Panel backs bill to let private sector workers join feds in getting comp time

A House Education and the Workforce subcommittee Thursday approved a bill letting employers permit employees who work overtime to defer receiving immediate overtime payments. Instead, they could receive paid time off from their regular work later.

The Workforce Protections subcommittee passed the bill (H.R. 1119) on a party line vote of 8 Republicans in favor to 6.

Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., sponsor of the bill said it is "designed to give private sector workers the opportunity to have more flexibility in their work schedule so that they can, for example, better meet the demands of work and family."

A committee summary of the bill said private sector employees do not have the legal right to compensatory time off now, although public sector employees "have long enjoyed this flexibility."

In 1978, Congress approved an experiment allowing federal agencies to offer comp time in lieu of overtime pay to their workers. Federal officials found that comp time and scheduling flexibility improved productivity and employee morale. Congress made comp time a permanent federal benefit in 1985.

"We have seen the successes of comp time in the public sector since 1978," said Deron Zeppelin, director of governmental affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management. "It is time that the private sector is able to enjoy this benefit as well."

But Reps. Major Owens, D-N.Y., Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and other subcomittee Democrats and labor representatives opposed the bill. Several said it could harm low-income workers who need to receive overtime pay at time-and-a-half rates at the end of every week to survive.

A labor spokesman said these workers might be pushed out of their usual extra overtime hours by better-paid workers, not needing the money as much, who wanted to bank future time off rights by working overtime now.

Under the bill, workers with time-and-a-half credits from overtime would, in effect, eventually get paid for those hours by using their time off credits in the future but still receiving their regular salaries with an overtime adjustment for the days they took off.

If they did not use the credits they could eventually get paid for them, but critics said it could take up to a year and a month; and if the employer went out of business in the interim, those wages could be lost.