Date: 2013-05-08
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. this legislation is a shell game. Its a trick. Its a Trojan horse. If an employer wants to give you time off. as the gentleman from Connecticut said. the employer can give you time off. He can give you comp time to go to your parentteacher conferences. to take care of an ill member of your family. take care of yourself. But they dont do that. So theyre going to dangle overtime here. If youre willing to work overtime. sometime in the future they might give you that comp time. But its not your comp time. its the comp time that the employer will choose when and where you can take it. So if you work overtime this week and your child is very sick next week and you ask for the time and he says. no. were busy. I cant give you the time off. you lose. Your employer can bank up to 160 hours of your comp time before theres any obligation. Thats almost 4 weeks of overtime. For many people. that overtime is really important. But this bill says your employer can go to you and say you can have the overtimewhich may be very important to your family budget. It was when I was young and married and had children. I worked every hour of overtime I could get when I was in the Merchant Marines working on oil tankers. I worked every hour I could get in the canneries. I worked every hour I could get in the refineries because I needed that for my family budget. I didnt need comp time. I needed income. But now the employer says you can have overtime. but Im going to pay you back in comp time. If you say no. you have no protections. Your employer might say. okay. Ill find somebody else. Or your employer may offer it to you again and you say I cant do it. I need the overtime. and then you could be fired. They want to keep saying youre protected and you have the same rights as people in the Federal employment system. You dont. Theres nothing in the law that prevents your employer from firing you because you cant work the schedules your employer wants. They can say it all day along. but its not in this legislation. If your employer goes broke before the time that they have to give you your comp time. youre out. And if you dont like the way your employer treated you and fires you because you couldnt possibly do the comp time or you couldnt do the overtime. you can go sue in court. How many middle class families can go sue their employer in court. have that kind of money? This is what it has always been since 1997. when this bill was introduced1997. Yes. the workplace has changed. States and cities and employers are giving people paid time off so they can take care of their families when they need to take care of their families. But thats not what this bill is. Its an assault on the 40hour workweek. Its an assault on overtime. An employer can get the work and never really have to pay the overtime. If youre in seasonal employment. if youre in an upanddown business. you work like crazy and he says okay. things are slower in this part of the season. take that time off. You dont get to say. well. I dont really need that time off. I wanted to save that time for a parentteacher conference. Im sorry. were going to be busy when that parentteacher conference is. You get whats going on here? This isnt women friendly. This isnt mom friendly. This isnt family friendly. This is friendly to people who want to get rid of overtime and break down the 40hour week that protects families so theyre not working overtime.