[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 65 (Friday, May 16, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4645-S4647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FAMILY FRIENDLY WORKPLACE ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the American workplace has changed 
drastically since the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act--nearly 
60 years ago. In those days, for example, a small percentage of working 
mothers toiled in the fields, factories, and general stores. Today, 
nearly 70 percent of mothers with children under the age of 6 are now 
working.

  The constant refrain of both mothers and fathers in the nineties is: 
``There's just not enough hours in the day.''
  Well, the U.S. Senate can't put more hours in a day, but we can give 
workers more choices on how to spend those hours each day.
  The time has come to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. I am 
proud to be a cosponsor of S. 4, the Family Friendly Workplace Act.
  Taking a look at this bill that Senator Ashcroft has so skillfully 
put together and advocated. I think that the Family Friendly Workplace 
Act is one of the best opportunities we've had in a long time to make a 
substantial contribution to America's working families. This bill is 
based on the comments and experiences of men and women who know the 
difficulty of balancing work and family.

  Recently, a good friend of mine, Bill Stone, from Louisville, KY, my 
hometown, testified in support of S. 4 at a hearing before the 
Employment and Training Subcommittee of the Labor Committee upon which 
I serve. Bill runs the Louisville Plate Glass Co. Approximately three-
fourths of this company's Louisville work force is paid on an hourly 
basis and would be directly impacted by S. 4.
  As Bill explained to our subcommittee, he said, ``S. 4 will give a 
new and greatly needed measure of flexibility to our employees who are 
trying to meet the demands of raising children in single-parent or two-
worker families. It will also,'' Bill stated, ``be a huge benefit to 
our employees who are pursuing training or educational activities.''
  Now, let us take a look, Mr. President, at the compensatory time off 
provided for under the bill. If an employee at the Louisville Plate 
Glass Co. has to work overtime, then compensatory time off allows him 
to choose if he wants to be compensated with time-and-a-half pay or 
time-and-a-half time off.
  A recent poll by Money magazine found that 66 percent of the American 
people would rather have their overtime in the form of time off than in 
hourly wages. And an astonishing 82 percent of people support 
legislation to allow workers to have this type of choice and 
flexibility.
  The findings of this survey point to one conclusion, as explained by 
Ann Reilly Dowd of Money magazine. She put it this way. She said, 
``People are considering time much more precious than money right 
now.'' And that is an enormous change in our society, Mr. President. 
Moreover, as Ms. Dowd concluded, ``it seems that people are working so 
hard and being so torn between the mounting demands of their job and 
their family life that they really, really want more free time and 
they, particularly, want more flexible schedules.''
  The Senate has a responsibility to respond to this overwhelming 
national need for choice and flexibility in the workplace.
  Passing comptime legislation is just the first step in our response. 
Unfortunately, comptime alone is not enough. A bill that only includes 
comptime provisions will only include a small percentage of workers who 
actually work overtime.
  S. 4 also includes two important provisions for workers who typically 
do not get the opportunity to work overtime. In most cases these 
workers are women.
  For example, nearly three out of four workers reporting overtime pay 
are

[[Page S4646]]

men. In order to accommodate working mothers, as well as other 
employees who do not regularly work overtime, S. 4 includes the 
biweekly work program and the flexible credit hours program.
  If a working mother chooses to work 45 hours in week 1 so that she 
can work 35 hours the next week and have 5 hours to spend on a school 
field trip with her children, then the biweekly work program allows her 
to do that without sacrificing either pay or vacation time. Or if an 
employee chooses to work extra time in any one workweek, then flexible 
credit hours allows him or her to put those additional hours in the 
bank, so to speak, and take paid time off at a later date.
  Compensatory time off, the biweekly work program and flexible credit 
hours have two things in common: choice and paid time off. Simply put, 
this bill just makes good sense. It is about nothing more than giving 
options to employees.
  The Family Friendly Workplace Act gives employees the opportunity to 
get paid time off at virtually no cost to the employer. Everybody wins.
  The opponents of the Family Friendly Workplace Act argue that our 
country's employees will not be able to handle this flexibility. The 
skeptics argue that the employees will be coerced.
  First, let me say, Government employees have had comp and flextime 
privileges for years--Government employees have had that right--and 
there is virtually no hard evidence to support the potential horror 
stories conjured up by opponents of S. 4.
  Second, our bill contains strong penalties for any employer who 
forces an employee to accept time over money.
  Diane Buster, an hourly employee from my hometown of Louisville, KY, 
recently spoke very passionately to the need for S. 4. She explained 
that

       . . . for the last 15 years I have been in the full-time 
     work force bound by an archaic law, the Fair Labor Standards 
     Act, passed in 1938 when only about 20 percent of women 
     worked . . . [Under this law], the privilege of compensatory 
     time is denied to hourly employees in private business while 
     it is permitted to salaried employees in the private sector 
     and to employees of the Federal Government.

  Ms. Buster ultimately concluded that ``this seems patently unfair and 
smacks of elitism, if not discrimination. A vote for fairness seems in 
order.''
  The Paducah Sun in my State issued a similar statement a few weeks 
ago in an editorial that concluded that ``the comp time bill ought to 
be passed * * * The language guarantees the right of workers to take 
overtime pay if they desire, so labor's objection that the companies 
can't be trusted is only so much old-school us-against-them thinking.''

  Finally, I would like to point out that in Government settings union 
leaders routinely demand that employers allow flexible scheduling 
provisions as part of a collective bargaining agreement. I must confess 
that it strikes me as a little bit odd that union leaders are now 
fighting to block all hourly employees from receiving the very benefit 
they seek for their own union employees.
  In the words of The Courier-Journal, which is our largest State 
newspaper, ``[Comptime] looks like a win-win situation. Workers and 
employers would get more flexibility in working out schedules, and 
neither side would be forced to participate. What's Bill Clinton scared 
of?'' said the Courier-Journal.
  The answer to that newspaper's question, sadly enough, may be that 
the President and the union bosses are simply playing politics at the 
expense of the American worker.
  The presidents of the UAW, the Steelworkers, and the Machinists wrote 
a letter to President Clinton on April 28 of this year that sums up the 
politics which threaten to block S. 4. I would like to quote from that 
letter. This is what the union bosses had to say:

       Politically, any compromise with Senate Republicans on the 
     comp time legislation . . . would undermine the Democratic 
     Party's political base among working men and women, and 
     jeopardize our ability to energize workers to achieve the 
     goal of electing a Democratic House and Senate [in 1998].

  That pretty well says it all, Mr. President. That pretty well says it 
all. You have to give them points for candor.
  Mr. President, there may be some valid arguments out there for 
genuine debate on S. 4, but it is surely not those arguments. We should 
not block legislation that is good for the American worker and the 
American workplace simply because it may ``undermine the Democratic 
Party's political base'' and ``jeopardize [the] ability to energize 
[campaign] workers.''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the statements of Bill 
Stone and Diane Buster and the editorials of the Paducah Sunday and the 
Courier Journal be printed in the Record. 
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Statement by William A. Stone Before the Subcommittee on Employment and 
                      Training, February 13, 1997

       My name is William A. Stone, I am President of Louisville 
     Plate Glass Company in Louisville, Kentucky. We are the 
     majority stockholder in two Atlanta glass manufacturing 
     firms, Tempered Glass, Inc. and Insulating Glass of Georgia. 
     I am the Chief Executive Officer of both Atlanta companies. 
     Louisville Plate Glass is a member of the U.S. Chamber of 
     Commerce, the world's largest business federation 
     representing an underlying membership of more than three 
     million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, 
     and region. I am a member and former Chairman of the 
     Chamber's Labor Relations Committee. I also served on the 
     Chamber's Small Business Council and Board of Directors for 
     five years.
       Our companies manufacture architectural glass products 
     primarily for commercial buildings and employ about 116 
     people in three locations. I purchased the Louisville Plate 
     Glass Company 25 years ago. We had only 19 employees at the 
     time. Now, approximately 110 people are employed by these 
     companies, with about 40 working in Louisville and the others 
     in Atlanta. Approximately three-fourths of the Louisville 
     workforce are paid on an hourly basis and record their work 
     hours on a time clock. They are primarily production workers, 
     truck drivers, and shipping personnel.
       The average Louisville employee usually works about 10 
     overtime hours per week. The truck drivers usually work more 
     overtime hours than the employees in the plant. Our hourly 
     employees are scheduled to work five days per week and, when 
     extra work is necessary, they prefer to work longer days 
     during the week than to work on Saturday. However, sometimes 
     it is necessary to schedule some employees to work on a 
     Saturday. If an employee is unable to report for work, he or 
     she must use accumulated vacation time or other paid time 
     off, if any is available.
       We have had few, employees ask to take time off without 
     pay, and instead be scheduled or allowed to work extra hours 
     during the same pay period as their absence in order to earn 
     the pay they would have received had they not missed work. 
     They do not even bother to ask for this arrangement because 
     they know that in most cases, the necessary arrangements 
     cannot be made within the well-known restrictions of the Fair 
     Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
       Today you are considering The Family Friendly Workplace Act 
     (S. 4). This bill provides that hourly employees can, with 
     their employers' agreement, earn time off instead of overtime 
     pay so they can take time off to attend to personal or family 
     business. I am here to tell you that passage of this bill 
     will provide many employees, like those of Louisville Plate 
     Glass, with what they perceive as a new and very valuable 
     benefit. If this bill becomes law, my company will 
     immediately make every effort to allow our employees to 
     earn compensatory or ``comp'' time. I have no doubt at all 
     that almost all, if not all, of our employees will ask to 
     be able to earn time off instead of, or in addition to, 
     overtime pay for the extra hours that they work. They will 
     quickly see that with even modest amounts of accrued comp 
     time, they will be able to attend to personal and family 
     business without suffering a loss in pay because of their 
     absence.
       Of course, it would be not only unwise but essentially 
     unworkable to allow employees with accrued comp time to use 
     that accrued time whenever they pleased. Our production and 
     shipping schedules, with our limited staff, will not permit 
     extended or frequent worker absences without reasonable 
     notice and arrangements. I am confidant that we will be able 
     to make the necessary arrangements for most employees to use 
     their accrued time off most of the time.
       The comp time arrangement envisioned in S. 4 will give a 
     new and greatly needed measure of flexibility to our 
     employees who are trying to meet the demands of raising 
     children in single-parent or two-worker families. It will 
     also be a huge benefit to our employees who are pursuing 
     training or education activities. In fact, with the FLSA 
     changes embodied in S. 4, especially comp time, there would 
     little or no need for most of the provisions of the Family 
     and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Few employees would opt for 
     partially paid leave under the FMLA when they could use 
     accumulated compt time and receive their normal paychecks 
     even though they were absent.
       Employees in the public sector have been able to use comp 
     time for over ten years. I understand that federal government 
     employees have had this benefit for even longer. There is 
     absolutely no reason that private-sector workers, like those 
     at Louisville Plate

[[Page S4647]]

     Glass and other businesses large and small, should not have 
     the comp time benefit that the government saw fit to provide 
     to its own employees long ago. It's time that family-friendly 
     employers in the private sector be permitted to have the 
     flexibility to work with employees to meet not only their 
     workforce needs but the needs of their employees as well.
       In my years of involvement in public policy, I have always 
     been able to see that, no matter how contentious the issue, 
     the other side had legitimate points. However, in this case 
     there does not seem to be any legitimate reason not to allow 
     private-sector employees the same opportunity for flexibility 
     that their brothers and sisters in the public sector enjoy.
       Thank you for the privilege of allowing me to speak on 
     behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on this important 
     issue. I would be happy to answer any questions.
                                                                    ____


                       Statement by Diane Buster

       My name is Diane Buster, I reside in Louisville, Kentucky 
     where I work as Administrative Assistant to the Executive 
     Director of a small, local, not-for profit corporation. Why, 
     you may wonder, would I get up at 4:00 a.m., take a day off 
     without pay and travel here to speak on the issue of 
     workplace flexibility? Why? Because I am passionate about the 
     need for the passage of the Work and Family Integration Act.
       As part of the labor force in this country for almost 
     thirty years, always in position where I have been paid an 
     hourly wage, I have lobbied in every position I have had for 
     flexibility to manage my home, family and personal life. 
     Always the price I paid for that flexibility was a lesser 
     wage and less responsibility as I settled for part-time work 
     to enable me to manage the demands of my responsibilities as 
     homemaker and mother in addition to my work duties.
       For the last 15 years I have been in the full-time work 
     force bound by an archaic law, The Fair Labor Standard Act, 
     passed in 1938 when only about 20% of women worked as 
     compared to the almost 60% of women currently in the labor 
     force. This act mandates that I may only work 40 hours per 
     week and that, should I exceed that amount of hours in any 
     seven contiguous days, my employer is required to pay me one 
     and one half times my normal wage, even though I would prefer 
     to be allowed time off in lieu of the overtime pay. This law, 
     I'm told, applies to hourly workers whose duties are not self 
     directed. Tell me I'm not self directed when I am the only 
     one left in the office when the non-classified staff, 
     privileged to direct their own schedule, has all left early 
     to attend family functions, shop, play golf or indulge in 
     some similar recreation!
       As a working mother and grandmother, with family all 
     residing out of state, helping out in emergency situations 
     and caring for the needs of my immediate family members would 
     be infinitely more possible with a bank of compensatory time 
     to draw on to use for such emergency care needs. The meager 
     budget of the small non-profit corporation where I work, 
     whose staffing needs fluctuate, would quite obviously be 
     better off not having to pay me overtime wages, permitting me 
     compensatory time when the workload is less. In know I am not 
     alone, but one of thousands of workers for whom the stress of 
     balancing the demands of work, home, personal and family 
     needs would be greatly alleviated by having more control over 
     my work schedule. Small businesses, the backbone of our 
     communities, who are being choked to death, forced to adhere 
     to laws and restrictions which make no sense for their time 
     and place in our economy today, would also be enormously 
     helped by being able to predicate their work schedules on the 
     specific demands of their particular business.
       As the law currently stands, the privilege of compensatory 
     time is denied to hourly employees in private business while 
     it is permitted to salaried employees in the private sector 
     and to employees of the Federal government. This seems 
     patently unfair and smacks of elitism, if not discrimination. 
     A vote for fairness seems in order.
       Passage of the Work and Family Integration Act will, I 
     believe, immensely help to alleviate stress for the working 
     population and greatly assist small businesses.
                                                                    ____


                  [From the Paducah Sun, Feb. 7, 1997]

                             Pass Comp Bill

       Opposition by some congressional Democrats and their 
     supporters in organized labor to a plan to allow compensatory 
     time off for hourly workers in lieu of overtime pay has an 
     odd ring to it.
       The bill pushed by the GOP Congress, and endorsed by 
     President Clinton, would give employees the option of taking 
     the time, at the rate of 1\1/2\ hours for each overtime hour, 
     if the employer agrees. Workers would be able to bank time 
     for personal use, as many obviously would prefer. Many 
     companies also would rather give the employees time off 
     instead of the extra money.
       Unions have criticized the idea as an attack on the 
     traditional 40-hour work week. The don't trust employers not 
     to pressure their employees to take the time off rather than 
     the overtime compensation.
       But the real reason for the political opposition to the 
     plan is revealed in this statement by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, 
     Democrat of California: ``It will be flexible for the 
     employer. We must ensure that the employee has 100 percent 
     choice.'' Translation: The legislation is wrong because it 
     doesn't force the employer to do anything. Never mind that 
     the bill would give the worker a potential choice the 
     existing law denies him completely.
       The family leave issue, it is recalled, was 
     enthusiastically embraced by Democrats as a great step 
     forward for working families. The law gives workers the 
     option of taking 12 weeks unpaid leave to deal with family 
     needs. In other words, they voluntarily give up money in 
     exchange for time off and flexibility, just as the comp time 
     bill would do.
       So what's the difference? It is the mandate issue. Under 
     family leave, the company has no choice but to allow the 
     absence. To liberals, providing an avenue where an employee 
     and his boss can work out a mutually satisfactory arrangement 
     is not good enough. In fact, the whole idea apparently is so 
     obnoxious to them they would rather leave matters as they are 
     and give the worker no legal option for a more flexible work 
     schedule.
       The comp time bill clearly ought to be passed. Salaried and 
     government employees already have the privilege, so why not 
     extend it to hourly workers? The language guarantees the 
     right of workers to take the overtime pay if they desire, so 
     labor's objection that the companies can't be trusted is only 
     so much old-school us-against-them thinking.
       The late Paul Tsongas once made a trenchant observation to 
     the effect that too many of his fellow Democrats love jobs 
     but hate employers. Rep. Woolsey and others have done their 
     part in proving him right.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Courier-Journal, Mar. 22, 1997]

                         It's ``Comptime'' Time

       What's so scary about ``comptime''?
       In the debate leading up to its passage by the U.S. House 
     of Representatives this week, a bill offering new flexibility 
     on wages and working hours was denounced by some opponents as 
     a threat to freedom, fairness and the American way.
       And President Clinton has warned that he'll veto it in its 
     present form. That's a formidable threat since the bill 
     passed by only 12 votes in the House. (All five of Kentucky's 
     Republican members voted for it. Democrat Scotty Baesler 
     voted against.)
       We're puzzled by Mr. Clinton's opposition. The bill doesn't 
     endanger the 40-hour work week at the heart of the Fair Labor 
     Standards Act of 1938. All it says is that, if workers and 
     their employers agree, comptime can be substituted for 
     overtime pay. An employee who works, say, 45 hours in a week 
     would have the option of getting paid time-and-a-half for the 
     five hours or of getting 7\1/2\ hours of comp time.
       At the end of the year, any accrued comp-time would be 
     converted to overtime pay. And the total amount of comptime 
     during a year couldn't exceed 160 hours.
       Employers could choose not to participate in a compensatory 
     time agreement or, if they were in one, could withdraw after 
     30 days notice. Workers could withdraw at any time by 
     submitting a written request. (In unionized work places, work 
     schedules and rules for overtime would be set by contract.)
       This looks like a win-win situation. Workers and employers 
     would get more flexibility in working out schedules, and 
     neither side would be forced to participate.
       What's Bill Clinton scared of?

  Mr. McCONNELL. I challenge my colleagues to enact this simple, 
sensible legislation. The family friendly workplace is about nothing 
more than choice and paid time off. S. 4 is the Federal Government at 
its best--benefits for working families with no Federal mandates and no 
excessive costs for small businesses. I also particularly commend 
Senator Ashcroft for his leadership in developing this important 
legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized for up 
to 10 minutes by previous order.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Chair.

                          ____________________