Just in time for Mother’s Day here comes the “Working Families Flexibility Act.” This bill is the Mother’s Day equivalent of coal in your stocking for Christmas. It takes hard-earned overtime pay out of working women and men’s pockets in exchange for the illusory promise of comp time.
Just in time for Mother’s Day here comes the “Working Families Flexibility Act.” This bill is the Mother’s Day equivalent of coal in your stocking for Christmas. It takes hard-earned overtime pay out of working women and men’s pockets in exchange for the illusory promise of comp time.
While the bill’s supporters claim that there is nothing coercive about offering a comp time alternative to overtime pay, they do so against a backdrop of rampant violations of low-wage workers’ rights to overtime. In a study of low-wage workers in major cities, 76% said they worked overtime without being paid time and one-half. It is a safe bet that enacting a comp time law would give rise to a whole new category of wage and hour abuses. This wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing bill requires time-starved employees to work extra hours just to get time off to take care of their families, and gives employers decision-making power over when and whether they can take that time off.
In contrast, Congresswoman DeLauro offers an approach that would actually make pay fairer for women and their families. Today she raised the Paycheck Fairness Act as a “previous question” to the comp time bill (previously explained here) – for all those House procedure folks, this basically means that the House could take up the commonsense Paycheck Fairness Act before moving onto to the ridiculous comp time bill.
Rather than taking money out of the pockets of hard-working families, the Paycheck Fairness Act would help working families ensure that they receive the money that they deserve. It would prohibit retaliation against workers who discuss their salaries, improve remedies for employees who have been discriminated against, and increase transparency into salary decisions. Here are some basic facts that make it critical to move forward on this bill:
- The wage gap is real: women make 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. It’s even worse for African American and Hispanic women, who make 60 and 55 cents, respectively, for every dollar earned by a man; and
- The wage gap has been stagnant for a decade: The Equal Pay Act made great strides in eliminating pay discrimination, but clearly more needs to be done. The Paycheck Fairness Act would strengthen the Equal Pay Act in ways that will help bring about the end of pay discrimination.
Too many women have waited for too long to be treated fairly in the workplace. Let’s pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and give women what they’ve earned. Don’t miss this opportunity to tell your Representative why the Paycheck Fairness Act is important to you by calling today! You can find everything you need to express your support on NWLC’s Facebook page or website.
