In the spirit of traditional Republican generosity, House Republicans want to give workers the gift of time … at the cost of money. A House bill would “allow” workers to “agree” with their bosses to take comp time instead of overtime pay.
Republicans say the bill has plenty of worker protections, like a ban on coercing employees into choosing comp time; a guarantee that they be paid for any unused comp time within thirteen months after accruing it; and a requirement that workers who asked to utilize their comp time get to do so “within a reasonable period after making the request if the use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer.”
Do you see problems with that? Because I see problems with that. How exactly would this ban on coercing workers into choosing comp time be enforced? In the same way that minimum wage and overtime protections are enforced, which is to say, in Republican-world, hardly at all?
“It forces the employee to give the employer a loan -- unsecured, interest-free -- of the overtime pay, in order to have the hope -- not a guarantee, but the hope -- of having some time off later on,” said [the Economic Policy Institute’s Ross] Eisenbrey. Either way, he said, employers still get to decide whether to actually grant their workers’ requests for time off.
The difference, Democrats say, is that if Republicans get their way, companies will get away with not paying overtime by pressuring workers to choose comp time or by only giving excess hours to those staff who’ve done so.
Nope, no potential for abuse there at all! Just Republicans trying to give workers the gift of time, for sure.
● Ivanka Trump’s “women who work” vision leaves out a lot of women. Here’s what some Walmart women want her to know:
Women need the corporations they work for to give a real return on the profits made by their work. Women need a real safety net. They need policies that ensure basic economic stability, that are made for and by them.
● Graphic essay: Betsy DeVos' "school choice" movement isn't social justice. It's a return to segregation.
● Excellent:
Teachers at a small Sacramento, Calif., charter school chain have voted to unionize, the city’s teachers union was due to announce Wednesday. That is not necessarily news. What is news: the schools’ board chair is former Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, the famously combative union adversary.
● A win for workers at Tyson:
A consumer pressure campaign against labor abuses in the chicken-processing industry has produced some initial results, with a detailed pledge this week from Tyson Foods to build a better workplace for its 95,000 employees.
● Have You Heard blog’s Jennifer Berkshire went to Ohio to watch Betsy DeVos visit a public school:
Famously not a numbers person, DeVos was quick to point out that 20% of Van Wert’s youngsters already opt out of the city’s schools. And while she’d seemed disengaged, and occasionally bored, during her tour of Van Wert’s classrooms, she was at her most animated when discussing the urgent need to provide parents with the option to go elsewhere. She shouted out, once again, to virtual schools as a worthy choice, the equivalent in Ohio these days of commending Wells Fargo for its customer service or Navient for its student borrower advocacy. When a reporter asked her if there was anything she planned to change in her approach as a result of what she’d seen in Van Wert, DeVos couldn’t think of a single thing.
● This coal-country socialist fights for $15.