[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 61 (Monday, May 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4291-S4293]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FAMILY FRIENDLY WORKPLACE ACT

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, it is a delight to be able to come here 
on the day following Mother's Day to talk about the very best present 
for Mother's Day that the U.S. Senate could possibly give to the 
families of America.
  I am talking about the need for families to be able to spend time 
together, and that need is reflected in the fact that families are 
composed differently than they used to be, that instead of having just 
one family member earning the living for the family, many family 
members work. As we have an increase in the number of family members 
that are in the work force, it becomes more and more important for us 
to have the capacity for those family members to adjust and arrange 
their schedules in ways that allow for the right kind of time that 
parents can spend with their children.
  This is extremely important, because I think all of us know that the 
success of America depends far more on America's families and what 
happens there than depends on America's Government. The job of 
Government is to make it possible for families to do the job of 
families. And when people in families can do their jobs well, the jobs 
of those of us in Government will be much easier.
  Who among us really does not think that the crime problem is in many 
respects a family problem? Who among us does not really understand that 
the welfare problem is really in many respects a family problem? Who 
among us does not understand that if we would really have and maximize 
and increase and enhance the capacity of families to work together as 
families that we would not elevate substantially the way in which we 
live in the United States?
  That is why the Family Friendly Workplace Act, Senate bill 4, S. 4, 
is on the top of our agenda. That is why it is

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one of our priority measures. That is why we debated the bill 
substantially in the last several weeks. That is why on Friday we spent 
time talking about S. 4. And that is why S. 4 will be the topic of our 
debate tomorrow morning when we return to the bill.
  It is an understanding that we need strong families and that the 
workplace competes with the home place. We need to make sure that the 
laws of this country do not keep people from spending the kind of high-
quality time they need to spend with each other and their children.
  It is a really big problem for families, now that two breadwinners 
are in the average family. But think of how much more important 
flexible working arrangements are when there is only one adult in the 
family? To be able to trade an hour on Friday afternoon or work an 
extra hour on Friday so you can take an hour off on Monday to see your 
child get an award at the school or to watch your daughter play in a 
soccer game or your son play in a football game in the afternoon during 
working times normally is a tremendous asset if we could just give 
people that kind of flexibility. And, you know, so many more of our 
children's activities are now in the afternoons.
  Arlyce Robinson, one of the individuals who testified before our 
committee, said she had four grandchildren and many of their activities 
are now scheduled, in the Washington, DC, area, in the afternoon 
because it is much safer to have activities during daylight hours. She 
cannot see them. She wants to see them. She wants to support them. She 
wants to reinforce their positive behavior. She needs to be able to 
have the flexible working arrangements to do it.

  The family has changed. This chart shows just how things have almost 
totally flipped. Back in 1938, when we developed our labor laws--1938--
only 2 out of every dozen--only 2 out of 12--women with school-aged 
children were working outside the home. Now only three such women are 
inside the home. So that instead of having two outside the home, we 
have nine outside the home. So we have had a real change. This has been 
a sea change. And the stresses that have come to families have really 
been substantial.
  Let us take a look at how times have changed. Only 2 out of 12 women 
worked outside the home with school-aged children; today, 9 out of 12 
women with school-aged children work outside the home.
  Families are stressed. A recent poll taken in the week before 
Mother's Day: 91 percent of the mothers said flexible working 
arrangements would be very important to them. They understand, 
basically, on a close to 10-to-1 ratio, how important it would be.
  Interestingly enough, Federal workers have flextime. Federal workers, 
the ratio of their response to a study conducted about flextime in the 
Federal Government, at a 10-to-1 rate, they said this is a good thing. 
Federal workers have had this since 1978.
  As a matter of fact, it is the hourly workers of America that do not 
have this. The guys in the walnut boardroom, you know, the guys who 
take time off to play golf on Friday afternoon, they have flexible 
working arrangements, believe me. They do not get their pay docked 
every time they need to do something or want to do something. Neither 
does the president, the CEO, the treasurer or the manager or the 
supervisor. They are salaried employees, and all salaried employees 
have flexibility in this country.
  Of course, all of the Government workers, even the Government workers 
for the Federal Government who work by the hour, they have flextime and 
flexible working arrangements.
  State government workers all have comptime, as was granted to them by 
the U.S. Congress, the ability to say instead of taking overtime pay, 
when we want to, we should have the option to take some time off.
  We have left the hard-working, laboring people of the United States 
as a group of second-class citizens who do not have the capacity for 
flextime and comptime. They ought to have it. They are in a minority. 
They are the only ones left. And, frankly, it is not fair, because they 
have the responsibilities of being at home. Their families are 
stressed, just like other families are stressed. Federal workers 
already have it. It is time that the stressed families of hourly paid 
workers have it as well.
  We enacted laws making it illegal to add an hour to one week in 
return for taking an hour off the next week in 1938. The Fair Labor 
Standards Act was a great step forward for protecting workers. However, 
that protection now has become a real hindrance. As a matter of fact, 
it has been more difficult in recent times for families to meet their 
own needs. They are endorsing the idea of flexibility in work schedules 
in overwhelming numbers.
  Now, there are some things that we do in order to give people the 
ability to accommodate their families. We have, for most hourly 
workers, this ability to take what is called family and medical leave. 
That came from the Family and Medical Leave Act, referred to as FMLA. 
It is the ability to take time off for a sick child, but you have to do 
that without pay, so that when you take time off you have a pay cut.
  Now, most people find that to be very discomforting. They are working 
and taking time away from their families because they need the money to 
support their families. They have a lot of tension financially which 
drives them into the work force. That elevates the tension socially. 
And yet in order to accommodate this social tension, when your family 
has a need, the current law says you have to take a pay cut. That means 
you help resolve one tension but you increase another tension. It is 
like jumping out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire.
  What flextime, what the Family Friendly Workplace Act would do, 
basically it would say if you worked a few extra hours from time to 
time that you and your employer agreed on, you could put those in a 
bank, in an account of hours, so that if you needed to take time off 
you would not have to have your paycheck cut for taking time off. If 
your child gets sick, you can say, ``OK, I have an hour in the savings 
bank,'' and instead of being stressed financially by helping your 
child, you can take the time off without taking a pay cut. I think when 
we have an opportunity to do that, we ought to make that available. 
Someone might say, well, that is pretty risky, tampering with the laws 
of the 1930's. The truth of the matter is we would not impose this on 
anyone. We would give people this opportunity to ask for this and to 
choose this.
  Second, if you put the hours in the bank and later decided you wanted 
the money under the law, you could ask for the money and the employer 
would have to give you the money.
  Third, Federal employees have had this for the last 19 years. We know 
how this system works. It works extremely well to meet the needs of 
families. When interviewed by the General Accounting Office--which is 
not a political arm of Government; it is a bunch of accountants--they 
said, ``How do you like this?'' At a rate of better than 10 to 1, the 
Federal employees said, ``This is great, the best thing since sliced 
bread. This works.'' It is something that the boardroom folks have, the 
boss has, the managers have it, the supervisors have, all the 
Government workers in Federal Government have, all the State workers 
have comptime provisions in their legal framework, but it is against 
the law to give hourly working people that kind of benefit. That is a 
law that, really, is against the hourly working people, not for them. 
We need to make sure we have the right safeguards in the law to make 
sure employers do not abuse that. We have done that. We have doubled 
the penalties for normal overtime violations so that if there are 
coercive activities--either direct or indirect--as specified in the 
bill, then serious penalties are occasioned.
  I believe this bill, which we will be back discussing and debating, 
will be the official agenda of the Senate. We will be on the bill 
tomorrow morning. It is a bill in favor of the American people. It is a 
bill that is in favor of the 59 million hourly wage people in the 
country. We have about 130 million employees in the country, and a 
majority of them, the vast majority of them, have the capacity for 
flextime. It is that hourly wage group that does not. It is time they 
had the same kind of flexibility. Their families are just as important 
to the future of America as the families of the boardroom folks are, as 
the families of the managers, the owners, as families of Government 
workers. It is time we allowed them to do that.

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  I believe we will provide a bill that the President will want to 
sign. The President of the United States campaigned on flextime. He 
understands this need. Mrs. Clinton has spoken clearly on the need for 
flextime and the importance of having time with children. The President 
mentioned it in his State of the Union Message, specifically calling 
for flextime, the ability to have flexible working arrangements and 
schedules. The President, when he found that there was a narrow niche, 
a narrow sliver, a small group of Federal employees that did not have 
it when he took the Office of President, he extended it by Executive 
order. So there is no question in my mind that he really knows the 
value, the Clinton family understands the need of other families in 
this situation. Although the President does know that the only 
organized opposition, really, the only opposition to this whole 
proposal, has been through labor leaders of organized labor. I do not 
say organized labor generally, because so many working people want 
this. If you talk to the working mothers, it is almost a 10 to 1 ratio 
in favor of this. I believe we will have an opportunity to send to the 
President of the United States a bill which he will want to sign.

  My question is whether or not somehow his sense of indebtedness to 
the labor leaders in Washington, DC, organized labor leaders, will in 
some measure inhibit his capacity to sign something that would be good 
for the American people. I hope it will not. He should understand, and 
I think he does, there are 28.9 million hourly paid working women in 
America. They need the relief of flexible working arrangements so they 
can spend time with their families, as well as accommodate the demand 
of the workplace.
  I close with this point. One of the reasons we have prosperity in 
America, the standard of living we enjoy, is so many women are working 
and doing such a great job. I do not think there is a culture anywhere 
in the world that can match the United States in terms of the 
contribution that working women make to the way we live and the way we 
want to live, the way we aspire to live. We need these women to be 
productive and contributors to the marketplace as we are competing 
against the rest of the world, but while we need them, we owe them, and 
we owe them the opportunity to spend time with their family. That could 
be achieved if we had a reasonable approach to directing work 
arrangements and allowing them to make choices.
  Never in this bill is there an opportunity for an employer to impose 
upon a worker the requirement to work in return for time off, instead 
of working in return for pay. Whenever a person says, ``I would like to 
work for comptime,'' that means they will be able to take time off and 
still get pay, and if they decide they want to take time off and still 
get pay and before they take the time off they change their mind and 
they want the time-and-a-half pay, they get the time-and-a-half pay. 
This is a measure that is designed to give workers choice and to give 
them the opportunity to do what we need for them to do the most, which 
is to be the kind of parents they ought to be.
  It is not like the Family and Medical Leave Act, which says when you 
take time off it is without pay. This is the capacity of Americans to 
be good parents and not take a pay cut. We should not, as a Government, 
say to people that in order to be a good parent you have to take a pay 
cut. We should develop a capacity for flexible working arrangements in 
this country which allows parents to be what they need to be and what 
we need them to be, and that is good parents, and to do so in the 
context of providing for their families.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to use the time allotted to me during morning business at 
this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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