Men often have trouble choosing gifts for the women in their lives. I know that because I’ve made more than my fair share of questionable gift choices for Mother’s Days, birthdays and other occasions, and I have a recurring habitat of picking out presents that would be better gifts for me. Unfortunately, it’s no consolation to know that many members of Congress are also very bad at figuring out what women want.
In politics, it ought to be much easier because there is no shame in simply asking women what they need and want. They will be happy to offer many suggestions, including such things as flexible family leave and paid sick days.
With Mother’s Day approaching, I followed with interest some of the debate this week on a “comp time” bill that has been offered by Republicans as a means of reaching out to women by promoting family-friendly workplaces (without alienating any employers). That bill, HR 1406, was approved in the House on May 8, by a vote of 223 to 204.Like some of the less stellar gift choices I’ve made over the years, this policy choice compensates with fancy packaging. In this case the fancy wrapping is the bill’s title, the “Working Families Flexibility Act.” But after being unwrapped and carefully examined, this GOP offering to women hasn’t been been enthusiastically received.
The laudable goal of the bill is to give hourly workers the ability to earn time off, in the form of “comp time,” so they can have some family time when they need it. Although I think the bill appears to have at least a little redeeming value, a number of labor and women’s groups have thoroughly panned HR 1406. For example, a blog by 9 to 5 had this to say about the bill:
“The Working Families Flexibility Act, a true misnomer, would in reality ensure workers have less time, less flexibility and less money. This anti-family proposal would force workers to spend more time away from their families in exchange for possibly getting to spend time later with their families. Under this proposal, the employer, not the employee, determines when earned comp time can be used.”
That critique of HR 1406 sounds overly harsh if you accept the premise of the bill’s proponents that it would give hourly workers the “choice” to accumulate comp time instead of overtime pay. The bill’s critics don’t agree that the choice would be voluntary or that the result would give workers more flexibility. The crux of their arguments is that the bill will allow employers to pressure hourly employees into accepting comp time instead of overtime pay and would erode the 40-hour work week. As Eileen Applebaum of the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote:
“…anyone who has ever held one of these hourly-paid jobs knows that the employer holds all the cards. Refusing an employer’s offer of comp time instead of wages may mean your hours will be cut or that you will be more vulnerable to being laid off in an economic crunch. The low-paid working moms covered by this legislation know it is not really about giving them more flexibility to choose between comp time and overtime pay. It’s about letting their employers ask them to work more than 40 hours without having to pay them for the extra time.”
Another key argument made by the bill’s opponents is that it doesn’t ensure that workers can use the comp time they’ve earned when they need it. HR 1406 says that an employee who requests to use some comp time “shall be permitted …to use such time within a reasonable period after making the request if the use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer.” The bill’s supporters and detractors strongly disagree about whether that language empowers workers to use flex time or fails to give them more flexibility than they already have (by using overtime pay to enable them to take unpaid time off for family reasons).
For people who have only worked in the professional world and have always had the sort of relationship with their employers that they could use comp time or flex time as needed, the bill may seem perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, for those who have had low-wage hourly jobs in which they have experienced a very different workplace dynamic, the bill looks sorely deficient. Those differing job experiences influence whether we worry that an hourly employee who needs to stay home with a sick child can be told to take his/her comp time next week or even next month, when it’s more convenient for the employer.
The conclusion of Eileen Applebaum’s column about this proposal sums up my general thoughts:
“House Republicans are to be commended for focusing attention on working families’ need for flexibility. But there are far better alternatives than the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013 to make flexibility a reality for hourly-paid workers.”
What are the better alternatives? 9 to 5 has lots of good suggestions: “… support paid sick days, equal pay measures, fair scheduling practices, paid family and medical leave insurance, a fair minimum wage, and expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act.”
Jon Peacock