S. 4 - Family Friendly Workplace Act
(Ashcroft (R) MO and 41 others)
The Administration strongly opposes S. 4, as reported by the Senate Labor and
Human Resources Committee, because it does not uphold three fundamental
principles: (1) real choice for workers; (2) real protection against employer
abuse; and (3) preservation of workers' rights. The President will veto S. 4
or any other compensatory time legislation that does not fulfill these
principles.
S. 4 purports to give working families greater flexibility. In reality, it
grants employers more rights and leaves working Americans and their families
worse off:
S. 4 fails to offer workers real choice. In particular, S. 4 would allow
an employer to unfairly pick and choose which employees are offered
compensatory time. Moreover, it would allow the employer to decide when
workers use their compensatory time-off by disapproving such time-off if the
employer claims it would "unduly disrupt" its operations -- even if a worker
needed the time off for family leave or medical emergencies. In addition, S. 4
would permit an employer to unilaterally "cash out" a worker's earned
compensatory time over 80 hours. These provisions do not guarantee real
choices to workers.
S. 4 fails to protect workers against potential abuse. At a time when
overtime is reaching an all-time high in some industries, S. 4 offers
inadequate protections against employer abuse, especially for vulnerable
workers and part-time, seasonal, and temporary employees, including garment and
construction workers. The bill also fails to prohibit employers from
substituting compensatory time-off for paid vacation or sick leave benefits.
It does not adequately safeguard workers when an employer goes bankrupt or out
of business: workers could lose up to six weeks of pay due to S. 4's
unreasonably high cap of 240 hours of bankable compensatory time. S. 4 also
lacks meaningful remedies when workers exercise their private right of action
against employers who penalize them for choosing overtime pay in lieu of
compensatory time.
S. 4 fails to preserve workers' rights. It effectively eliminates the
40-hour workweek by allowing employers to establish an 80-hour biweekly work
schedule or a flexible credit hour program that allows employers to pay
straight time pay for overtime work. That is money out of the employee's
pocket. It also ends the 60-year-old right to time and a half pay whenever an
employee works more than 40 hours a week, not just when the employer orders
it. In addition, workers who take compensatory time-off can be forced to work
extra hours in the same week even on the weekend without being paid time and a
half pay. This gives families less flexibility, not more. If compensatory
time legislation is truly to provide more flexibility to working families, it
must not be allowed to undermine the 40-hour workweek.
Finally, the Administration strongly believes that any legislation to authorize
compensatory time under the Fair Labor Standards Act should be linked to
expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Expanding the FMLA to
give working families greater flexibility to foster the education of their
children or provide elder care will go a long way toward achieving the stated
goals of S. 4.
