With so much attention being paid to the competing demands of work and family care responsibilities, workers could soon have the option of taking time off in lieu of being paid overtime. Congress is considering a proposed bill (HR 1180), called the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017, which would allow hourly workers to earn one-and-a-half hours of compensatory time (“comp time”) for each overtime hour worked instead of receiving time-and-a-half pay. The proposed law has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and is now up for consideration by the U.S. Senate.
The Trade-off
The Working Families bill has been the subject of much critical debate. Proponents of the bill assert that comp time is an optional arrangement that offers employees more choice and flexibility in their schedules. Indeed, a recent survey indicates that workers actually favor time off instead of overtime. The trade off is that it’s cheaper for employers to provide comp time than it is to pay overtime wages. The bill does this by allowing employers to defer paying overtime for unused comp time, resulting in a gain to the employer.
Other conditions contained in the bill include:
- Only employees that have worked for their employer for at least a year and have worked 1,000 hours would be eligible for comp time.
- Both the employer and employee must voluntarily agree to the comp time arrangement before the overtime hours are worked.
- Accrual of comp time would be limited to 160 hours annually.
- Employees could “cash in” unused comp time upon 30 days notice to the employer.
- An employer could pay out overtime whenever unused comp time exceeds 80 hours, upon 30 days notice to the employee.
- Workers would be able to use accrued comp time within a reasonable period after requesting it, provided it would not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer.
- An employee would be able to opt out of the comp time arrangement at any time.
- An employer would be able to discontinue its policy of offering comp time upon 30 days notice to its employees.
- All employers would be required to post a revised Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (Minimum Wage) posting to inform employees of the comp time provisions.
Outlook
A number of issues are likely to defeat the bill. For example, the bill doesn’t give workers any more personal time. Actually, employees would be working extra hours in exchange for comp time. As a practical matter, an employer would still be obligated to pay overtime as required by state law. As it stands now, nothing prevents an employer from offering paid sick days, family leave or unpaid time off instead of comp time. In fact, many of these protections already exist in state law and are currently the subject of other pending federal bills that might be more effective at providing employees with work-life balance.