at a time when American workers need more--not less--protection,” Sweeney said Wednesday.

Critics of the House bill said that those who make overtime pay represent a population of workers who are particularly vulnerable to coercion. Two in three workers who earned overtime pay last year work in jobs that pay less than $10 per hour, surveys show.

About 60% of U.S. workers are now covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Public sector employees already have the choice of choosing compensatory time instead of overtime pay.

Under the bill, employers could offer their workers a choice of 1 1/2 hours of cash wages or 1 1/2 hours of paid time off for every hour worked over 40 hours in a seven-day period. Beyond 160 hours of accrued compensatory time, the employer would have to pay cash wages for additional overtime worked.

Clinton, who has advanced a competing proposal, campaigned widely last year on family and work issues and has called on Congress to pass legislation that would give working families additional flexibility.

But the president, who had the strong backing of unions in his reelection bid, has called the GOP measure unacceptable because it does not provide workers with sufficient protection. The White House proposal would extend an existing law--the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act--to allow workers to take unpaid leave to attend school functions of their children or medical appointments of family members.

But Republicans on Wednesday sought to portray Democratic opponents as captives of organized labor who let special interests stand in the way of common-sense reform. Countering charges that workers could be strong-armed by bosses under the measure, backers pointed to civil liabilities that employers would face if they are found to have coerced employees into accepting one form of payment over another.