One of the big issues people aren’t even aware of (it’s not entirely their fault, it’s not getting nearly enough media coverage) is the GOP’s plan to radically change the way you receive Overtime Pay. They’ve proposed a bill that would give employees a choice (and anytime they want employees to have a choice…it’s between a rock and a hard place, and whether to get bent over a barrel or boulder) between receiving overtime pay as is——one and a half times your hourly wage——or getting paid comp time.
Now you might say “Wellll, Alabama Liberal, what’s wrong with this plan besides the fact that Republicans want it? Aren’t you just being a partisan hack who’s against anything proposed by Republicans? I mean, what is so wrong with a totally reasonable proposal to give workers a choice between more money and paid time with their families?”
For one thing, there’s actually no protection for employees who don’t want to choose comp time instead of paid overtime, so it may not wind up being much of a choice. For a second thing, there’s no protection from employers who will push for you to take the comp time instead of paid overtime, so that’s not much of a choice. For a third, there’s nothing in there specifying how you can use the comp time, and I’m leery that you’ll even be able to. [Anyone who’s worked a job like this knows that paid comp time is easy to accumulate and nearly impossible to use.] Again, not much of a choice when your boss gets total discretion over how this time can be used, might discourage people from using it at all, and most workers are barely able to use all their paid vacation and sick time as is.
On average, Americans are the most overworked country in the world except for Japan. I know, I know, it’s fashionable to talk about lazy Americans who can’t get off their butts, but actually we have the fewest paid vacation days of any industrialized nation in the world (using an average of 12 a year compared to Japan’s 11). Most Americans don’t even take all the days they could take——–and are usually encouraged not to———and I’m very leery that paid comp time will be easier and more regularly used than sick or personal days.
Republicans have tried to make this bill sound like it’ll be pro-family. That’s their go-to phrase for polishing turds these days. “It’ll give Americans greater flexibility in balancing work and family life,” blah blah blah, which sounds amazing if you don’t think about it for longer than 15 seconds. Workers think “Oh, I want that…” and then forget that the only way some workers can pay the mortgage is with the time and a half they receive from working 50 or 60 hours a week. Now imagine you aren’t really getting paid more for those extra 10 or 20 hours at all.
Every Labor Union and work-advocacy group in the country is against this, and every pro-bossman group in the country is for it. It falls down this way because it’s the first step in dismantling a 1936 bill that guarantees paid overtime for more than 40 hours a week.
So once again, Republicans are in the back pocket of big business. And, once again, they’re trying to break something that works instead of fixing something that doesn’t.