[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1115-H1131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                WORKING FAMILIES FLEXIBILITY ACT OF 1997

  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on 
Rules, I call up House Resolution 99 and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                               H. Res. 99

       Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 1(b) of rule 
     XXIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 1) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 
     1938 to provide compensatory time for employees in the 
     private sector. The first reading of the bill shall be 
     dispensed with. General debate shall be confined to the bill 
     and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled 
     by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee 
     on Education and the Workforce. After general debate the bill 
     shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. 
     It shall be in order to consider as an original bill for the 
     purpose of amendment under the five-minute rule the amendment 
     in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on 
     Education and the Workforce now printed in the bill. The 
     committee amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be 
     considered as read. No amendment shall be in order except 
     those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules 
     accompanying this resolution. Each amendment may be 
     considered only in the order printed in the report, may be 
     offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be 
     considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified 
     in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent 
     and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall 
     not be subject to a demand for division of the question in 
     the House or in the Committee of the Whole. An amendment 
     designated to be offered by the chairman of the Committee on 
     Education and the Workforce or his designee may be offered en 
     bloc with one or more other such amendments. At the 
     conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the 
     Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with 
     such amendments as may have been adopted. Any Member may 
     demand a separate vote in the House on any amendment adopted 
     in the Committee of the Whole to the bill or to the committee 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute. The previous 
     question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and 
     amendments thereto to final passage without intervening 
     motion except one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Pryce] is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I 
yield the customary 30 minutes to the very distinguished ranking member 
of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Moakley], pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 99 is a fair and balanced rule 
providing for the consideration of H.R. 1, the Working Families 
Flexibility Act, also known as the comp time bill. The rule provides 
for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided between the chairman and 
ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce. The rule makes in order an amendment in the nature of a 
substitute from the Committee on Education and the Workforce now 
printed in the bill as original text for amendment purposes.
  The rule first makes in order those amendments printed in the 
Committee on Rules report accompanying this resolution. Briefly, they 
include a set of amendments to be offered by the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], the chairman, or a designee that would, 
among other changes, sunset the entire bill after 5 years.
  The Goodling amendment would also require an employee to have worked 
at least 1,000 hours in a period of continuous employment for a 
specific employer in the 12 months prior to the time when the employee 
agrees to a comptime arrangement.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a very important addition to the bill that I 
believe carefully addresses concerns that have been voiced by those in 
the construction and seasonal industries. I strongly urge its support 
on the floor later today.
  There is also an amendment by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] 
which would exempt certain lower wage workers from the bill and an 
amendment in the nature of a substitute to be offered by the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Miller]. Under the rule, these amendments shall be 
considered in the order specified, shall

[[Page H1116]]

be considered as read, shall not be subject to further amendment and 
shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question.
  Debate time for each amendment is also prescribed in the report so 
that the House can work its will in a timely and responsible manner.
  Last week, the chairman of the Committee on Rules [Mr. Solomon] sent 
a ``Dear Colleague'' letter explaining the amendment process for this 
legislation. Members who wished to offer an amendment to H.R. 1 were to 
submit their proposals to the Committee on Rules for our review by noon 
on Monday, a reasonable request given the complexity of the underlying 
issue. A total of six amendments were filed, and every last one of them 
has been made in order under this rule.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides for one motion to recommit 
with or without instructions which will give the minority one final 
chance to offer any amendment that complies with the standing rules of 
the House.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1 is probably one of the most family friendly and 
employee friendly bills to come to the floor of the House in a long, 
long time. It is timely, commonsense legislation designed to give 
working families a much-needed option in balancing their busy work and 
family schedules, and I am pleased that our leadership has made passage 
of this a high priority.
  As our colleagues know, the bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards 
Act to allow that but not require an employer to offer employees the 
option of choosing overtime pay in the form of compensatory time off 
rather than cash wages. Employees of State and local governments have 
enjoyed this option for more than a decade, and H.R. 1 would simply 
extend this option to the private sector.
  Offering the choice between taking overtime pay or compensatory time 
off will afford working families the added flexibility they often need 
to meet the increasingly competing demands of the home and the 
workplace. For many employees with families, enactment of this 
legislation will mean a parent can leave work a little earlier to 
attend a child's school play or a son or daughter can take time off 
from work to care for an elderly parent.
  It does not mean, as some opponents of the bill would have us 
believe, that employers can legally force workers to choose one option 
over the other against their will or as a condition of employment. The 
legislation includes protections to ensure that employees' choice and 
use of compensatory time off is completely voluntary. Under the 
legislation an employee may withdraw or cash out from a comptime 
arrangement at any time. H.R. 1 clearly provides for serious penalties 
against any employer who attempts to coerce or intimidate an employee 
into taking or not taking the comptime option.
  It is important to note, Mr. Speaker, that the only limitations that 
the bill places on the use of comptime is that the employee's request 
be made under provisions that are very similar to the standard already 
in effect under the Family and Medical Leave Act passed in 1993.
  Mr. Speaker, another reason to support H.R. 1 is that it will give 
the Nation's body of laws a much-needed boost toward the 21st century. 
When the Fair Labor Standards Act was written way back in 1938, almost 
60 years ago, the landscape of the American work force was very, very 
different. For one thing, at that time legislation was written with an 
almost all-male work force in mind. Today that landscape is very 
different, with nearly 70 percent of all women with children under the 
age of 18 taking part in the work force. This dramatic change in 
demographics underscores just how important it is for our Nation's 
labor laws to catch up with the times and to better reflect the 
changing needs of the modern workplace.
  As a working mother myself, I am very pleased to be an original 
cosponsor of this legislation. As many of my constituents have told me, 
it is a challenge to be a good worker and still be a good parent. It is 
not surprising then that a recent public opinion poll found that nearly 
75 percent of Americans favor giving workers the choice between 
receiving paid time off or cash wages for overtime.
  Unfortunately, critics of H.R. 1 have chosen to put politics above 
sound policy. It is a shame because in my view it shows just how out of 
touch some folks are when it comes to policies that will benefit 
families, strengthen our economy, and help workers and employers alike.
  After decades of progress in labor relations, it is time we stopped 
automatically thinking of employer/employee relations in such 
adversarial terms.
  The bottom line is that with H.R. 1 employers and employees can work 
together to meet each other's needs. With H.R. 1 at least the choice 
will be theirs, not Washington's.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1 offers the private sector a reasonable 
commonsense solution to the ongoing tug of war between families and the 
workplace. Millions of parents strive hard each day to meet these 
competing demands. If we can make life a little easier on the working 
families of this country, then we should take action today to help 
those families successfully balance work and family responsibilities.
  This is not the first time the House has considered a comptime bill. 
A very similar bill was passed by the House last July after numerous 
changes were made to it, mostly at the request of the minority. 
Republicans and many Democrats voted for the bill. I encourage all of 
my colleagues to give it their full support again today.
  In closing I would emphasize that this rule will allow us to have a 
full and fair debate on this legislation and its implications for the 
modern workplace. I urge my colleagues to adopt this balanced rule and 
to pass the Working Families Flexibility Act without any further delay.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
I thank my colleague and my dear friend, the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. 
Pryce], for yielding me the customary half hour.
  Mr. Speaker, my erstwhile colleague said that this was a family 
friendly bill. It is, if you are talking about the Ford family and the 
Rockefeller family and the du Pont family. But, for all other families, 
it is not a friendly bill. I know my Republican colleagues mean well, 
and I know my Republican colleagues really want to help; but this was a 
bad idea last session and it is a bad idea this session.
  It helps the big people, but it does not do much for the ordinary 
worker. In fact, this bill, Mr. Speaker, would force workers to take 
time off rather than overtime pay. That is not what the American people 
want. The American people do not want comp time. They want cash. In 
fact, polling data shows that nearly three out of every four American 
workers would rather have cash than comp time. And I cannot say that I 
blame them. These days it is hard enough to get a job in the first 
place. And once you get one, Mr. Speaker, the last thing you want to do 
is leave.
  Most people want to work as much as they possibly can, but this bill 
just will not let them do it. It has no guarantee that workers can make 
that decision themselves. It is very possible that employees will be 
the ones to decide whether workers get additional pay or get additional 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, that just is not fair. In the real world, if your boss 
tells you to take time off instead of getting extra pay, you either do 
what you are told or you start packing your gear.
  This bill allows the boss to stop paying overtime and says to 
employees, sorry, I cannot pay you for overtime you worked; but in 
return for your long hours, you can take a vacation when it is 
convenient for me, if I am still in business.
  Mr. Speaker, that is simply not good enough. These days there is not 
guarantee that an employer will be around forever. In fact, 50 percent 
of new businesses close within the first 3 years. So if your boss 
forces you to take comp time, then takes your pay and invests it in an 
investment for himself, pockets the interest and then folds, under this 
bill you are left holding nothing but a worthless note saying, I owe 
you a vacation.
  That does not put food on the table, Mr. Speaker. This bill 
eliminates the 40-hour week and replaces it with an 80-hour 2-week 
block which will hurt hourly workers, especially women.
  This bill will pressure low wage, hourly workers to give up their 
overtime pay. In the women's legal defense

[[Page H1117]]

fund said, and I quote, ``this bill gives employees less control over 
both their time and their paychecks by creating new risks and new 
problems.''
  Meanwhile, some of my Republican colleagues argue that this bill 
gives women flexibility. It just does not do anything of the sort. But 
the Family and Medical Leave Act did. And my Republican colleagues 
spent 5 years trying to kill that family friendly bill.
  Mr. Speaker, if we really want to help women, if we really want to 
help the working American families, we should expand the Family and 
Medical Leave Act, which has already enabled 12 million workers to go 
home, to take care of new children or a sick family member.

                              {time}  1130

  We should not pass this bill. This bill, Mr. Speaker, gives workers 
very little choice over their time, very little choice over their 
paychecks, and even less protection against employers' abuses. I urge 
my colleagues to oppose this rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. PRYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Boehner], my good friend and colleague.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, we have a very important bill on the floor 
today, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 1997.
  As the gentlewoman from Ohio, my colleague, pointed out in her 
opening remarks, the work force today is very different than it was in 
the 1930's when the law that we are amending was put in place: Mostly 
males in the workplace, very few mothers in the workplace. Today we 
find ourselves where working families have an awful lot of demands that 
are placed on them.
  With those demands, workers throughout our country are asking for 
more flexibility. They are working with their employers, demanding more 
flexibility to meet their demanding schedule at home, at school, as 
their children are involved in sports and other activities.
  When this law was written in the 1930's, the Congress saw fit to make 
sure that anyone who worked for a local government had this option of 
compensatory time off in lieu of overtime, and that is why employees 
who worked for local city governments, county governments, State 
governments and the Federal Government have had this option now for 
almost 60 years, and they enjoy it. They like it because it works.
  All we are trying to do here today is to give hourly workers who work 
in the private sector the same option that public sector employees have 
had for almost 60 years. Here is how it would work:
  First, the employer would have to provide this benefit. They would 
have to agree that they would allow their employees to do it. If the 
employer says no, there is no option.
  If the employer says yes, which I think most employers around the 
country, wanting to work with their employees, will say yes, it is an 
agreement between the employer and the employee on whether the employee 
wants comp time or overtime. The option is at the discretion of the 
employee, not the employer.
  Why should we not empower American workers to have more flexibility 
over their schedule? Why should we not empower American workers to make 
these decisions with their employer? This is an example of the Federal 
Government getting in the way of helping to empower American workers 
and giving the freedom and the flexibility to employers and to their 
employees to work this out in an ever-changing American workplace.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation is long overdue. It will help employers 
and their employees all across this country. We ought to give them the 
freedom and the flexibility to work out their schedule, which will 
benefit American workers in the truest sense.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Roybal-Allard].
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and 
the bill.
  The supporters of H.R. 1 are trying to convince hard-working 
Americans that this is a flexible pro-family, pro-worker bill. In 
reality it is none of these things. Instead, the bill gives more power 
to the employer and limits the employees' ability to determine for 
themselves what is best for their family, comp time or overtime pay.
  H.R. 1 gives the employer the power to determine when and how 
employees can use their comp time, and it encourages employers to avoid 
paying overtime wages by allowing them to discriminate against 
employees who opt for overtime pay instead of comp time.
  When real wages are stagnant or dropping for low and middle income 
Americans, the ability to work overtime is often the difference between 
paying the rent and putting food on the table or being homeless and 
hungry.
  Equally as important is the fact that this bill will not only impact 
the lives of American workers now, it will also impact their future 
retirement income, because current earnings determine future Social 
Security and pension benefits.
  Mr. Speaker, it is the American worker who knows what is best for his 
or her family. Let us have a bill that truly empowers the employee and 
preserves basic worker rights. Defeat the bill and this mislabeled 
family-friendly workplace act.
  Ms. PRYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina [Mrs. Myrick], a gracious lady and new member of the 
Committee on Rules.
  Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, the beauty of comp time is that it empowers 
the employees, the hard-working moms and dads of America, to have the 
flexibility to meet the responsibility of parenting. This bill allows 
today's employees to choose whether to take paid time off or to have 
additional overtime pay. With comp time a working mom will never again 
be forced to choose between spending time with her child or working 
long enough to provide food and shelter.
  Comp time allows mom and dad to have the flexibility to spend more 
time with their families, more time to take their child to the doctor, 
or to care for an elderly family relative, and they will do so without 
the loss of wages on which they depend.
  While both men and women are affected by this dilemma, the burden 
seems to fall particularly hard on many working women. In fact, recent 
national polling data indicates 70 to 75 percent of working women 
support changing labor laws so that employers and employees have the 
flexibility to decide whether an employee receives cash or personal 
time for their overtime.
  In 1994, the U.S. Department of Labor found the number one concern 
for 66 percent of working women with children under the age of 18 is 
the difficulty of balancing work and family. Comp time is pro-family, 
pro-worker, and when we really think about it, a pro-child approach to 
provide relief to the hard-working men and women across our Nation who 
struggle daily to support their families.
  As a mother of grown children and a grandmother of seven wonderful 
grandchildren, I know the considerable time that it takes to raise a 
family in the 1990's. My children struggle daily with the competing 
demands of work and the pressures of home. The ability of parents to 
opt for a voluntary comp time program will prove to be an enormous aid 
in the battle to meet the everyday requirements of raising a family.
  From my professional experience as mayor of Charlotte, I know 
firsthand comp time works. For the past decade government workers have 
benefited from comp time. In Charlotte, exempt city employees enjoy the 
flexibility that comp time allows in their lives, and certainly all 
workers in America deserve the same rights the Federal, State, and 
local employees have enjoyed since 1985.
  Comp time seeks to provide employees a choice. It will give America's 
workers flexibility in scheduling the hours that they work. I urge my 
colleagues to support the rule so that we can provide America's 
families with this choice.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Clay].
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the rule because H.R. 1 is nothing but 
a Trojan horse designed to fool workers into believing the majority has 
experienced

[[Page H1118]]

some kind of pro-worker, gender-friendly epiphany.
  This bill is not designed to strengthen the flexibility of workers. 
Instead, it has been crafted to give those employers who abuse their 
workers the power to exact unsecured loans from those workers in the 
form of deferred overtime pay.
  H.R. 1 does not provide an employee any new opportunity to take 
leave. It affords employers, not employees, the right to determine when 
employees may use the comp time they have earned. Under H.R. 1, 
employees can be required to work unreasonable hours for no additional 
pay as a condition for being granted comp time.
  Mr. Speaker, rather than considering this flawed bill, this House 
should be considering legislation to expand the benefits of the Family 
and Medical Leave Act as proposed by President Clinton. If the 
Republicans are genuinely interested in flexibility for working 
families, they would have supported extension of the Family and Medical 
Leave Act and would not be here today considering this paycheck 
reduction act.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger], who has worked so hard on this 
initiative.
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
this time.
  First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the Record. The 
gentleman from Massachusetts referred to this bill as allowing an 80-
hour, 14-day workweek, and I am sure he misspoke but I want to correct 
the Record. There is no such provision in H.R. 1. It has only to do 
with the 40-hour workweek and does not change anything.
  I want to say something ahead of time, Mr. Speaker, because I think 
the speeches today will be aimed at the evil employer syndrome that the 
committee has brought out. The Democrat members of the committee 
brought out over and over that all employers are basically dishonest 
and, therefore, will cheat their employees one way or the other.
  One of the quotations that has been used over and over again in 
studying this bill is, already we are losing $19 billion a year in 
unpaid overtime. This statement has no reason at all to be in this 
debate. This happens to be involving a thing called pay docking. We all 
studied this last year. It has to do with salaried workers who possibly 
may be allowed to have additional pay because of overtime hours. But 
they are salaried workers.
  We are not talking about salaried workers in any way, shape or form. 
We have only to deal with hourly workers. So the $19 billion they are 
talking about does not apply in any way, shape, or form.
  I want the people to know I have called local governments to find out 
how they felt about the use of this particular benefit that they 
already have. Let me just say the county governments, I talked to two 
county governments in North Carolina, both of whom are using this in 
varying ways, and let me just say varying ways are possible if the 
employee and the employer agree. We have checked with several local 
governments in California that decided not to use this. In other words, 
the possibility of saying yes or no to this is pretty much evident 
across the board.
  I think people should recognize that this is a permissive law. It 
allows the employer to offer it if he wants to and it allows the 
employee to accept it.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to say over and over again, all employers 
are not evil and I wish everybody would accept that fact.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume 
to answer the gentleman from North Carolina. He is correct, the 
statement I made on the 80-hour week was in the Senate version of the 
bill and not the House version. I thank him for correcting me.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Pallone].
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in opposition to the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican comp time bill is yet another attack on 
America's workers. This bill puts too much power in the hands of 
employers to overwork their employees and deny them their legal right 
to time and a half overtime pay.
  The bill provides no penalties to employers who manipulate their 
workers into accepting compensatory time off when, in fact, that 
employee would rather have their pay.
  Republicans claim comp time legislation will provide workers 
flexibility to spend time with their families; however, the bill does 
not allow workers to take comp time when they need it. It forces 
workers to take comp time when employers want them to take it. This is 
not family friendly, it is employer friendly. Comp time is simply an 
excuse to allow employers to avoid paying overtime to workers who 
deserve it.
  The 40-hour workweek has provided workers with a benchmark schedule 
to which they live their lives. Comp time legislation will destroy the 
40-hour workweek and force working men and women to lead lives without 
normalcy. Children will have to come home from school not knowing if 
their parents will be home or will be forced to work overtime.
  This bill, and I stress, is not family friendly. It is actually more 
disruptive to the lives of our workers, and I urge my colleagues to 
vote against it.
  (Mr. NETHERCUTT asked and was given permission to speak out of 
order.)


  Free Diabetes Screening Test Offered Today In Rayburn House Office 
                                Building

  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, today in the Rayburn House Office 
Building foyer, for the first time, there is a diabetes screening test 
that is ongoing for Members, for staff, and for the public to test 
their blood to see if they have diabetes.
  The gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Elizabeth Furse, and I, were advised 
by Speaker Gingrich to come over and make this announcement with the 
hope that all Members, right now, will go over and have their blood 
tested between 11 o'clock today and 3 o'clock this afternoon and take 
this very painless step to see if they have diabetes.
  Ms. FURSE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. I am happy to yield for a very short supporting 
announcement by the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Furse].

                              {time}  1145

  Ms. FURSE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to add to 
the announcement of the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Nethercutt]. 
Anyone who might need to screen their blood for diabetes, and that is 
everyone, should go down to the Rayburn foyer and get that blood test 
and screening today. It is free, it is from 1 to 4. We really hope all 
will come down.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], the chairman of the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. GOODLING. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, first of all, yesterday I did not have in front of me 
who did the research that the ranking member on the Committee on Rules 
asked for, and I wanted to report that to him today. Seventy-five 
percent of the employees surveyed by the polling firm of Penn & Schoen 
Associates favored allowing employees the option of time off as an 
alternative to overtime wages. I did not have that before me yesterday. 
I want to make sure that the ranking member knows who the people are. I 
do not know them, but those are the names.
  Mr. Speaker, since we are on the rule, I thought I would mention 
three amendments that will be offered that are quite acceptable. These 
three amendments came about because of discussions we had during the 
markup in committee.
  The first amendment would require that an employee have worked at 
least 1,000 hours in a period of continuous employment with the 
employer in a 12-month period. There were those who had concerns about 
migrant workers, there were those who had concerns about construction 
workers, and so on. We have taken care of that with the first 
amendment.
  The second amendment would limit the number of hours of compensatory 
time an employee could accrue to 160 hours, moving it down from 240. 
Again there was concern that maybe 240 hours were too many. So we 
reduced that in this amendment.

[[Page H1119]]

  And the third amendment, which is a sweeping amendment, because it 
has never ever been a part of any labor law, the third amendment is a 
sunset provision. That has never happened before. I have no problem 
with a 5-year sunset provision, because I am positively sure that by 
the end of 5 years, you try to take away somebody's comp time, there 
will be bloodshed outside the halls, if not inside the halls, because 
it will be something that most people want to accept and, as I 
indicated, 75 percent have indicated that.
  If people have watched talk shows and television and read the 
newspaper, we are getting the same results: three out of four say they 
want the opportunity to take comp time. So it is obvious that this 
legislation is something that most of the American people want. We just 
have to make sure that they have that opportunity. And they want it 
because, of course, the public sector presently has it and the private 
sector is saying, well, if the public sector can have this, why can we 
not have it?
  There are those who are going to talk a lot about there is no 
protection. You are going to hear all sorts of things about no 
protection. Well, this bill, you see, is only two pages long in this 
very small print. Two pages long. But let me talk a little about 
protections in the bill:
  An employee may withdraw an agreement described in paragraph (2)(B) 
at any time. An employee may also request in writing that monetary 
compensation be provided, at any time, for all compensatory time.
  They presently have with just a 30-day notice.
  An employer which provides compensatory time under paragraph (1) to 
employees shall not directly or indirectly intimidate, threaten, or 
coerce or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any employee for 
the purpose of (A) interfering with such employee's right under this 
subsection to request or not request compensatory time off in lieu of 
payment of monetary overtime compensation for overtime hours, or (B) 
requiring any employee to use such compensatory time.
  Termination of employment. An employee who has accrued compensatory 
time and eventually does not have a job, not anything to do with 
compensatory time but because of downsizing, immediately receives their 
money.
  Private employer actions. An employer which provides compensatory 
time under paragraph (1) to employees shall not directly or indirectly 
intimidate, threaten, or coerce or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or 
coerce any employee.
  If compensation is to be paid to an employee for accrued compensatory 
time off, such compensation shall be paid at a rate of compensation not 
less than the regular rate received by such employee when the 
compensatory time was earned or the final regular rate received by such 
employee, whichever is higher.
  Consideration of payment. Any payment owed to an employee under the 
subsection for unused compensatory time shall be considered unpaid 
overtime compensation. An employee who has accrued compensatory time 
off which is authorized to be provided who has requested the use of 
compensatory time shall be permitted by the employee's employer to use 
such time within a reasonable period after making the request if the 
use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt.
  The same words, I remind Members, that are in the Family and Medical 
Leave Act. So the protections are here, one after the other. All those 
protections in a little two-page bill. It is the most employee 
protected legislation that has ever come here in 22 years.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend the chairman, for 
the information on his polling data: three out of four people want comp 
time. Peter Hart, our pollster, says three out of four people want 
wages. I wish our pollsters could get together.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Green].
  (Mr. GREEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the Committee on 
Rules for this partially open rule. I hope we would see such a rule on 
more bills so that we have the opportunity to make changes. I know my 
good friend, the chairman of the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce, talked about some of the amendments that would change H.R. 
1, and in Texas we have a saying: ``You can add earrings on a pig, but 
it's still a pig.'' And so these amendments make it look prettier, but 
it does not change the bill.
  The chairman is also right that we do not pass laws here for the 95 
percent of the employers who may treat their employees fairly. We pass 
it for those 5 percent who are going to take advantage of them. We do 
not pass laws prohibiting bank robbery for the 99 percent of the people 
who do not go out and rob banks. We pass laws against it for those 1 
percent who decide that is where the money is at and they are going to 
go take it. That is why we have these laws. That is why the protections 
have to be there.
  I know that we have a duel of polls here that say 75 percent of the 
people, and I will agree with the chairman that 75 percent of the 
people do support the concept. But we also know that the national polls 
say that an overwhelming number of hardworking employees expect to be 
forced by their employer to accept comptime instead of overtime pay, 
and that is a major concern.
  I have a district where people need to have that overtime pay to make 
ends meet, particularly for people who are in the lower wage bracket. 
They have to do it. Workers who are seasonal workers have to depend on 
that overtime pay for that 6 or 8 months a year they may be able to 
work because they may not be able to work. So they have to have that 
overtime pay instead of comptime. They want that decision to be theirs 
and not their employer.
  Under H.R. 1, employers will have complete and unilateral discretion 
over who will receive comptime and also when they will receive it. That 
is why some of the amendments may make changes in it and may make it 
look prettier, but, Mr. Speaker, it will not make the bill that much 
better. ``You can put earrings on a pig, but it's still a pig.''
  In H.R. 1, employers maintain ultimate control of when to grant their 
worker comptime. Regardless of the amount of notice the worker 
provides, employers can deny use of comptime if the firm claims they 
would be unduly disrupted.
  What good is it to earn comptime if your employer does not allow you 
to use it or forces you to use it instead of vacation. This issue is 
not addressed in the Republican bill.
  Instead of this seriously flawed Republican proposal, we should 
support Mr. Miller's proposal giving employees real comptime.
  The Democratic substitute provides real employee choice and real 
employee protections.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 1 and ``yes'' on the 
Miller substitute.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], the chairman.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
this time.
  In the legislation, with earrings or without, an employer which 
violates section 7(r)(4) shall be liable to the employee affected in 
the amount of the rate of compensation determined in accordance with 
section 7(r)(6)(A) for each hour of compensatory time accrued by the 
employee, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages 
reduced by the amount of such rate of compensation for each hour of 
compensatory time used by such employee.
  We make very, very sure that the employee is the protected person in 
this legislation.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the distinguished minority whip.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, working people do not have much control in the workplace 
today. They do not have control over their pay. They do not have 
control over their pensions. They do not have control in most instances 
over their health insurance. And most of them do not have a say in the 
day-to-day decisions. But this bill takes away the one thing, the one 
thing that most people do have control over, and that is control over 
their time.
  Most parents would do anything to spend more time with their 
children. They would do anything to be there for that soccer game. 
Those are the most precious moments in raising a child.

[[Page H1120]]

 And be there when their children come home from school. And if this 
bill did that, I would support it in a heartbeat.
  This bill is not about giving employees more time off. It is about 
giving employers more control. We do not need this bill to have more 
comp time. Current law already allows employers to offer comp time. 
They just cannot force comp time. They cannot force employees to give 
up their overtime pay for a promise of time off.
  This bill changes all of that. This bill changes the law so employers 
no longer have to pay overtime wages for overtime work. And in doing 
so, it takes away the one sure path that most people have to earn a 
better living for their families. If this bill becomes law, an employer 
could force an employee to work 70 hours one week, 60 hours the next 
week, 50 hours the week after that, with no overtime pay. And then it 
also gives the employer control to decide when and if and how employees 
take time off.
  Mr. Speaker, the potential for abuse of this system alone is awesome. 
We already live in a country where violations in overtime laws are so 
common that working people are cheated out of $19 billion a year. Do we 
really want to pass a law that completely takes the overtime cop off 
the beat? We are all for giving families more flexibility, but this is 
nothing but a pay cut, pure and simple. If this bill becomes law, a 
single mom who puts in 47 hours at $5 an hour could lose $50 a week. A 
factory worker who works the same amount of time for $10 an hour could 
lose $110 a week.
  Mr. Speaker, people do not work overtime because they like to spend 
time away from their kids. They do not work overtime for those reasons. 
They work overtime because they need the money, and they work hard for 
it. If this bill becomes law, workers are going to need comp time to 
find a second job to make up for the money they lose in overtime pay.
  And here is the real kicker. Here is the main reason why this is such 
a bad idea. For most people, their retirement income depends directly 
on how much they get paid while they are working. If you cut a person's 
paycheck, you cut their pension, you cut their Medicare and you cut 
their Social Security. No comp time promise in the world can make up 
for that.
  And what happens if you build up 240 hours of comp time? You store 
it, you build it up, and then your company goes bankrupt. It happens 
every day in the construction industry, in the garment industry, in the 
building trades. Yet this bill has absolutely no protections against 
it.
  So it is no wonder, as my friend from Texas who just spoke said, 66 
percent of the working people, working men and women, fear that 
employers would use this law to avoid overtime pay. It is no wonder 
that nearly 7 out of 10 working people prefer overtime pay to forced 
compensation time. Longer hours, less money, and less control may sound 
like flexibility to some people, but for America's working families, 
this is a lose-lose situation.

                              {time}  1200

  If we really want to help families, if we really want to give 
employees, not employers, the full power to decide between comptime and 
overtime pay, then the substitute of the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Miller], which will be before us in a little while, is the vehicle to 
do that. But make no mistake about it. This bill is a pay cut for 
American workers. If it gets to the President's desk, he will veto it.
  I urge my colleagues oppose this bill, support the Miller substitute, 
and give our families a fighting chance.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger].
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this 
time to me. I would like to say that let me first of all say taking 
comp time does not affect your pension.
  Now let me say we had several employees that testified before our 
committee, and I would like for people to hear what they said.
  This is from Christine Korzendorfer:

       Overtime pay is important to me; however, the time with my 
     family is more important. If I had a choice, there are times 
     that I would prefer to take comp time in lieu of overtime. 
     What makes the idea appealing is that I would have the choice 
     with the legislation you're considering. Knowing that I could 
     have a choice in how to use my overtime would allow me to 
     better combine my work and my family obligations.

  This is Peter Faust from Iowa:

       Time is precious and fleeting. There are always lots of 
     ways to make money in this country and lots of ways to spend 
     it, but there is only one way to spend time with yourself, 
     family or friends; and that's to have time to spend. When I 
     look back on my life, my regret will be and already is that 
     on occasions when I needed to be there for my family or they 
     asked me to be part of their life I couldn't be there because 
     I either didn't have the time saved up or I couldn't afford 
     the time off without pay. Pass this bill into law.

  And then Linda Smith from Miami, FL:

       With the implementation of bank comp time program, I could 
     use my overtime hours to create time for pregnancy leave for 
     a second child, for furthering my education, taking care of a 
     debilitated parent or, closest to my heart, creating special 
     days with my daughter. Accrued comp time will also allow me 
     to take time off for doctors appointments and teachers 
     conferences or to take care of a sick child without having to 
     use accrued sick time. Today it's only prudent for 
     individuals to take steps necessary to prepare for their 
     future financial needs. H.R. 1 seemed to be a perfect vehicle 
     to do something with our time.

  And then finally quoting President Bill Clinton: ``We should pass 
flex time so workers can choose to be paid for overtime in income or 
trade or trading it for time off with their families.''
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, these are tough times for many Americans as 
they struggle to make ends meet while balancing the challenges of work 
and family. Families rightly seek greater flexibility and paycheck 
protection to meet their obligations at home and on the job.
  Unfortunately, the Republican comp time bill makes life harder, not 
easier, for these families. The bill, more accurately named the 
Paycheck Reduction Act, fails to ensure that employees can use comp 
time when they need it. Worse, it could take valuable overtime pay out 
of employees' pockets.
  In recent years 80 percent of working families have seen their wages 
fall behind or just keep pace with inflation. Families have responded 
by working harder. More mothers are working than ever because their 
families need the money. Two-thirds of mothers worked in 1993 as 
opposed to just over a quarter in 1960. Today many working men and 
women depend on overtime wages to pay the bills each month. One-fourth 
of all full-time workers spent 49 or more hours a week on the job in 
1990, and half of these workers put in 60 or more hours per week.
  Mr. Speaker, families depend on overtime wages. Giving employees 
greater flexibility is a must in these hectic times. But the Republican 
bill is not the answer.
  If we want to give workers greater flexibility, let us start with a 
proven winner, the Family and Medical Leave Act. Since President 
Clinton signed that law in 1993, family and medical leave has helped 12 
million Americans take off the time that they need for the birth of a 
child or to care for a sick family member.
  The act's unpaid leave has given workers flexibility with virtually 
no negative effects on employers, according to a bipartisan commission 
on leave. Broadening the scope of this bill would allow workers to meet 
their commitments without jeopardizing their overtime wages.
  Let us expand family and medical leave. That is the sensible path 
toward greater flexibility in the workplace. But the Republican 
leadership refuses to consider such a commonsense approach to help 
American workers.
  For that reason I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question 
so that we can bring true workplace flexibility legislation to the 
floor in the form of an expanded Family and Medical Leave Act.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling].
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I realize, if my colleagues have made up 
their mind that they want to vote against the bill, the best way to do 
that is just not read the bill. Then they can say anything on the floor 
of the House. But if they read the bill and it is only a couple little 
pages, then they will realize that most of what they heard has nothing 
to do with reality.

[[Page H1121]]

  Now first of all I mentioned a lot of the protections that are in 
there. Now the protection is the same as the State and local government 
law, and that has been going on now since 1985, and it has been defined 
in the Department of Labor regulations, and it has been further defined 
by the interpretation, strict interpretations, in court.
  We are talking the beauty of this in relationship to what the 
gentlewoman just said about family and medical leave. This is paid time 
off. Family and medical leave is unpaid time off which makes it very, 
very difficult to take.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Visclosky].
  (Mr. VISCLOSKY asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule on H.R. 
1.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong opposition to H.R. 1, 
the Paycheck Reduction Act. This bad bill is just one more attempt by 
the Republican-controlled 105th Congress to weaken the rights of 
working men and women. I am very concerned that permitting employers to 
compensate hourly employees' overtime work in time-off, rather than in 
cash, will in many workplaces, significantly reduce workers' take home 
wages.
  I oppose this bill because it would significantly weaken labor 
protections for the people who can lease afford to lose them, such as 
construction workers. It is the carpenters, electricians, pipefitters, 
and sheet metal workers, in my district, who during the warm spring and 
summer months, work all the overtime possible so they can accumulate 
enough money to last them through the cold winter months. They know 
that in December, January and February they are going to have more 
time-off than they want. It is this core of the work force that no 
longer looks at the 40-hour work week as a standard, but rather, as 
nostalgia.
  These are the same people who are the most likely to suffer coercive 
practices by their employers by being forced to accept compensatory 
time--which they don't want and can't afford--instead of benefiting 
from the premium overtime pay they have earned. In a perfect world, all 
businesses have the financial resources to cash out all employees at 
the end of every year for their unused compensatory time, as the bill 
would require. But this is not a perfect world. Many small contractors 
do not have the cash resources to even-up with their workers, and they 
would send them into the slow winter months without the money in their 
bank accounts that they and their families need to survive. My 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about pay as you go. A 
pay as you go policy is the only way companies should be able to pay 
their workers.
  But I don't take my word about the true intent of this bad bill. In 
February, during a Senate hearing on that body's version of this 
legislation, one of the Republicans' handpicked comp. time advocates 
urged support for the bill based on the acknowledged fact that building 
contractors can't afford to pay their employees overtime. She even went 
far enough to elaborate on a scheme of how an employer could require a 
construction worker to work over 50 yours a week without having to pay 
overtime. Although this testimony was subsequently disavowed, the 
transparent aim of H.R. 1 and its Senate counterpart is to allow 
businesses to work their employees overtime without time-and-a-half 
pay.
  What the authors of the Paycheck Reduction Act would like you to 
believe is that this bill offers workers more control over their 
working lives. What it really does is take away an individual's right 
to choose. Under H.R. 1, workers don't have the ability to schedule 
their earned compensatory time when they need it. In fact, employers 
can schedule compensatory time anytime they choose without ever having 
to consult the workers. For example, a working mother who puts in 47.5 
hours a week at $5 an hour will earn $256.25 for the week. Substitute 
comp. time for the overtime premium, and she gets $200 a week and the 
promise of compensatory time off--totally subject to the employers 
discretion. That equals an almost 22-percent pay cut for that mother. 
In essence, H.R. 1 gives employers a veto over their workers' use of 
their own earned hours off.
  I further oppose H.R. 1 because of the subtle, but lasting, negative 
effects that it would have on worker benefits that are indexed to an 
employee's hours or earnings. Beyond the short term, H.R. 1 contains no 
provision for crediting overtime hours worked, and it ignores all the 
long days and late nights that employees have given to their employers. 
Because of this, whenever employees draw on benefits tied to earnings, 
from unemployment to a pension, they're going to experience a reduction 
in those benefits;
  Mr. Speaker, when the people back home in my district sit down each 
month to figure out financially how they are going to make it through 
the upcoming month, they take into account their expected overtime 
wages. Employers don't just hand out bonuses any more. Today, you've 
got to earn them. I'm voting against this misguided bill because 
without overtime pay, many of my constituents can't afford to send 
their kids to college, buy a reliable care for work, or provide 
themselves and their families with adequate care. This bill guts the 
protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and it undermines living 
standards for workers. H.R. 1 is not designed to give workers more 
control over their working lives. It is, instead, an attempt to snatch 
hard won rights out the hands of this country's workers and deny them 
basic, simple needs, like respect for their hard work, a decent living 
wage, and a chance to provide for their families. I urge a ``no'' vote 
on the Paycheck Reduction Act, H.R. 1.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Foglietta].
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1 
unless we also pass the Miller amendment.
  Today we are considering a bill that would affect the lives and 
pocketbooks of 60 million workers. Giving workers the choice between 
overtime pay and comp time is something good, something we should try 
to achieve. But any comp time bill must provide proper balance between 
the rights of workers and the needs of employers.
  If we are going to pass such a bill, that bill should pass the in-
the-real-world test. Instead, H.R. 1 just passes the inside the beltway 
test, where we never pass legislation that helps people in the way they 
really live their lives, where they work their jobs, and raise their 
families.
  This bill gives bosses an iron fist and a velvet glove. That is why 
it flunks the in-the-real-world test. In the real world, hourly workers 
would be apprehensive to say no when their boss asks them to agree to 
take comp time instead of overtime at time and a half. In the real 
world, 85 percent of workers do not have unions to protect them against 
one-sided employers. In the real world, many employers would force 
workers to take comp time at a time that is good only for the boss. In 
the real world, when bankruptcies are still prevalent and factories are 
moving overseas, workers could simply lose their comp time credits.
  Mr. Speaker, let us pass a law that really helps working families 
make a genuine choice between comp time and overtime pay, not a bill 
which only works when we are dealing with the Alice in Wonderland world 
inside the beltway.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague how many 
speakers the gentlewoman from Ohio has remaining and how much time is 
remaining?
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I believe we have two speakers 
remaining. I do not know about the time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). The gentleman 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley] has 10 minutes remaining, and the 
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Pryce] has 6\3/4\ minutes.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Olver].
  (Mr. OLVER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time 
to me.
  Mr. Speaker, the Working Families Flexibility Act is a misnomer, but 
it certainly clearly defines what the majority thinks about the 
struggle working families face. H.R. 1 does not help workers balance 
their work and family obligations. Instead, it lets employers dictate 
how workers will balance their working family. H.R. 1 allows employers 
to use comp time to deny workers overtime pay and then gives the 
employers the ultimate control over the use of the comp time. Employers 
can force workers to take time off when it is convenient for the 
company rather than for the workers and their families.
  H.R. 1, the Republican plan, is masked in profamily and 
proflexibility rhetoric, but in reality this bill is antiworker and 
antifamily. It denies access to overtime and thereby reduces the living 
standards of working families. Families depend on overtime to

[[Page H1122]]

put food on the table, clothe the kids, and pay the mortgage. For too 
many Americans overtime is simply the difference between making ends 
meet and falling behind.
  Now, there is no dispute. Working Americans want and need and deserve 
more time with their families. But this bill does not provide it. If we 
are serious about making the workplace favor working Americans, we 
should enhance family and medical leave and improve wages. We should 
expand the health care coverage and make pensions portable. But 
American workers work overtime because they need the money, and we will 
earn the support and thanks of working Americans when we show them the 
money.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. Smith].
  Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I too rise in opposition to 
H.R. 1. It is basically another blow to the working men and women of 
our country, and it is important to look at one critical question. As 
was said by the worker I believe was from Iowa that the majority party 
cited: If I had the choice.
  Well, it has been pointed out numerous times the employee does not 
have the choice in this bill, and that is the critical factor. The 
employer controls, as they do far too often, the working conditions 
that men and women face in this country. But what I really want to get 
into is why this bill is here today.
  To hear from the majority party and supporters of this measure, we 
would think that a grassroots movement rose up of working people in 
this country and demanded comp time, that it was from the people, when 
everyone on this floor knows that this bill came to us from the 
employer community. They are the ones who wanted it; they are the ones 
who lobbied for it.
  Now, I am not going to say that the employer community never cares 
about its workers. Certainly they do, but they have another agenda on 
this bill. That is the agenda that we have heard far too often in the 
1990's: reduce labor costs. That is why this bill is here, folks. It is 
not working men and women who rose up and asked for this. It is the 
employer community that rose up and asked for this in another effort to 
reduce labor costs.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to briefly remind my colleagues that labor 
costs are wages.
  I grew up in a working family. My father was a baggage handler at 
United Airlines and a union man who was paid $16 an hour the year he 
died. Those were labor costs. Labor costs to me is the house that I 
grew up in, the clothes that I wore, the food that I ate, and 
eventually the education that I was able to get because labor costs 
were made available to average people in this country.
  Please do not mistake what this bill is all about. The employers 
simply want another advantage. Look at the record of the last 15 or 20 
years. Do they really need it? Have we not reduced the wages of the 
working men and women of this country sufficiently? And has not the 
wages of the upper income brackets in our country gone up sufficiently? 
Do we need to once again tilt the balance against the working men and 
women of this country?
  I do not believe so.
  Please let us protect labor costs and vote down this measure.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Menendez], the chief deputy whip.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman for 
yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, what are we doing here today? What we are doing is 
reducing our workers to the status of serfs. Employers do not own 
employees or their time. The wisdom of the 40-hour work week is not the 
amount of time, but that time over and above 40 hours is the worker's; 
and imposition on it must be paid for.
  Mr. Speaker, comp time is not giving employees an option as described 
in this bill. It is taking away rights from workers, taking money from 
their pockets, and food from their children's mouths. It is the 
unlawful seizure of the workers' time. The employers are not giving the 
worker anything in this bill by providing comp time. It is not time the 
employer is entitled to give.
  H.R. 1 is capping wages as a salary limit and giving nothing in 
return. It masks employers' inefficiencies in managing the work force 
at the expense of employees. It will be abused.

                              {time}  1215

  Do not kid yourself. In the workplace there is not, and never has 
been, equality in negotiating position. Even the strongest complaint 
procedure, which is not present in H.R. 1, is practically unavailable 
to a minimum wage worker or even a middle class worker. Who can afford 
to await the result of an administrative action against an employer who 
will have them fired in the interim?
  Put yourself in the worker's position. Two hours a day without 
overtime effectively reduces wages by 25 percent. Returning time that 
is yours anyway is not compensation. In my view, this is the cruelest 
form of a tax increase, and the message from workers is thanks for 
nothing.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg].
  Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  Let me begin by addressing a question raised on the other side about 
why this legislation is here. In his State of the Union address 
President Clinton declared, and I quote, we should pass flex time so 
workers can choose to be paid for overtime income or trade in for time 
to be with their families. It is here because it was in the President's 
State of the Union speech, among other reasons.
  Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to express my strong support for H.R. 1, 
the Working Families Flexibility Act. The No. 1 concern for two out of 
three working women with children in America today is the difficulty of 
balancing work and family. Three out of four of those working women 
with children believe that having the option to choose either cash 
wages or paid time off for working overtime would help them 
substantially balance their work responsibilities and their family 
responsibilities.
  Mr. Speaker, when I have the chance, I spend time with my daughter, 
Courtney, and my son, Stephen. Making the choice between fulfilling my 
obligations of my job and watching my daughter's swim meet or my son's 
little league game is always a difficult trade-off. But unlike many 
Americans, Mr. Speaker, I have that ability, the ability to make time 
for my family when needed.
  Regrettably, Mr. Speaker, many American working men and women in the 
private sector do not have that choice. They are tied to their desk by 
outdated and out-of-touch Federal law. H.R. 1 will solve this problem.
  Today, current law makes it illegal for employers to allow employees 
to choose between overtime pay and compensatory time off. For example, 
if a worker in America works 45 hours this week and wants to take time 
off next week to spend time with his or her family instead of getting 
paid overtime, Federal law says they cannot, even if they and their 
employer agree that it would be better.
  Interestingly, Mr. Speaker, that is not the case for Federal 
employees. Mr. Speaker, Federal Government employees are exempt from 
this rule. The policy of forbidding employees and employers from 
voluntarily agreeing to take time off instead of paid overtime is dead 
wrong and fundamentally unfair. It hurts working parents and families.
  One of our goals in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, ought to be to reduce 
excessive and irrational governmental interference in our daily lives 
and our economy. The existing Federal law prohibiting voluntary 
agreements for compensatory time off is a classic example of excessive 
Federal governmental interference in our lives. That is why we need to 
pass the Working Families Flexibility Act and remove this inequity.
  Under this bill, employees are given the choice through a voluntary 
written agreement with their employer, to choose to receive paid time 
off instead of overtime pay. Just like cash, compensatory time accrues 
at 1.5 times the regular rate. It simply gives the employee the choice.

[[Page H1123]]

  Mr. Speaker, I call for the passage of H.R. 1 and urge my colleagues 
to join us.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York [Mrs. Maloney].
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise against the rule on 
H.R. 1 and the bill. I want to make it very clear that the bill before 
us today is not the President's proposal. The President's proposal 
would give workers real time off and expanded time off to go to school 
functions and medical visits and other activities. This does not.
  They call it the Working Families Flexibility Act, but unfortunately, 
it is neither flexible for workers, nor is it family friendly. Under 
the guise of giving workers flexibility in the workplace, H.R. 1 gives 
employers flexibility in deciding whether employees will be able to 
collect overtime pay and when they can take their accrued comp time.
  Many workers rely on overtime pay to make ends meet. This bill allows 
employers to find ways to intimidate workers who insist on getting paid 
overtime. That means that a single mother who relies on 5 extra hours 
of overtime pay each week may not get any overtime assignments, if the 
employer knows that another worker is willing to do the work for comp 
time. That does not help the single mother, it robs her of her ability 
to earn valuable overtime pay.
  The people who are affected by H.R. 1 are not usually in a powerful 
position, and are therefore unlikely to refuse their employers' 
requests to do them a favor by being paid in comp time instead of their 
valuable overtime pay. Two-thirds of covered employees make less than 
$10 an hour. Thirteen percent of workers get overtime pay each week. 
This money is not always extra. Because women are the majority of low-
wage workers, they are more vulnerable to these potential abuses of the 
law.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is brought to you by the same people who 
fought against and voted against family and medical leave. Do they care 
about protecting workers? I do not think so. This is a bill that would 
threaten women and working people around the country. This bill is not 
family friendly, it is family fraudulent.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Nadler].
  (Mr. NADLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, in typical fashion, the Republican 
leadership has given a terrible bill a pretty name and trotted it out 
as the greatest thing for working families since the invention of the 
40-hour work week, which it would undermine.
  They say workers will have the choice of how to receive compensation 
for this work. What could possibly be wrong with giving working 
Americans more choice and flexibility? What is wrong is that in the 
real world where Americans work every day, our laws are their only 
protection from unscrupulous employers who often demand longer hours 
and try to avoid paying overtime. In the real world, thousands of 
employers skirt the overtime rules on the books every day, denying 
workers $19 billion a year in overtime wages. We simply cannot afford 
to weaken workers' protections.
  Here is how the bill works. An employer does not like an employee; no 
comp time. An employer does not want to give an employee time off; 
cash-out the comp time. An employer feels employees are exercising 
their option too frequently; revoke the comp time.
  This bill is not about families or flexibility, it is about paying 
off big business and cheating workers. It is about repealing the 40-
hour work week and the 8-hour day. Vote ``no'' on the paycheck 
reduction act.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger].
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, if I may again say, this has nothing to 
do with changing the 40-hour work week. I do not know where they are 
coming from.
  We have had three hearings on this bill. Every employee that 
testified, testified in favor of the bill. We had no employee testify 
against it. Only the Washington union leaders testified against this 
bill.
  Let me read a letter from some of the best companies in the country 
for employees: ``Working Mother Magazine recently recognized our 
companies as being among the top 100 with the best employment policies 
in the United States for working mothers. The article in Working Mother 
and other publications highlighted some of the creative solutions 
companies are developing to accommodate the unique needs of working 
parents.

       In our quest to create a family friendly work environment, 
     we have explored a variety of benefits and policies. One of 
     the issues consistently raised by our employees is a need for 
     greater flexibility in scheduling work time. Unfortunately, 
     our ability to provide this flexibility is significantly 
     hampered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Because of the 
     FLSA, we are not allowed to offer compensatory time off to 
     our hourly employees.
       Many companies, like ours, offer an array of benefits to 
     working parents such as child care assistance, extended 
     maternity or paternity leave, and telecommuting. These 
     programs can be expensive and that expense often makes them 
     prohibitive to small employers. This bill allowing for 
     flexible scheduling arrangements certainly represents a way 
     that larger employers can further accommodate their 
     employees. In addition, it represents a way small employers 
     can respond to their employees' needs in a relatively 
     inexpensive way.

  This letter was signed by Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Hughes 
Electronics, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Company, Motorola, Texas 
Instruments, TRW Space & Electronics.
  Let me just say Working Mother said that these were the best 
employers in the country and they, as well as their employees, want 
comp time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, the word ``family friendly'' has been used here, but 
unless you are a DuPont or Rockefeller or Ford, this is not friendly to 
your family.
  Also, comp time and paid leave have been used interchangeably. They 
are not synonymous. There is a great deal of difference between paid 
leave and comp time, and I wish that people would realize that.
  Mr. Speaker, I think all of the arguments have been made. This is a 
bill that should not pass, and I hope the rule is defeated.
  Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  I want to emphasize in closing that this legislation attempts to 
strike a balance, providing a win-win situation for everyone. It brings 
labor law up to date after 60 years, and allows decisions to be made by 
responsible adults and not a paternalistic Washington, DC.
  Many women do not have a choice. They have to work to make ends meet. 
Give them the flexibility to exercise at their option the right to be 
with their children when it is so very important. Now, Washington says, 
the boss cannot do this, even if he or she wants to.
  Mr. Speaker, give these folks a break. For some families, time is 
just as important as money. There is one fact in life: There is only so 
much time. Time is as precious as money. Why would Washington stand in 
their way?
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a winner for everyone. I sincerely 
hope we can move it to the President's desk quickly. I urge a ``yes'' 
vote on the rule and on H.R. 1.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). The question 
is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 229, 
nays 195, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 54]

                               YEAS--229

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis

[[Page H1124]]


     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boyd
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schiff
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--195

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Lazio
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHale
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Traficant
     Turner
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Barcia
     Calvert
     Kaptur
     Sanchez
     Shuster
     Skaggs
     Stark
     Torres

                              {time}  1248

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, and Messrs. TOWNS, RANGEL, LAZIO of New 
York, RUSH, DINGELL, and OBEY changed their vote from ``yea'' to 
``nay.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). Pursuant to 
House Resolution 99 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the 
consideration of the bill, H.R. 1.

                              {time}  1252


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly the House resolved itself in the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 
1) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide 
compensatory time for employees in the private sector, with Mr. Combest 
in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having 
been read the first time.
  Under the rule, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling] and 
the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Clay], each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling].
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger], the author of the bill and subcommittee 
chairman.
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
the time.
  This is a simple bill. It will allow private sector employers and 
employees, where there is agreement, to have the option of using comp 
time or paid time off in lieu of overtime pay. It is designed to give 
hourly employees the opportunity to have more flexibility in their work 
schedules so that, for example, they can better meet the demands of 
work and family.
  Let me just say that since I first introduced this bill in the 104th 
Congress, I have tried to address the concerns that others have had 
with this legislation. There have been changes made to this bill at 
each step of the process, at least 23, and the majority of these 
changes were made to give employees greater control over their accrued 
comp time and to make perfectly clear that the choice of comp time by 
the employee must be truly voluntary.
  Let me review the protections for the employees:
  Any agreement to take comp time must be voluntary on the part of the 
employee and indicated in writing.
  Where the employee is represented by a union, the agreement to take 
comp time must be part of the collective bargaining agreement 
negotiated between the union and the employer.
  An employee can always opt out of a comp time agreement for any 
reason at any time. The employer then has 30 days to compensate the 
employee with overtime pay instead of comp time.
  The bill protects against coercion and has specific penalties for any 
employer who coerces an employee into choosing or taking comp time 
against his or her will.
  An employee could use accrued comp time whenever he or she wants to 
use this time and the only restriction on the employee's use of that 
time is that it not unduly disrupt the employer's operations. This is 
the same narrow standard used in the public sector and would not allow 
the employer to control the employee's use of comp time.
  In addition, the bill requires the employer to automatically cash out 
unused comp time at the end of the year as an added protection for the 
employee.
  There are surveys which show that there is strong support among 
hourly employees for having this option. Obviously, not every employee 
would use it.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose H.R. 1 because it is another piece of 
deceptive antiworker legislation that belittles the character of this 
institution and heaps scorn on the intelligence of the fine men and 
women who constitute our great labor force.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill is merely a warmed-over version of last 
year's failed comp time legislation that was

[[Page H1125]]

part of an undignified agenda designed to undermine labor laws 
guaranteeing equity for workers. The majority has tried to make it more 
acceptable by calling it gender friendly and proworker. But fact is 
fact. The truth is H.R. 1 is just another assault on the rights of 
working people. Its title is misleading. It should be referred to as 
the Paycheck Reduction Act.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill fails to provide employees with any 
meaningful choice. Their bosses alone decide whether comp time will be 
offered, to whom it is offered, when it is offered and when it is used. 
A recent study by the Department of Labor found that half of all 
garment contractors still violate the overtime laws. H.R. 1 does 
nothing to protect these and other vulnerable employees.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill is opposed by major representatives and 
workers and women, including the AFL, the Women's Legal Defense Fund 
and the American Nurses Association. If we really want to know who H.R. 
1 is designed to protect, consider this recent remark made by the 
lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Businesses who told 
a Senate committee that the federation needs the bill because, and I 
quote, ``Small business cannot afford to pay overtime.''
  Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1 is antifamily and antiworker, and I urge its 
defeat.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I just want to 
make sure that what the gentleman just said; he knows and I know she 
made the statement in the context with what the Senate is doing, not 
what the House is doing.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey 
[Mrs. Roukema].
  (Mrs. ROUKEMA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1.
  Mr. Chairman, the American family is stressed and strained in new 
ways each and every day, as we well know. Too often in today's economy 
working parents are forced to choose between their families and their 
jobs. But this is not a new subject for congressional debate. In the 
recent past we debated a lot of these issues in the context of family 
and medical leave. But I believe today that the legislation we are 
discussing makes the workplace more flexible for working parents and 
their employers to adjust to the family patterns of today.
  The Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938. Times have changed 
and I believe that under this bill employees are provided an option, a 
reasonable option to choose compensatory time off in place of the 
overtime pay of their employers, if they should make that choice. It is 
now time to face the real world of 1997 and beyond.
  I believe that the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger] and 
others have already pointed out the explicit needs. I will put it in 
this context.

                              {time}  1300

  I do want to address the attempts by some on the other side to insert 
an expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act in the context of this 
comp time bill.
  As many of my colleagues know, I had more than a passing interest in 
getting the family leave bill passed. I was one of the leading 
advocates, and I fought my own party to see to it that that landmark 
legislation was passed. But I believe this comp time legislation is a 
piece of legislation in and of itself.
  The Family and Medical Leave expansion has a legitimate time for 
debate. It should be debated in this Congress and, by the way, I 
believe expanding and refining that Family and Medical Leave Act is not 
only a debate for another time, but I would look forward to being 
supportive of that effort at the appropriate time, but this is not the 
bill that is appropriate for it.
  Under this bill, employees are provided an option to choose 
compensatory time off in place of overtime pay if their employer 
decides to offer this option.
  This bill provides an option of offering employees the choice of 
selecting paid time off instead of overtime wage. Through a written, 
voluntary agreement, comp time would accrue at the same time-and-a-half 
rate as overtime wages.
  Mr. Chairman, I recognize that some have raised legitimate concerns 
about employee protections. However, in my opinion this legislation 
addresses those concerns by including several important employee 
safeguards, so we will not invite abuses.
  First, an employee is permitted to withdraw from a comp time 
agreement at any time if the agreement is not working for that employee 
or if circumstances change for that employee.
  Along those same lines, the employee can cash out any accrued time 
with 30 days notice to their employer. Furthermore, the bill makes it 
illegal to ``intimidate, threaten or coerce'' any employee for the 
purpose of interfering with the employee's rights under this bill to 
request or not request comp time. The penalty to the employer who 
violates this protective right is high--the employee would be able to 
claim double damages.
  In addition to the protections currently in the legislation, there 
will be two amendments offered today that will add even more 
protection. The first will only allow employees to take advantage of 
this option if they have worked for the same employer for 1,000 hours.
  This provision will protect seasonal employees who currently work 
extended hours during the season's high point, and then must sit back 
during the off season. The second amendment will lower the maximum 
amount of hours that one can accrue as comp time from 240 hours to 160 
hours. Once a person accrues their maximum number of hours then all 
hours exceeding this total will be paid as overtime wages.
  Mr. Chairman, allow me to address the attempts by some on the other 
side to the Family and Medical Leave Act in the context of this comp 
time bill. As many on this floor know, I have more than a passing 
interest in Family Leave as one of the leading advocates--I fought my 
own party for years to advance this family values and feel strongly 
that it is landmark legislation that has been a rousing success for 
American families working so hard to help themselves.
  However, this comp time legislation is a logical supplement to Family 
Leave. However, the debate on expanding the Family and Medical Leave 
Act is a debate for another day at another time. And I will be 
supportive of that expansion. This is not the appropriate bill for that 
expansion.
  Mr. Chairman, this is a bill that will provide options for today's 
working families. I urge support of H.R. 1, the Working Families 
Flexibility Act.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California, [Mr. Miller].
  (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong 
opposition to H.R. 1, the so-called Family Flexibility Act. Once again 
we see the Republicans bringing to the floor of the House legislation 
whose title suggests this is helpful to families but turns out not to 
be helpful for families.
  Why is that so in this case? Because H.R. 1 simply fails to meet the 
test to provide families the flexibility that they can control in their 
working schedule. The fact is that under their legislation, the 
families will not have more flexibility to manage their schedules. 
Their employers will have more flexibility to manage the schedules, and 
that is the No. 1 complaint among workers about the loss of control 
over their schedules so that they can deal with the concerns they have 
with their family and the time they would like to spend with their 
family and to meet the needs of that family.
  This legislation, as presented, simply does not meet the test. It 
does not meet the test of freedom of choice because, again, the worker 
does not have that choice. It is about the employer having the ability 
to manipulate that choice. Under the Republican bill, it is the 
employer that gets to decide when the employee can use the comp time.
  It makes no sense for an employee to agree to work overtime, to work 
20 or 30 hours a week overtime, or 10 hours a week, or a 20-hour day, 
or whatever it is decided that the employer gets to dictate to that 
employee to build up comp time, if the employee does not truly have the 
choice when and how that comp time will, in fact, be used. That is 
where the Republican bill fails.
  The choice about when that comp time can be used by the employee, to 
meet whatever, for whatever purposes they decide, but let us assume it 
is to spend more time with the family or to take care of those critical 
needs, what we see is, in fact, that that remains in the hands of the 
employer. I think when employees discover that, they will find out that 
this is not some nice

[[Page H1126]]

option because they can be forced into working overtime, somehow 
believing that they are going to get comp time off, but throughout the 
work year they can find out that it can be denied time and again 
because of the low threshold that is put in the bill.
  We must also understand that this has serious financial ramifications 
for working families, which we will discuss later.
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas [Ms. Granger].
  (Ms. GRANGER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1, 
the Working Families Flexibility Act.
  I want to tell a story that personifies and exemplifies why American 
families need the Working Families Flexibility Act. It is a story of a 
very special woman, her struggle and her triumph; a woman whose life 
was devoted to her family, her faith and her friends.
  Alliene Mullendore, who was raised in Fort Worth, TX, lived what some 
would call a hard life. She believed in old-fashioned values like hard 
work, honest living and responsibility. When she found herself alone 
one day with a family to raise and feed, she knew that the rest of her 
life would be spent trying to balance the twin goals of raising her 
children emotionally and spiritually while providing for them 
financially and materially.
  She was a schoolteacher, and she was also a student. She spent her 
summers and her nights getting her master's degree so she could advance 
her career. And she did, eventually becoming the first female principal 
of an elementary school in the Birdville school district.
  Although she was crippled by polio in the epidemic of the 1950's, and 
lived in almost constant pain and fatigue, she still found the strength 
to teach her classes on crutches as she learned to walk again. Somehow, 
miraculously, she found the time and energy to raise her two daughters 
into self-reliant, headstrong women.
  The years of work and worry left their mark. The long hours at her 
school and the enormous pressure of being the sole provider for the 
family took a very heavy toll on this special woman. In her later years 
she suffered a severe stroke and was confined to her home for the last 
11 years of her life.
  Her days of active living were over. But her life had already touched 
so many, not just the children who experienced her warm smile and 
gentle humor as a teacher, but most profoundly she touched the lives of 
her two daughters, who today carry the memory of their mother with them 
every single day, knowing all the while how proud she would be. I know, 
because I am one of those daughters. I can honestly say that I stand 
here today by the grace of God and the sacrifice of my mother.
  Martin Luther King once said that the measure of a person is not what 
they do in times of comfort and convenience but what they do in times 
of crisis and challenge. According to that standard, my mother was not 
only a personal success, she was a true American hero.
  Throughout her life, even in illness, my mother always taught my 
sister and me that true success in life is measured not by what you get 
but what you give. My mother gave me everything. So I am very thankful 
I was able to be there with her during her last years, to give 
something back to her. I was able to move her into my home, where I 
could talk to her and care for her and just be with her.
  I look across America today and I wonder how many daughters could 
share time with their parents during difficult days like I was able to. 
I was able to take care of my mother during her final years because I 
owned my own business and I arranged my own schedule. Tragically, there 
are millions of men and women each day in America who simply cannot do 
that.
  This legislation today is about putting families at the top of our 
national priority list, giving hourly employees the option to take time 
off instead of overtime pay, saying thank you to a mother or a father 
after a lifetime of love and sacrifice.
  So as a small business owner and a mother and a daughter, I strongly 
support H.R. 1, and I urge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle 
to put political considerations and partisan calculations aside. With 
this bill we can take one small yet very significant step toward the 
way America should be.
  Mr. Chairman, comp time will allow working mothers to take time off 
and go to their child's or daughter's school play, because that is the 
way America should be.
  Comp time will allow working fathers to take time off and go to their 
son's camp. That is the way America should be.
  And comp time will allow working families the benefits of choice 
without imposing new Government rules on our businesses. And, Mr. 
Chairman, I think we all know that is the way America should be. I sure 
know it, because I would not trade the final moments I had with my 
mother for anything in the world.
  Mr. Chairman, our most endangered species in America today is the 
family. This bill acknowledges that time spent with the family is time 
well spent.
  I believe America is a nation built on the memories of yesterday as 
well as the promise of tomorrow. Today we have a chance with this bill 
to make sure that the promise of tomorrow is one of hope and happiness 
for our families, and that is the way America should be.
  Mr. Chairman, comp time is the right issue at the right time and the 
right place, and let us pass this legislation because we owe it to our 
families.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York, [Mr. Owens].
  (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, our most endangered species in America is 
the family, and we do not want to be guilty of taking cash away from 
families which is used to put bread on the table, to buy shoes, and to 
pay the rent.
  This is a revolutionary and reckless change in labor law. The Fair 
Labor Standards Act has existed since 1938 as part of Franklin 
Roosevelt's New Deal. This experiment need not be so radical and so 
extreme as it is constructed in this legislation. We could provide 
adjustments and relief for comfortable middle class wage earners who 
want time off at the same time that we protect low income workers who 
need cash payments of overtime in order to meet their basic necessities 
of food, clothing and shelter.
  This law is not enforceable. That is the problem. It will not be 
enforceable. There will be no choice for the people who want the cash 
to put food on their tables.
  In fiscal year 1996, the Department of Labor found overtime 
violations among employers involving 170,000 workers. The lowest wage 
workers are the most common victims of this abuse. In other words, 
under the present law, they are not being paid their overtime. They are 
being swindled out of overtime.
  The Employer Policy Foundation, this is an employer-supported think 
tank in Washington, they reveal that workers lose approximately $19 
billion a year. $19 billion is swindled under the present law. This 
loose law here, which proposes to give choice to people, will be even 
worse.
  A Wall Street Journal analysis of 74,514 cases brought by the 
Department from October 1991 to June 1995 found that industries such as 
construction and apparel were cited for illegally denying overtime to 1 
in every 50 workers during this period. Overall, nearly 8 out of every 
1,000 workers, or 695,280 employees, were covered by settlements which 
were necessary to get their overtime pay because it was not being given 
to them.
  If Congress is going to tamper with the FLSA, at a minimum, two-
thirds of the work force that makes less than $10 an hour ought to be 
protected. Here is a win-win situation. We could be less extreme and 
less radical and take care of everybody's needs.
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from California, [Mr. Riggs], a subcommittee chairman.
  Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on 
this very important legislation, House Resolution 1, the first bill 
introduced in the House of Representatives in this session of Congress. 
That designation, H.R. 1, is supposed to indicate the importance that 
we Republicans, in the majority in the House, place on this 
legislation.
  First, I think it is important that we clarify some misperceptions 
about the

[[Page H1127]]

bill. First of all, it does not affect or change the 40-hour workweek. 
It does not include a flex-time provision, as does similar legislation 
in the other body. It does, however, give hourly employees the 
opportunity to have more flexibility in their schedule so that they can 
do a better job, so they can better meet the demands of work and 
family.
  That is why this legislation is so strongly and overwhelmingly 
supported by the American people, especially the 63 percent of American 
families where both the mother and the father work outside the home and 
the 76 percent of all American mothers who work and who have school 
aged children.
  I just want to conclude my comments by appealing to my good friends 
on the other side of the aisle, our proeducation Democrats, to support 
this legislation. I want to introduce into the Record a letter from 
Sheldon Steinbach, the vice president and general counsel of the 
American Council on Education.
  He writes:

       Dear Congressman: On behalf of the American Council on 
     Education, representing 1,689 2- and 4-year public and 
     private colleges and research universities across the 
     country, and the National Association of Independent Colleges 
     and Universities, representing 900 private institutions of 
     higher learning nationwide, we wish to express our strong 
     support for H.R. 1, the Working Families Flexibility Act.
       Colleges and universities constitute some of the largest 
     employers in many communities, and in some instances the 
     largest employer within a State.

  Mr. Steinbach goes on to write:

       Federal employees have enjoyed flexible schedules since 
     1978. Public employees of higher education have had the 
     ability to choose either compensatory time off or overtime 
     pay for overtime situations since 1985. As a matter of 
     elementary fairness, the workplace flexibility that has been 
     provided to Federal and public employees should now be 
     extended to private employers, including private colleges and 
     universities.

  This is truly an idea, this legislation, whose time has come. H.R. 1 
is good pro-worker, pro-family legislation with ample employee 
protections. I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 1.
  Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the letter I referred to 
earlier:

         American Council on Education, Office of Vice President 
           and General Counsel,
                                   Washington, DC, March 14, 1997.
       Dear Congressman: On behalf of the American Council on 
     Education, representing 1,689 two- and four-year public and 
     private colleges and research universities and national and 
     regional education associations, and the National Association 
     of Independent Colleges and Universities, representing nearly 
     900 private institutions nationwide, we wish to express our 
     strong support for the Compensatory Time Off (comp time) 
     provisions of H.R. 1, The Working Families Flexibility Act.
       Colleges and universities constitute some of the largest 
     employers in many communities, and in some instances, the 
     largest employer within a state. As employers, colleges and 
     universities have long been at the forefront of offering 
     welfare and health-care benefits to employees and, over the 
     last 10 to 15 years, work-family/life programs. Educational 
     institutions offer these work-family/life policies and 
     benefits as a way to recruit and retain a highly skilled, 
     quality workforce. These benefits provide one of our 
     competitive edges over the for-profit sector for salaried 
     employees, since higher education institutions typically 
     offer a lower compensation package than for-profit 
     organizations. Institutions of higher education have realized 
     that flexibility in the workplace is fundamental in trying to 
     meet the needs of the employees and mission of their schools. 
     This is especially true as more and more employees try to 
     balance the competing pressures of work, family, and personal 
     needs.
       Federal employees have enjoyed flexible schedules since 
     1978. Public employees of higher education have had the 
     ability to choose either compensatory time off or overtime 
     pay for overtime situations since 1985. Allowing independent 
     college and university employees a similar flexibility in 
     scheduling would help them deal with personal interests and 
     family concerns; it also would improve employee recruitment, 
     retention, and productivity. Workplace stress is alleviated 
     for parents when work schedules which conflict with school 
     hours or, day care arrangements, or when flexibility is 
     provided.
       We fully support the Working Families Flexibility Act 
     provisions under which an employee may choose either to take 
     time-and-a-half off or time-and-a-half pay for any overtime 
     hours worked. The proposed legislation also provides that an 
     employee may bank up to 240 hours of comp time annually and 
     requires the cashing out of any comp time hours which have 
     not been used by the employee at the end of a year.
       These flexible workplace options are completely voluntary. 
     No employer can be forced to offer a flexible workplace 
     option and no employee can be forced to participate in one. 
     In addition, flexible workplace options must be arranged 
     through agreement, and such an agreement cannot be a 
     condition of employment. Lastly, if an employer directly or 
     indirectly intimidates, threatens, or coerces any employee to 
     participate in a flexible workplace option, they will be 
     subject to the full range of penalties under the Fair Labor 
     Standards Act penalties.
       As a matter of elementary fairness, the workplace 
     flexibility that has pervaded federal and public employment 
     should be extended to private employers, including private 
     colleges and universities. With the essential employee 
     safeguards incorporated in the proposed legislation, that 
     flexible scheduling arrangements, including the innovative 
     use of comp time will meet the needs of both workers and 
     institutions in the 21st Century.
           Sincerely,

                                     Sheldon Elliot Steinbach,

                                                Vice President and
                                                  General Counsel.

  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Hawaii [Mrs. Mink].
  (Mrs. MINK of Hawaii asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of our 
committee for yielding me this time.
  This bill is misnamed. It is called flexibility time, but it affords 
employees and the families absolutely no flexibility. Employers today 
have flexibility. They have flex-time. They could give their workers 
time off to do those essential things in health care or to attend to 
school affairs. They have that flexibility now. Why enact a law that 
will require people, workers, to work overtime without compensation?
  One of the best family friendly things that was done by the Congress 
over 60 years ago was the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 
and what it did was to guarantee 40-hour weeks. It liberated families 
to be able to go home Saturdays and Sundays and be with their families, 
to be there for dinner so that they could have a family relationship.

                              {time}  1315

  This bill is going to actually repeal Saturdays and Sundays. It is 
going to force workers to work on Saturdays and Sundays and be away 
from their families. How could that possibly be family friendly? The 
only flexibility that I can see in H.R. 1 is to give flexibility to the 
employers. They would go to their workers and say, ``I have to get this 
job out. The contract is coming up this weekend. We have to have 
overtime work by all of you.'' I cannot imagine the workers being able 
to turn down such an employer. And so they would work for no 
compensation, they would be away from their families, they might have 
to give up Saturdays and Sundays for no compensation, for how long? For 
12 months these employers would not be required under this bill to give 
any time to the employees so that they could be with their families.
  This is not family friendly, this is not flexible. Workers in my 
district, in my State, hold two jobs, three jobs, just to put food on 
their table. They work overtime because they need the money. Do not 
take the paychecks away from our workers.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds just to say to 
the gentlewoman, please read the bill. It has nothing to do with what 
you just heard. It does nothing with the 40-hour workweek. It does 
nothing to force anybody to work on Saturday and Sunday. It does 
nothing to force anybody to take comp time. None of that is in the 
bill. Please read the bill.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington 
[Ms. Dunn].
  Ms. DUNN. Mr. Chairman, this issue is very important to me. Balancing 
work and family responsibilities is a very tough challenge. I have in 
fact lived the challenge that is facing today's working mothers, having 
raised two sons on my own as a single mother who tried to balance the 
time with my children with a full-time job. Let me assure my colleagues 
it was not easy, but it does not have to be so difficult. That is why 
we need the Working Families Flexibility Act.
  Just as a mention in response to the gentlewoman from Hawaii's 
comments, the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938, Mr. 
Chairman. This was a time nearly 60 years ago in our country's history 
when the workplace was

[[Page H1128]]

filled mostly with fathers and also it was a manufacturing base. Things 
have changed now and many mothers are now in the workplace because they 
are required to have two parents working just to make ends meet.
  Mr. Chairman, for too long parents have had to choose between work 
and spending time with their children. That is a tragedy. The 1994 U.S. 
Department of Labor found that the No. 1 concern for two out of three 
working women with children under the age of 18 is the difficulty of 
balancing work with family. Two recent surveys show us that three out 
of four parents indicate that having the option to choose either cash 
wages or paid time off for working overtime hours would enable them to 
better balance their work and their family responsibilities. This is 
all we are asking for, that they have the choice.
  A working mother, for example, might prefer to see her daughter in a 
school play than have time and a half on the job. She should have that 
choice. Under current law, too many working mothers lie awake at night 
worrying about whether they are giving their children their time. We 
can do something to help those mothers. This bill addresses that 
problem. It is a sensible, balanced solution to the problem facing the 
hardworking parents of our country who are caught in the difficult 
quandary of simultaneously trying to provide for their families while 
still looking to spend time with them. I urge my colleagues to look at 
this piece of legislation to see its good and to vote for it.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Payne].
  (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1, which 
has been appropriately identified as the paycheck reduction act. It is 
disgraceful that Congress is taking action to threaten the financial 
security of America's working men and women when three out of four of 
U.S. workers have lost ground economically during the last two decades, 
while CEO's reap salaries that are 212 times that of the average 
worker.
  Congress is now attempting to further tilt the balance in favor of 
management by allowing companies to withhold overtime pay and to 
substitute comp time. From my conversations with working people, I can 
tell you that most workers need the overtime pay in order for them to 
earn a salary in order to make ends meet.
  I heard my colleagues talk about the fact that this is great so that 
a father can visit his son at camp. The people I am worried about 
cannot afford to send their children to camp. They cannot afford to buy 
the equipment needed to go to camp. And so we are talking about two 
different people. People on the clock look forward to overtime. I 
recall when I worked the clock and I worked with low wages, I used to 
wait in line to seek overtime. And so to say you now must work overtime 
but you will not be able to be paid it will continually erode the 
ability of working people to earn a decent wage.
  As I indicated from my conversation with working people, I can tell 
you that most workers need the overtime pay so that they are able to 
make ends meet. The bill will hurt America's most vulnerable workers, 
those who rely on overtime pay to make ends meet.
  I offered an amendment during the consideration of this bill to 
exempt workers most vulnerable to employer abuse, such as seasonal 
workers and those in the garment industry. My effort to protect these 
workers was rejected by the majority. I think this is unfortunate. I 
think we should reject this bill.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Andrews].
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. I would like to thank my friend from Missouri for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. We are asked 
to conjure up happy images of parents going to parent-teacher 
conferences and picnics with their children and camp visitations. When 
you read this bill, it paints a very different picture of what it will 
do to the American family and the American worker.
  Picture this: An employee who always chooses cash overtime and never 
chooses comp time will not get offered overtime any more by many, many 
employers. That employee will not get overtime. They will get the right 
to sue their boss at their expense and have to carry the burden of 
proof in the trial.
  Picture this: An employee who has built up a lot of comp time over 
the years and then gets a layoff notice or sees that his or her 
employer is going into bankruptcy. They do not get comp time converted 
into cash. They get left holding the bag because their employer is long 
gone and the cash is long gone and the income that they counted on is 
long gone.
  Picture this: An employee who goes in and says, I want to use my comp 
time next Thursday because I just found out that is when my parent-
teacher conference is, and here is the answer: No.
  Mr. Chairman, you do not get the right to go to the parent-teacher 
conference. You get the right to sue your boss. That really is not 
worth very much to the American worker.
  If you really want to help people that are in so much turmoil and 
trouble, why do we not bring a health insurance bill to the floor that 
makes sure that every American worker gets health insurance when they 
go to work? Why do we not expand on the Family and Medical Leave Act so 
people can get paid when they have to deal with a family medical health 
or other kind of emergency?
  Mr. Chairman, this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I am going to 
vote against the bill and slay the wolf and defeat the bill today.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Tierney].
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1 as it is 
now constituted and proposed. It appears clearly to be an exercise in 
semantics. This bill is touted as the Employee Flexibility Act when in 
fact it would enable those few employers who would act unmindfully of 
their employees' interests to do just that.
  Throughout my district, Mr. Chairman, good employers do not clamor 
for a bill that would enable them to discriminate against their work 
force. Favoring some who opt for comp time over paid time is not 
prohibited in the bill as constituted. Also, the bill is ambiguous at 
best with regard to benefit contributions. If you work and get paid for 
overtime, your employer contributes to benefits or pensions for the 
hours paid. However, under this bill if you take comp time instead of 
wages, an employer avoids making those contributions.
  Good employers already have the ability to give time off to employees 
for family matters. Many find a way to do just that. The Family and 
Medical Leave Act gives employees the right to take time off under fair 
circumstances. It could be expanded to cover more instances if the 
majority truly had family concerns in mind.
  Let us be straight with the American public. This bill would allow 
some employers to avoid paying overtime and avoid making contributions 
to benefits. The majority on the committee rejected amendments that 
would have clarified that an employee should decide whether to take 
time off rather than be paid for overtime. The amendments would have 
required the employee to give 2 weeks' notice. If less notice was 
given, the employee could only take the time off if the employer's 
business would not be unduly disrupted.
  The amendments would have clarified that an employer would be 
prohibited from discriminating against employees while punishing those 
opting against the employer's wishes. Our provision stated with 
certainty the recourse and the penalty for violators.
  The amendment would have clarified a means for protecting moneys owed 
to employees for accumulated time if the employer went bankrupt. In 
short, the amendment sought to help the majority reach their stated 
supposed objective. The truth of the matter is that calling the bill 
something that it is not will not make it acceptable.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished

[[Page H1129]]

gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Molinari].
  Ms. MOLINARI. I thank the gentleman for yielding time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1. This bill 
will finally give our country's hardworking parents the kind of choice 
they so desperately need and the opportunity they deserve. As a working 
mom myself, I find the pressures of balancing work and family extremely 
demanding. My husband and I savor every second we spend with our 
daughter. Too often both of us or one of us come home and she is asleep 
and leave the next morning before she gets up. We are heartbroken 
because the only quality time sometimes that we seem to spend with her 
is when she wakes up crying.
  As crazy as our schedules are, we realize we have it easier than most 
Americans across this country. As Members of Congress, we are fortunate 
to have a lot more scheduling options than other parents. In 1994, a 
Clinton administration Department of Labor report found that the No. 1 
concern for 66 percent of working women with children under the age of 
18 is the difficulty of balancing work and family. Today we say to 
those women, you make that choice to make your life a little bit 
easier.
  The opponents of this bill feel that employees should not have that 
choice, the Government will make that choice for them, because we know 
what is better for the American family than the working mother and 
father. We do not trust them to make the right decisions for what is 
right for them.
  That is the difference here between the opponents and supporters of 
this bill. Employees instigate the option to choose comp time as 
opposed to overtime pay. There is nothing coercive about it. And if the 
employer tries to be coercive about it, he is going to stand greater 
penalties than under the National Labor Relations Act, similar to the 
penalties in the Family and Medical Leave Act. And yet no one from the 
other side had any complaints about the ability to redress under those 
two pieces of legislation.
  Come on. It is now time for us to finally say to people throughout 
this country, particularly the lower income workers that people seem to 
think cannot make the appropriate decisions for themselves, go ahead. 
If you would prefer to take time and a half to spend time with your 
families rather than that paycheck, do it. If the paycheck is what is 
important to your family at that point, you have that option. It is all 
about empowering the family again.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Woolsey].
  (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, supporters of H.R. 1 are pitching it as 
comp time, a bill to give workers more time with their families. Well, 
we all need to spend more time with our families. But H.R. 1 does not 
ensure workers can do that. H.R. 1 is not cover time. H.R. 1 is chump 
time. It is chump time for the employee, because the boss, not 
employee, makes all the decisions. The employer decides whether to 
offer comp time in the first place, who gets it, and when the employee 
can take it.

                             {time}   1330

  Comp time does no good if one cannot plan for it. Under H.R. 1, a mom 
who works overtime in March cannot count on using earned comp time to 
take her kids to the doctor in April. Her employer can deny scheduled 
comp time just by claiming that it would be unduly disruptive to the 
business. That is not comp time; that is chump time. And American 
workers, Mr. Chairman, are not chumps.
  Vote against H.R. 1, the chump time bill.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. McKeon] a subcommittee chairman.
  Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 1 which is 
pro-worker and pro-family legislation. I commend the leadership and our 
chairman for bringing such an important bill to the floor.
  H.R. 1 will allow employees more flexibility in balancing the demands 
of their jobs and families without compromising their worker rights. To 
vote against this bill is to deny private sector workers an option that 
their public sector counterparts now enjoy with great success. Over 75 
percent of employees surveyed said they would like the option of 
choosing comp time or cash.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill is about options for employees. They can take 
their pay in cash or time. When they work overtime they get time and a 
half, or if they decide to take it in time they still get time and a 
half.
  At the bipartisan retreat a couple of weeks ago, I had the 
opportunity to discuss this issue with a member of the Capitol Hill 
police force who does have the opportunity of choosing comp or cash. He 
told me that at this point in his life, time is very often more 
important to him now than money. He is fortunate enough to have already 
had the option of comp time over cash wages, and it is a choice that he 
greatly values. Were he to fall on hard times or need the cash more, he 
could fall back and take the cash instead of the comp time. H.R. 1 
would provide this same option for private sector employees.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill is about giving employees and employers more 
flexibility. Frankly, my experience tells me that this decision should 
be made in the workplace between the employer and the employee rather 
than here in Washington by politicians.
  Finally, I commend the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger] 
for insuring there are adequate protections in the legislation to 
insure that no employee can be coerced or forced into a particular 
option. It is a decision that they discuss and work out with the 
employer.
  Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1 is about family flexibility and choice for 
employees which we should be giving to all Americans. Vote in favor of 
H.R. 1.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Kucinich].
  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, workers of the United States have a right 
to say show me the money, not in comp time but in overtime payment. 
H.R. 1 is not about flexibility or families or constructive reform of 
labor law. H.R. 1 is about undermining and ultimately destroying the 
Fair Labor Standards Act on behalf of those who wish to avoid their 
legal obligations to their workers.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill would open the door to employers to coerce 
their workers to accept comp time instead of receiving overtime in a 
timely manner. This bill would turn back the clock to the days of 16 
tons. My colleagues remember Tennessee Ernie Ford: ``You load 16 tons, 
and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, 
don't you call me because I can't go. I owe my soul to the company 
store.''
  American workers will not accept owing their soul to the company 
store in terms of comp time.
  This bill exchanges an economic right, a legal right that workers now 
possess, the right to obtain time and a half payment for overtime work 
for an IOU, an IOU issued by their employer to maybe give comp time in 
the future. H.R. 1 would encourage companies to schedule more overtime 
because companies would not have to pay their workers for it. More 
overtime means fewer jobs.
  In this era of labor saving technology and falling real wages, when 
working families are struggling with two jobs, the 40-hour work week 
plus overtime is already too long. We need to be discussing public 
policies that promote more jobs, higher wages, and a shorter work week. 
I urge the defeat of H.R. 1.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, ``When you get your marching orders, 
if you want to really impress the public and act as if you really mean 
what you're saying don't read the legislation. Then you can be very 
impressive out here.'' And that is what we are seeing over and over 
again, and I point out again it is less than two little pages. That is 
all it would have taken, time to read two little pages, and then my 
colleagues would not come down here and be so demeaning to the American 
workers.
  I ask my colleagues, ``Can you imagine people in this well saying 
over and

[[Page H1130]]

over again these people can't make a decision, we have to make the 
decision for them? They don't know how to think.'' These are the 
American workers they are talking about.
  This legislation tells the worker, ``You make the decision. You don't 
ask anybody else to make the decision, you don't ask government to make 
the decision. You make the decision.''
  And I will guarantee my colleagues every American worker out there 
can make that decision. They do not need our help to make that 
decision. They can make it themselves.
  So it is totally demeaning to be talking as if American workers 
cannot make choices, and everyone who stood up there, if they read the 
legislation, know that every worker is protected more than any other 
legislation that has ever passed in the House of Representatives, and 
the employer would be a fool if they tried to intimidate an employee, 
if they tried to determine that they will take that overtime in time 
off rather than wages, whether that employees wants it or not. That 
employee is protected more than any other employee has ever been 
protected.
  And is not it interesting? Were we this demeaning to the public 
employees in 1985? Did we tell them they could not think for 
themselves? Of course we did not. We gave them the opportunity to 
think. And is not it also interesting in a recent study by the 
International Personnel Management Association, they found that 98 
percent of public employees with a unionized work force offered a 
significant percentage of their work force flex benefits? What that 
proves is that the pressure of the employee will cause unions to 
negotiate for comp time, and we are giving them that opportunity which 
they now do not have in the private sector.
  So I would hope that people would read and would read all the 
protections that are in this legislation because I do not know of any 
other legislation that is so employee-friendly as this legislation is.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 seconds.
  The point about making it only two pages can be countered by saying, 
If you wanted to repeal the first amendment, it's only one sentence.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Martinez].
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. Chairman, let me start off by saying this is not 
about flexibility. There are many of us that are for flexibility. That 
is why we will vote for the substitute of the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Miller] because his substitute understands one thing that this 
bill does not understand, that that time worked for belongs to the 
employee, not the employer. But my good chairman says that this bill 
gives the employees the right. It does not because the bottom line is 
that the employee may provide monetary compensation for an employee in 
unused compensatory time in excess of 80 hours, which means he 
determines whether you reach the full allotted time or not. The 
employer again makes the decision. It further goes on to say that the 
employee can only take the time if it does not unduly disrupt the 
operation of the employer. That gives the employer a wide open door to 
say, ``Hey, this is unduly disrupting my production; you can't take the 
time.''
  So the employees do not control the time. If we are giving 
flexibility to employees, if we really want them to spend time with 
their families, then give them the options, not the employer. That is 
the problem here.
  The bill of the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller], which is a 
derivative of the President's bill, is something that gives the 
employee that option. This bill does not.
  Vote against this bill. Vote for the Miller substitute.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  Somebody on the committee should know exactly what they are talking 
about and, of course, disrupt unduly and unduly disrupt are the same 
words that are in the Family Medical Leave Act that we had. They just 
reversed the way the two words are written, so anybody should be able 
to know that if they read the legislation.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, the sponsors of this ``Paycheck Reduction 
Act'' keep claiming that H.R. 1 uses the same ``unduly disrupt'' 
standard found in the Family and Medical Leave Act. Their claim is 
flat, dead wrong.
  Let's set the record straight. Under the FMLA, the ``unduly disrupt'' 
standard is extremely limited and specifically protects the power of 
employees to decide for themselves when to take family leave. Under the 
FMLA, the ``unduly disrupt'' exception only applies when the need for 
leave is for forseeable medical reasons. In that case, the FMLA says, 
``The employee shall make a reasonable effort to schedule the leave so 
as not to disrupt unduly the employer's operation.'' Even then, the 
leave can only be delayed if the employee's doctor agrees that delay 
will not harm the health of the employee, or his or her family member.
  That distinction lies at the heart of the difference between the 
Republican bill and the Democratic substitute. We protect the 
employees' power over their own time and pay. H.R. 1, on the other 
hand, gives more power to the employees.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. 
Fowler].
  (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Chairman, as a working mother I learned one lesson 
early on. No matter how much we may want to, we human beings cannot be 
in two places at one time. The conflict between responsibilities at 
work and at home is a huge cause of stress for working parents, and the 
only cure for that stress is added flexibility in scheduling without 
loss of pay.
  Fortunately for America's working families help is on the way in the 
form of H.R. 1, Congressman Ballenger's Working Families Flexibility 
Act. This legislation would update existing labor law which was passed 
in the 1930's to reflect current reality by allowing employers to offer 
the option of comp time to workers as an alternative to overtime.
  Now this bill will not force anyone to do anything. It will not make 
employers offer comp time, it will not make employees take comp time, 
and it provides employees with the option of cashing out their comp 
time at any time if they desire to do so. In other words, all this bill 
does is provide employers and workers with more choice, making people's 
lives a little bit easier and giving working people a chance to balance 
work and family in a better way.
  Numerous protections have been included in the bill to ensure that 
employees cannot be pressured into one choice or another and that it 
does not change or eliminate the payment of overtime or the traditional 
40-hour work week. Under this, whether one takes comp time or overtime 
pay, they still receive time and a half.
  I want to ask all of my colleagues to support this bill, especially 
those who are parents. We all know what it is like to need some more 
flexibility in our lives. Let us bring labor law into the present and 
give working parents a break.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Tennessee [Mr. Ford].
  Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, today I rise in support of children, in 
support of families and in support of business. I rise in support of 
workers who want real flexibility, real protection, and real choice. 
Today I rise in support, Mr. Chairman, of workers who are struggling to 
pay bills, who are struggling to make ends meet, and who are struggling 
to put food on the table. I rise in support today of this Nation's most 
vulnerable workers who want to ensure that they too will have real 
choice, real flexibility, and real protection.
  That is why I am urging my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
oppose H.R. 1 and support the Miller substitute. Business in this 
Nation, as well as workers in this Nation, want to ensure that both 
have choice, opportunity, flexibility, and protection. H.R. 1 does not 
provide that.
  Let us stop demagoging this issue and work this issue out on behalf 
of children, working families, and business in America.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to insert behind the 
last words of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling] who said 
that the unduly was the same as in the family and medical records, 
Family

[[Page H1131]]

and Medical Leave Act, I want to insert behind that statement an 
explanation explaining the difference.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman can insert that information as a revision 
in extension of those remarks.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I said that the words were reversed. If 
we look in the one, it says unduly first, and then look in the other, 
it says unduly second. So I said the words are reversed.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I am not disputing what he said. I am asking 
to insert this in the Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Missouri?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Becerra].
  (Mr. BECERRA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)

                              {time}  1345

  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, the proponents of this bill, H.R. 1, argue 
that employees have choice, and that is why we should pass this bill. 
We are further admonished that we should read this 2-page bill.
  Mr. Chairman, I read the bill. An employee has an opportunity to earn 
comp time; an employee is given flexibility in the workplace if, if, 
the employer chooses; if the employer chooses, not the employee.
  Page 3, paragraph 2, conditions: Employer decides who gets comp time, 
not the employee. An employer can offer one employee comp time and an 
employee that lives and works under the same circumstances can be 
denied comp time. An employee can be offered comp time 1 day, and on 
another occasion under the same circumstances can be denied comp time. 
The employer chooses.
  Page 4, paragraph B, compensation date: An employer has the right to 
hold an employee's accrued comp time for up to 1 full year before 
disbursing it to that employee.
  Page 5, line 11, the policy: An employer may withdraw his agreement 
in writing with an employee to offer comp time when he chooses to do 
so.
  So you could start off with some comp time, but if the employer 
decides, no, I wish to change my mind, the employer has the right to do 
that.
  Page 7, paragraph A, general rule, listen to this. I do not know if 
it was meant to be this way, but an employee cannot cash out his or her 
money if he or she leaves.
  Under the way the bill is written, the language, it appears to say 
that the employer can actually give you comp time at the same rate that 
you have earned that time. So if you earn $10 an hour and you have 200 
hours of earned comp time, that is about 25 days of paid comp time, it 
could take up to 25 days for you to collect your money that you earned, 
that is in comp time, even after you have left that employer. That is 
the way the bill reads. It seems to say that.
  Mr. Chairman, I read the bill. It is not a good bill. Please defeat 
this bill.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] should have 
gone on and read section E, which says, an employee may withdraw an 
agreement described in paragraph 2(b) at any time, an employee.
  Also, I say to my colleague, in the public sector at the present time 
the same language applies to an employer offering time. Why does 
somebody not ask to have an amendment to eliminate public employees 
from comp time? If this law is so bad, let us not make public employees 
suffer any longer.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Wynn].
  Mr. WYNN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding me 
this time.
  Mr. Chairman, the key issue here in reality is that private employees 
are not on an equal footing with private employers. That is why they 
call the employer the boss. The fact of the matter is that secretaries, 
construction workers, textile workers are vulnerable to the employer's 
decision regarding comp time. Whether they want comp time or not, it 
becomes abundantly clear that if you want your job, you better take the 
comp time.
  Studies have indicated that as much as 64 percent of the working 
population prefers overtime pay to comp time, because overtime pay 
sends kids to college and overtime pay helps you buy a house.
  Employees in the first instance cannot decide whether they want comp 
time because the employer will make that decision and make it clear.
  Second, they cannot decide whether they want to use the comp time, 
because the employer can decide, well, you will unduly disrupt my 
business. So all of those stories you heard about how people can go to 
their school plays and they can have time with their children and their 
sick relatives really does not apply if the employer says you cannot 
have it. We prefer real time.
  The fact of the matter is that overtime pay is in your hands. You can 
spend it or not spend it. Comp time is in the boss's hands. He can tell 
you whether you can spend it and when you can spend it, and that is the 
fundamental problem. They go on to say, we have all of these employer 
protections. Well, you do not really have protections, because the 
Labor Department is already overburdened trying to enforce the minimum 
wage and fair labor standards. Who is going to go out and enforce all 
of these new laws? I do not think that that is a realistic proposal.
  The fact of the matter is many of these companies are 
undercapitalized. When they go under, your comp time goes under. Many 
of these companies are fly-by-night. When they leave, your comp time 
leaves. The problem is that the employee cannot be adequately 
protected. The Labor Department does not have the adequate resources to 
take on these additional responsibilities.
  We have a good system now that works, that protects employees and 
provides them with the thing they need, and that is a paycheck so that 
moderate income families can have additional resources. We should not 
compromise this with this radical comp time proposal.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Committee will rise informally in order that the 
House may receive a message.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons) assumed the chair.

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