What? You don't have flexitime in the US?!?

I don't understand the argument against it. I can use flexitime and there is no problem with numbers of hours or overtime. It's a great system. The word does need an i in the middle to stop it sounding shit, though. Flextime is an awful word.

I saw something the other day on TV about this bill. Can't employers, if it is enacted, turn down the request if they determine that the business can't afford for the employee to be off at that time?

First, let's clarify - Flextime is not comp time. Flextime is equal time just shifted (starting later or taking half a day one day during the week in return for working a couple extra hours two other days). Comp time is time off to make up for overtime during a previous work "cycle".

Some morons in congress need to understand that. IT's fine to say "we are passing a law that says overtime is always at 1.5x the rate of pay" but to then say "and comp time must also be done at that same rate of pay" is fucking stupid. Hell, some one could work a 66 hour week one week and then take the entire next week off? What the fuck? There has to be some restrictions put on this to prevent employees from abusing employers. Otherwise you will have Joe Schlong at your local Burger King taking every possible hour someone else wants to give up and working it to get a week off.

Plus, let's think about this logically... Sally works 60 hours, then gets 30 hours off work (20*1.5). Jack then covers 10 of those 30 hours so he can take 15 off work and Janice covers the other 20 so she can take 30 off work. Now someone has to cover thoses 45, which will result in them getting 67.5 hours off work and on and on. This could bankrupt an employer to force them to give comp time at 1.5 times the OT hours. They are better off just paying the overtime. Does this bill give the *employer* the option to say "no comp time, only overtime pay"?

Forgot the "protecting the workers 40 hour week". What about protecting the employer from an ever inflated comp time bucket that could bankrupt them? Congress has no fucking brains!

Flex time is available in the US *IF* you work for a company that offers flex time.

Requiring a company to provide flex time is stupid...the object of employment is to make money for a company. For some reason, people have this ridiculous notion that job exist to give people benefits and vacation time.

Maybe if a few more people - particularly people in government - actually owned and operated a business once in their life they would comprehend that concept. (that goes for a lot of people in these forums, too...)

Businesses employee people *only* because it is necessary to have employees to make money. Businesses exist to make money. Period. Nobody starts a business to lose money. The only way you make money is to minimize costs, maximize productivity, etc.

I will grant that a certain level of bennifits, etc are necessary and promote a positive culture and work environment, which enhances productivity, etc...but bennies must be balanced with the purpose of the business.

Modern liberalism, on the other hand, thinks that business should make profits as a secondary (or tertiary..) motive for existence...ignoring the obvious reality that a business without profits ceases to exist, and then NOBODY gets benefits or pays taxes to fund government largess...

The government requiring companies to provide flex time is just another potentiall business-UNfriendly regulation that makes if difficult to be efficient and productive. EmployERS set schedules based upon the needs of the company. Flex Time basically says needs of the company can become secondary to EmployEES wishes.

If your life doesn't fit your company's needs...FIND A NEW JOB. You DON'T have a right to your job. You the the right for the opportunity to fairly compete for a job, period. Once you are there, you have the MORAL and ETHICAL responsibility to work to maximize the company's profits...or else you have the choice to leave.

The irony of all this is, for once, the democrats are opposing it and the republicans are pushing it through. Our current group of GOP people are career politicians who came from money and don't understand what it means to be a small business owner.

The current crop of GOP people are just a bunch of pandering assholes with no principles.

-quoth the krellin

"The current crop of GOP people are just a bunch of pandering assholes with no principles"

I would like to +1 but you shouldn't really reward someone for stating the bleeding obvious...... but I will because KKK is worth it

I have flexitime at my work and it's great. I have to work 148 hours a month. The office building opens at 7.30am and shuts and 7pm. It's not open on a Sunday.

Within those parameters I can pretty much work my 148 hours according to whatever schedule I wish. I can carry over up to 11 hours credit / 7.5 hours debit into the next month too. It works great. I'm *much* more productive than I would be if I was forced to work a strict 9am - 5pm shift.

From January through April I work approximately 65-70 hours per week. I need to be there 9-4 each day (less noon hour) and 9-noon saturdays. The additional 32 hours I can work whenever I like.

This works for me.

Now I may be a Howard-Zinn-Reading-Rachel-Maddow-Loving-Commie-Pinko-Big-Government-Liberal, but even I don't think mandating flex time is a good idea. Studies show that people really like being able to get flex time. Thus, they seek out employers that offer flex time. Seeing that there's a demand, many companies supply flex time in order to recruit the best people. I guess I don't think this system is broken. So... at the risk of sounding like an Ayn-Rand-Reading-Tea-Party-Joining-Libertarian, I think we can let The Market handle this one.

As a Pinko myself, I totally agree with Hecks. I *like* flexitime, and would recommend it to any large employer, but I wouldn't make it mandatory.

If you live in the UK but work for a US Company and have Indian developers sometimes it helps to be a little flexible..... and working from home is good as well, save time and money traveling to and from work.

First, we aren't talkign flex time. We are talking comp time.

Flex time is business specific as it should be. Some businesses have factory floors and the assembly lines would have to stop if one of the spots (say car radio installation) weren't there. But for other businesses, flex time is fine.

Comp time, on the other hand, is about compensating someone for working overtime. By mandating employers provide comp time and that they provide it at a rate of 1.5:1, we are putting small businesses that need those hours filled no matter what, in a hole. What we will wind upwith is employers going to temp agnecies and keeping temps on (like Amazon does) and not permanently hiring employees, which actually *hurts* the working class as those temps won't get benefits that they would if they were employees of the company.

It also depends on whether an employee is hourly, salary non-exempt, or salary exempts. This bill, just to be clear, only applies to true hourly workers.

Yeah, you're right. This is a bill saying that if an employee has to stay late for some some reason, they can't compensate by taking time off the next day, but instead must take the overtime pay *and* work their regularly scheduled hours.

I don't see how that proposal would be good for businesses *or* employees. Then again, I'm salaried. As my boss told me when I was hired, "There are going to be weeks when you work 25 hours, and I'm okay with that, because there will also be weeks you work 70 hours."

Actually, as proposed, it allows them to bank the hours instead of taking the pay and get 1.5 times the OT hours off at a later time. The bill is really stupid. But then politicians who want to get reelected wrote it and hope the sheeple aren't as smart as those of us here. IT also only applies to hourly employees, not SE or SNE employees.

If that's the case than I entirely misread the article. Then again, I'm attempting to multi-multitask. Not good for reading comprehension or retention.

Yeah, you misread something. There is already in place a law that requires hourly workers to get paid 1.5 times their rate for OT hours but it doesn't say antyhign about banking hours for time off later if an employer allows that. It just says if an employer doesn't, they must pay hourly workers time and a half.

This bill attempts to cover for the comp time issue and that is good, but it goes to far in that it *requires* employers to offer comp time. It isn't feasible for a manufacturer or retailer/restaurant to offer comp time, especially not at a forced 1.5 to 1 rate as someone has to cover that shift and that someone will probably be in overtime themselves. It is a compounding error that would be disastrous if passed and signed.

"Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, workers who get an hourly wage must be paid 50 percent more for overtime work."

Overtime is paid.

"The House bill, introduced by Alabama Republican Martha Roby, would make it possible for them to get an hour and a half off in the future in return for an hour of overtime today."

Requires employers to offer this *and* makes it a compounding debt when employers need to have someone cover that time and a half off. That or they have to bring in temp labor to cover it which costs way more than paying the employee time and a half.

@ Hecks: I'm salaried too, but my salary requires me to work a set number of hours in a 4-week period.

Then you are what we in the states call salaried non-exempt. Hecks and I are salaried exempt. Our jobs are purely jobs of responsibility. Whatever it takes to get the job done, we do it.

What is prevent Employers from not offering more hours to people who would prefer the compensation that the Company doesn't like?

I'm very confused. It this the rare case where we all agree on something? Like this bill is a bad thing for small business? I know that there is always the possibility of something like this happening, but I never dreamed that it would really occur.

@abge - Unions in big companies. The union woild step in amd scream "discriminatory practice" and some judge would probably agree. And what happens when the majority of the hourly work.force decides they want the time off and see this as a way of banking huge breaks? Joe works 20 extra. Harry covers Joe's 30 hours off. Joe covers Harry's 45 and on and on until they both decide to take an entire month off with pay or cash out from.their last round.of OT covering to the tune of a couple hundred hours each.

Draug,

The bill doesn't mandate anything. It ALLOWS employers to provide comp time. It does not require it.

Text: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/113-h1406/text

Thank you for the link. I encourage everyone to read it. It is actually much more reasonable after all. The employer is required to offer fomp time and the employee isn't required to accept it. No more than 160 hours may be accrued. It gets paid out every year. And the employer has the option to pay out any hours in excess of 80 as OT pay with 30 days notice. Seems like it won't screw over the business cause they don't have to offer it and it won't screw over labor because they aren't required to accept it. It just basically codifies the current practice commonly in use for SNE employees so it can work for hourly folks as well. I withdraw my objections. Oh and someone should tellbthe articles writer he needs to actually read the bill before commenting on what it forces.

@Draug -- it's STILL a shitty idea. MANDATING that an employer *must* offer time off to an employee that has worked overtime is bullshit. Just because I had extra work for you this week does not mean that I will need you for less than 40 hours down the road when you decided to take your extra time off. By forcing an employer to allow employees to randomly take additional time off you are potentially forcing them to (unnecessarily) hire additional employees to cover the sudden increase in time off.

It's bullshit.

Krellin - Read the actual bill. That isn't mandated. There is no requirement that an employer offer it. It just sets down the rules *if* the employer *chooses* to offer it.

Let's say an employer has 50 employees, each of whom manages to accrue 80 hours of comp time...and take it off. You have suddenly lost 2 man-years of production time...meaning what? You have to work more overtime to cover it...or you hire two new employees, which costs far more than just paying the OT.

It's a burden on the employer, and unfair.

"The employer is required to offer fomp time and the employee isn't required to accept it."

That's what you said. Can't read the bill at the moment...will try later.

Is it legal in the US to firs employees for turning down overtime?

Mendax - that probably depends on the state. Michigan, for example, is an "at will" state, meaning that my employemetn can be terminated at any time without cause. So...yes...here, they can fire me if I turn down OT.

From the bill...

"‘(2) CONDITIONS- An employer *may* provide compensatory time to employees under paragraph (1)(A) only if such time is provided in accordance with--"

See. not a requirement or mandate in any way.

Addtionally...

"‘(A) applicable provisions of a collective bargaining agreement between the employer and the labor organization that has been certified or recognized as the representative of the employees under applicable law; or"

So the negotiation is between the union and the employer in unionized companies...

‘(B) in the case of employees who are not represented by a labor organization that has been certified or recognized as the representative of such employees under applicable law, an *agreement* arrived at *between* the employer and employee before the performance of the work and affirmed by a written or otherwise verifiable record maintained in accordance with section 11(c)--

‘(i) in which the *employer has offered* and the *employee has chosen to receive* compensatory time in lieu of monetary overtime compensation; and

‘(ii) entered into knowingly and voluntarily by such employees and *not as a condition of employment*."

So when no union involved, it must be an agreement between employer and employee in writing or it is not happening anyhow.

* All stressed words or phrases are mine to point out key elements of the excerpt.

But, firing someone for turning down overtime even in "at will" states is no guarantee they won't still get unemployment and they cans till sue and likely win if the overtime is viewed by the court as excessive and, therefore, abusive.

And yes, krellin, that was what I wrote *vefore* getting the link to the bill. Upon reading it in it's entirity, I cahnged my stance. Bad reporting is to blaim for both of our misunderstanding (and several others here) of the bill. As it *actually* reads (not as some reporter misreported), it is generally a good thing. It gives leeway for unions to try and force comp time down the employers throat, which I'm not fond of (would like to see that amended a bit) but the overall was better thought out than the reporter led us to believe. He was obviously a very liberal reporter who didn't like the idea that the Republicans had actually crafted something that was a net good and that the Democrats were balking at.