My first reaction is, that I want the overtime pay. If I worked it, I want paid for it. You can be damned sure that the comp time as some call it would be required to take it at a time when you have no need for time off.

Pay for the work you receive.

What this would allow is for a company that has peaks and valleys in their business, is to work the shit out of people for the months where they have peak demands and the basically lay everyone off for the months where they have valleys all without actually laying people off and all without paying a premium for demanding extra work.

Practice has been around for years, nothing new here.

Time and one half pay for hourly wage earners over 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day (except in circumstances where employee works 10-12 hour shifts as part of a pre-arranged obligation). We all know employers will not provide the "comp time" when we need it, but when THEY want it. And it won't be time and a half either.

If the idea goes through, workers will be able to accrue comp time that is worth every bit as much as airline miles. The time won't be able to be used on Mondays, Fridays, holidays, holiday weekends, busy seasons, when others or out, sick, or pregnant, and so on, and then after workers are rooked out of a couple hundred hours the employer will announce a "use it or lose it" policy which workers will never have the time to fully cash in.

Remember that employers want to drive down wages because cut wages are directly translatable into executive bonuses and profits. But they have to be cut incrementally and repeatedly to deliver the same profits to the handful of profiteers. This move suggests to me that hourly wages are already flatlining below a living wage, and now greedy employers are seeking other ways to deliver their personal revenue streams.

Productivity and worker health is sure to decline soon, too, and this move appears to anticipate that by making sure that the exceptionally hard workers are not financially rewarded for picking up the slack as others around them become too poor or sick to come to work.

And it's only been in practice since 1985.

Compensatory time off is
•Time off with pay in lieu of overtime pay for irregular or occasional overtime work, or
•When permitted under agency flexible work schedule programs, time off with pay in lieu of overtime pay for regularly scheduled or irregular or occasional overtime work.


Employee Coverage

Compensatory time off may be approved in lieu of overtime pay for irregular or occasional overtime work for both FLSA exempt and nonexempt employees who are covered by the definition of "employee" at 5 U.S.C. 5541(2).

Compensatory time off can also be approved for a "prevailing rate employee," as defined at 5 U.S.C. 5342(2), but there is no authority to require that any prevailing rate (wage) employee be compensated for irregular or occasional overtime work by granting compensatory time off.

Compensatory time off may be approved (not required) in lieu of regularly scheduled overtime work only for employees, including wage employees, who are ordered to work overtime hours under flexible work schedules. See 5 U.S.C. 6123(a)(1).

And while government employees have protections in place, that same protection will not be guaranteed to private sector workers.

This has been in practice in NY for well over 20 years, nothing new.

off, but they are not able to actually use it.

The only reason companies are wanting to do this, is because it saves them money. It's their only motivation. And if it saves them money, it's costing someone else.

My vote is no on this one.

The "comp. time" was at the employers discretion even though he claimed you were an independent contractor for tax purposes. The comp. time was not given as 1 1/2 time for an excess of 40 hours, it was a 1 to 1 trade-off. Comp time has been around for many decades and I thought it was illegal.
It is just another way to underpay employees. Collective bargaining (Unions) are (were) the best tool an employee has(d).
I have watched my own, Union become "small enough to drown in a tub." Joining the Union improved the lives of my family, immeasurably.
Slavery thrives in America. Look at the workforce of most 1st world countries. Just like universal health care....

I work in a field where someone (usually 2 someones) has to be there at all times. We can't take time off if someone else is already off. I have only once used all my time off (which expires) in 6 years. Overtime is an every week or two thing. No way this would work for us.

Everyone is averaging between 5 and 10 hours overtime a week.

Banking that would mean a week off every month, and that request would be denied without question.

At the end of the year, only 40 hours can be carried over to the next year, and they must be used by March. All banked time over that is simply lost.

So what you are suggesting is not being paid for the hours worked when you worked them, and then risking losing them all together because paid time off is declined due to staffing shortages?

How quickly can I sign up for this?

The only way I could see this working is if there was a time limit. The company would have so long to arrange for REQUESTED time off to be taken or if refused pay the worker th money at the overtime rate.

"What will comp time get me at the grocery store?"

company that needs it's people to work overtime and you opt for time off, when can you take the time off if they're needing you? Does it expire? How much time off can accumulate? It seems that at a certain point enough time could possibly accumulate that a company would find intself in trouble trying to run it's business.

Employers already have the discretion to hire more employees or to limit hours to 40 per week.

Working overtime takes a toll on the worker that cannot be measured. It's paid in physical exhaustion, more child care costs, children or elders left untended, eating out instead of having time to cook, no time to garden, clean, whatever.

My union had to force the company to pay not only time and a half, but double time after 8 hours a week or day overtime, because they were working us to death to keep from hiring more people. I went to work with these guys in their twenties and thirties that looked much older because they were working 72 hour shifts.

They can hire more people if they have more work. This is a scam that is taking Americans' health and hurting communities.

It should read "GOP seeks to fuck workers....some more"

choice would be a good thing, I think. Sometimes you want the money, sometimes you want the time. Me, anyway. With a choice it could be up to you, and if you only want money, that's what you can get. I would repeat the part about an "honest" choice. Like, you can take your time off by the same rules you can take your vacation. If you don't get vacation the same rules would apply to your comp time as applies to the vacation of the people directly above you who DO get vacation. If you don't like those rules you can opt for the money. I always believe that flexible is better. When I worked retail at Christmas time I would get tons of OT money, but I would have given my left arm for some time off.

All that said, money should always be an option. You should first and foremost be able to be paid for the time you work. Paid in greenback dollars.

a militant organized working class that will force, as in the 30’s, a closing of the inequality gap by redistribution of wealth and challenge capitalisms polarization of wealth into the hands of the few. It was the fear of the organized working class that forced the 1% in the 30s into a “New Deal” that lead to American prosperity. That New Deal has been gutted over the last 30 years with deregulation, down sizing, privatizing, trickle-down, union busting, outsourcing and tax breaks for the corporate 1%. Now we have an attack on Social Security and the sucking of wealth and value out of everything in the public sector.
After decades of constant rejection of regulatory standards, Wall Street and big corporations have positioned themselves above the rule of law this cannot stand.

None of them have ever worked one!

evil overlord boss: FINNLY!!! Get in here!!!

groveling plebe worker bee Finnly walks in bowed and averting his eyes from his boss.

Finnly: y-y-yes sir, you called?

EOB: We of the morally superior bent believe in treating our workers with respect...

Finnly: y-yes, sir...

EOB: DON'T EVER INTERUPT ME!As I was saying, so we all have decided, when I say we, I mean me, to do away with overtime

Finnly's eyes flash open in terror, his lower lip quivers, he swallows...

Finnly: n-n-no overtime?

EOB: That's right, ma'boy. Instead you will be given Comptime. (EOB does that awful thing people do with their fingers to indicate quotes)

Finnly: Comptime?

EOB: Yes, yes, yes. If you happen to work overtime, you will take time off in trade. Just think if you work say, oh I don't know, a 50 hour week, you can take 10 hours of comptime the following week. How's that, huh?

EOB smiles a toothy evil grin.

Finnly: uh, um...I...er...

EOB: Yes, man, spit it out!!

Finnly: I, um, already work 80 hour weeks now...

EOB: Why you little shit. You ungreatful little so and so. Here, I'm trying to help you and your other...other...drones and you mock me!

Finnly: does this mean, sir, I can have all of next week off?

EOB: You play me like the fool! You are one of those "hard workers" (he uses that finger thing again) who likes to game the system! You are nothing but a slacker! A no account! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!!

Finnly: Y-yes, sir.

Finnly meekly and dejectedly walks slips out.

EOB: Hmmm, I think I need to take away their coffee now too.

and ass-kissing the wealthy "job creators".

What would this accomplish?

How about the evisceration of the 40 hour work week

How many companies that a sooooooo busy they need overtime, are going to "honor" the comp time earned.

You know, this works in the Government Civil Service program and in strong union backed jobs, but that is because those Civil Servants and Union members HAVE SOME LABOR PROTECTION.

This fucking proposal is the fucking Chamber of Commerce and ALEC wet-fucking-dream.

Holy Fuck Batman! How long has the Republican Party been working to fuck-over American hourly paid workers?

I saw an interview a while back on PBS, done at least a decade ago, with an older lady talking about her grandmother who came over with her family from Poland and settled Chicago in the late nineteenth century. She was ten. At thirteen, she went to work in a sweatshop sewing clothing. The workers, the granddaughter said, were charged rent for the sewing machines, for needles that broke, and for oil to lubricate the machines. I wonder how many employers get away with this sort of thing today.

Once again, employers trying to get around actually paying workers *gasp* money!

My employer does this already. There are some great good points. If I have 4 hours over 40 , I can get a 3 1/2 day weekend. As I'm a democrat , my employer is hard core republican . They try very hard to provide a fair and equitable work environment . Fair is fair to them top boss or lowly grunt .
All that being said here's the bad. First you lose bodies on the job , so while some are off , others have to pick up the slack . Second if you took the pay you would get 1 1/2 your normal . If you take the time it's 1 to 1 .
The good is that it is the employee choice . You want to take the pay, done. You want to take the time, done. You want 2 hours pay and 2 hours off, done.
I'm not a really grouchy democrat, I want my employer to make money and succeed, that's what keeps me paid.
For all the right wing, conservative, republican slight of hand crap, I'm lucky my employer looks at happy employees make productive employees.
And , yup , 3 & 1/2 day weekends on occasion sit just fine with me. When some are working till 5 , I will be out at lunch, enjoying myself.

Tell me more about those 3.5 day weekends that you get with an extra half day's work, eh? I'll bet your employer, who now has your hard work in his pocket, for free, gets to approve when you take off that time.

So as soon as you threaten to make your money back, either by not working at busy times or by wanting to take time off when everyone else does, your employer will just change the terms of redemption. Don't like it? Hey, maybe he'll happily buy the time back at a 1 for 1 trade, so that he still pockets your overtime pay.

But probably not, since you already gave him that time and he only has to give it back to you under circumstances that are profitable and advantageous to him--and the most profitable and advantageous time to compensate you is... never.

Maybe you can help your poor employer a little by taking "double vacation time," you know, by overlapping your comp time with the time you already have off. It will be worth twice as much to you since you paid for it twice, right? And your boss needs to keep profiting from your extra effort in order to stay competitive (and wealthy), right?

Company will have you working 12 hr days and when you ask for the comp time---they will give you nothing. And there IS nothing you can do about it.

an employee come back into work without atleast 12 hours off between when their last shift ended and their new shift begins.

All facets of this bill will be focused on their needs. And then it will be presented as a huge win for workers by their publicists.

Vote them out in 2014!

then maybe they should just hire more people. Either full-time or part-time. Problem solved.

The small company I work for sometimes gets in special contracts that only call for a few days work. To hire someone when they would be laid off in a few days won't work, so the company uses overtime to cover those situations. It works out. I get some OT hours, the customer has to pay extra for a rush contract, and the company makes money.

It is a small company where we all know the boss on a first-name basis. Good company to work for.

just in time manufacturing in a service economy where people are the product.

Fuck you GOP.

Where they mandate you take off 2.25 hours in the middle of the day, off the clock, because they need you from 6am to 6pm, but not from 2 to 4:15...

And they'd have you drive forty miles each way to do it because you can't afford to live in that part of town.

All those bastards know is screwing over workers , it's what they do