I'm hard pressed to think of any of our neighborhood kids who had parents that both worked outside the home when I was 12 years old. The workforce has changed greatly in the last 50 years. It has become much more common for both parents to work outside the home today, either by choice or for financial reasons. I believe it's high time our laws reflect those changes. The inflexibility of most office environments makes being a parent all the more difficult today. The fact is that today 85 percent of Americans say workplace flexibility is a major factor when considering a job.
Earlier this year I voted in favor of the Working Families Flexibility Act, which passed the House of Representatives. This bill allows private-sector employers to offer paid time off instead of cash wages for working overtime. If an employee decides that they would rather have cash wages than paid time off, they can continue to do so. Currently the federal government does not allow private-sector employers to offer this as an option.
This bill doesn’t change existing protections guaranteed to workers, like the 40-hour workweek or how overtime compensation is accumulated. It is pro-family and pro-worker legislation that allows private-sector employees the same privilege public-sector employees have enjoyed for almost 30 years.
The Working Families Flexibility Act would help the thousands of hardworking families who desperately need workplace flexibility. In my district alone there are many children living in single-parent households. The three counties with the highest percentages are Jasper, Stone and Taney County. 37 percent of the households in these counties are headed by single-parents. This means that if a child is ill or something goes wrong, these parents are left with little to no choices at all. This bill could change that and allow these parents, if they work in the private-sector, to receive paid time off.
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor released data that showed the lack of access to paid time off for high-wage earners and low-wage earners. For high-wage earners, 23 percent of employees had access to paid time off. For low-wage workers that number was only 4 percent. No matter how much someone makes, that individual deserves the choice to have paid time off.
It’s time we give workers the flexibility they want and deserve. These hardworking individuals deserve the option between paid time off or cash wages for working overtime. I look forward to the Senate passing this bill and president Trump signing it into law.
This is going to get ugly if passed. If an employee works so much overtime that they are owed a substantial amount of time off, lets say 1 week, what is to stop the company from firing them? And how many of these single Mothers that he refers to can go 1 week with out pay? What if you leave a company that owes you time? I am sure that will result in many individuals fighting against the wind to get that back. This is a farce and when you couple it with states like Missouri than can fire at will, good luck with that. Nice warm fuzzy name though, I am sure this will play well to gullible SW MO voter.
ReplyDeleteHow ironic this story is just days after the Vicki Hartzler bill for more free lunches. They keep passing anti-worker laws, giving more to corporations that did not create jobs after Pres G Bush cut corporate taxes. This is just more giving back to businesses, less to employees, and then having the government pick up the tab. We are paying the workers so little that government is forced to pay for the damages caused. That is not capitalism. If you want people starving and striking, then do it and let the free market flow.
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