[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 86 (Thursday, June 17, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7229-S7232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ASHCROFT (for himself, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Abraham, Mr. 
        Allard, Mr. Bond, Mr. Brownback, Mr. Bunning, Mr. Burns, Mr. 
        Chafee, Mr. Cochran, Ms. Collins, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. Craig, Mr. 
        DeWine, Mr. Domenici, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Frist, Mr. Gramm, Mr. 
        Grassley, Mr. Gregg, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Helms, Mr. 
        Hutchinson, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Lott, Mr. McCain, Mr. 
        McConnell, Mr. Nickles, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Smith of 
        Oregon, Mr. Smith of New Hampshire, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Thurmond, 
        and Mr. Shelby):
  S. 1241. A bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to 
provide private sector employees the same opportunities for time-and-a-
half compensatory time off and biweekly work programs as Federal 
employees currently enjoy to help balance the demands and needs of work 
and family, to clarify the provisions relating to exemptions of certain 
professionals from minimum wage and overtime requirements of the Fair 
Labor Standards Act of 1938, and for other purposes; to the Committee 
on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.


                     family friendly workplace act

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, on behalf of the Senator from Texas, 
Senator Hutchison, and myself, I am pleased to reintroduce the Family 
Friendly Workplace Act. I also am pleased to include a list of 34 
colleagues as original cosponsors. It is an opportunity to address a 
very important need for American families--spending more time together.
  Over the past four years, we have been talking about the difficulty 
that parents have balancing work and family obligations. I do not think 
there are two values that are more highly or intensely admired in 
America than these. The first one is the value we place on our 
families. We understand that more than anything else the family is an 
institution where important things are learned, not just knowledge 
imparted but wisdom is obtained and understood in a family which 
teaches us not just how to do something but teaches us how to live.
  The second value which is a strong value in America and reflects our 
heritage is the value of work. Americans admire and respect work. We 
are a culture that says if you work well, you should be paid well. If 
you have merit, you should be rewarded. If you take risks and succeed--
you represent the engine that drives America forward.
  The difficult issue that faces us as a nation, is how are we going to 
resolve these tensions? I think that is one of the jobs, that we have 
to try and make sure we build a framework where people can resolve 
those tensions and where Government somehow does not have rules or 
interference that keeps people from resolving those tensions.
  For example, there are a lot of times when an individual would say on 
Friday afternoon to his boss or her boss, ``My daughter is getting an 
award at the high school assembly today. Can I have an extended lunch 
hour, maybe just 1 hour so that I can see my daughter get the award? I 
would like to reinforce, I would like to give her an `atta girl,' I 
would like to hug her and say, `You did a great job, this is the way 
you ought to work and conduct yourself, it is going to mean a lot to 
yourself and our family and our country if you keep it up.' ''
  Right now, it is illegal for the boss to say, ``I will let you take 
an hour on Friday and you can make it up on Monday,'' because it is in 
a different 40-hour week. You cannot trade 1 hour for 1 hour from one 
week to the next. That

[[Page S7232]]

will make one week a 41-hour week and will go into overtime 
calculation. Since most bosses do not want to be involved in overtime, 
it just does not happen.
  This tension between the workplace and the home place, juxtaposed or 
set in a framework of laws created in the 1930's that does not allow us 
flexibility, is a problem. For example, you might be asked to do 
overtime over and over and over again, and you do overtime, and then 
you are paid time and a half for your overtime. But at some point, you 
would rather have the time than the money. If the employer agreed to it 
voluntarily--both parties--we ought to let that happen. It is against 
the law.
  Some employers even want to go so far as to help their families by 
saying instead of doing 1 week for 40 hours, we would be willing, if 
you wanted to and on a voluntary basis, let the worker average 40 hours 
over a 2-week period regularly, so you would only work 9 days in the 2 
weeks, but you would work 45 hours the first week and 35 hours the 
second week and have every other Friday off so you could take the kids 
to the dentist or drop by the department of motor vehicles and get the 
car licensed or visit the governmental offices that are not open on 
Saturday. It is against the law to do that now.
  What I have described are two ways to tackle these time problems. 
First, is the option--when you work overtime, to get in time rather 
than money--if that is what you want to do. Second, you could schedule 
a work schedule to fill your needs by spreading 80 hours over two weeks 
to better accommodate your needs and the needs of your families.
  Both of these things are available in the Federal Government and for 
governmental entities. Since 1978, the Federal Government has said it 
is OK to swap comp time off instead of overtime pay. The Federal 
Government also said if you want to have some flexible scheduling so 
that every other Friday or every other Monday is off, that is something 
we can work with you on.
  It is totally voluntary--voluntary for the worker, it is voluntary 
for the Federal Government employer or administrator. Neither can force 
the other because we do not want to force people to work overtime or 
take comp time, but we want to allow Americans to make choices which 
will help them resolve the tensions between the home place and the 
workplace, these two values that are in competition.
  These potentials, which exist for Federal workers, it occurs to me, 
ought to be able to be available to workers in the private sector as 
well, were we not to be locked into the hard and fast rules of the 
1930's. That was a time when Henry Ford said, ``You can have your Ford 
any color you want so long as it is black.'' Things were not quite as 
flexible then as they are now, and families did not need the 
flexibility then as they do now. With 70 to 80 percent of all mothers 
of school-age children now working and two parents working in all those 
settings, and the tension between work and home, I think we ought to 
have more flexibility at the option of both the employer and the 
worker, only when it is agreed to.
  That is really the subject of the Family Friendly Workplace Act which 
we reintroduce today. It is a way of saying we need to allow families 
to work out the conflict that exists between these important values 
that are crucial and so fundamental to the success of this culture in 
the next century, not just fundamental to the success of our culture, 
but fundamental to the success of our own families.

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