Congress Assignment - Working Families Flex Act

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Congress Assignment-Working Families Flex Act

The Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017 basically amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. To authorize the owners to approve compensatory days off to private workers at such a rate which is no less than 1 ½ hour for each hour of employment for which overtime compensation is required but that only by the agreement of the worker and the owner. The main purpose of the bill is to prevent the owners from accruing more than 160 hours of compensatory time. If during the preceding year the employee did not use the compensatory time then the owner is liable to provide financial payment ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"fhYiXma6","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Roby)","plainCitation":"(Roby)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1235,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/A47MBD3N"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/A47MBD3N"],"itemData":{"id":1235,"type":"webpage","title":"Actions - H.R.1180 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017","genre":"webpage","abstract":"Actions on H.R.1180 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017","URL":"https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1180/all-actions","shortTitle":"Actions - H.R.1180 - 115th Congress (2017-2018)","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Roby","given":"Martha"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",5,3]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",3,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Roby). Also before discontinuing compensatory time off the bill requires the employer to give notice to the workers. The bill strictly prevents the manager or the owner to threaten or scare the worker to require a worker to use their compensatory time. So the crux of the bill is that it would allow the workers to replace their time off for overtime compensation for the owners under some specific conditions. Although this bill brought so many positive changes for the private sector workers it has its own share of opponents and supporters. The main problem which is addressed in this law is to create a workable balance, there are many times when the employers have to take days off on urgent basis and at that time it is unavoidable for them to take leaves so according to this law they can take their day off and in reverse they can compensate that by working overtime.

This bill was proposed to the committees of House- Education and also the Workforce. Right now the bill is still under debate and it is not fully been legalized by the Trump administration although the Trump administration is in favor of the law when recently a news report came from the White House that if the Act will come in front of President Trump then he will not be hesitant to sign the Act ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"n7gqdnZr","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost})","plainCitation":"(HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1244,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/THT6PTA9"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/THT6PTA9"],"itemData":{"id":1244,"type":"webpage","title":"HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost","URL":"https://www.huffpost.com/?err_code=404&err_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fentry%2Fworking-families-flexibility-act-will-hurt-women-and%2520us%252058fe4d21e4b086ce589813ef","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",3,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost). But the Democrats seem to stand in strong opposition to the law their strong concerns is that the boss will have the final decision on when the time can be used by the worker that means that employers can defer compensating the worker's overtime work. According to them, this bill is not putting the workers first. The Republicans who hold 52 seats in the upper chamber need 8 more votes to pass the law ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"QCpNge95","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}The House Just Passed a Bill That Affects Overtime Pay})","plainCitation":"(The House Just Passed a Bill That Affects Overtime Pay)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1233,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/8STGP3MF"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/8STGP3MF"],"itemData":{"id":1233,"type":"webpage","title":"The House just passed a bill that affects overtime pay","URL":"https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/news/economy/overtime-pay-bill-passes-house/index.html","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",3,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (The House Just Passed a Bill That Affects Overtime Pay). According to the Republicans, this Bill will give more flexibility for working parents who want to spend most of their time with their families. But the Democrats argue that the workers who work on low pay would need the extra money could be forced to take time off when they would need bigger paychecks. Although according to this law it depends on their choice but it's not ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"37xfE03Z","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Devaney)","plainCitation":"(Devaney)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1237,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/MJLL3NGP"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/MJLL3NGP"],"itemData":{"id":1237,"type":"webpage","title":"House passes GOP 'comp time' bill","container-title":"TheHill","genre":"Text","abstract":"The bill allows employees to trade overtime pay for more time off.","URL":"https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/331645-house-passes-comp-time-bill","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Devaney","given":"Tim"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",5,2]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",3,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Devaney).

This bill sets up a false choice between time and money when in some cases the working families need both, like in case of a baby is born then at that time both money and also time for the family is a must. This bill does not promote family-friendly workplaces. It rather erodes hourly working abilities in order to make ends meet ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"1xheOLRZ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}An-Empty-Promise-the-Working-Families-Flexibility-Act.Pdf})","plainCitation":"(An-Empty-Promise-the-Working-Families-Flexibility-Act.Pdf)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1241,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/9GGKLP9Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/9GGKLP9Q"],"itemData":{"id":1241,"type":"article","title":"an-empty-promise-the-working-families-flexibility-act.pdf","language":"English","issued":{"date-parts":[["2017",4]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (An-Empty-Promise-the-Working-Families-Flexibility-Act.Pdf). This Act is also harmful to the women who do more child-rearing and other housework as compared to the working men. A brief review of this program shows that it will harm the young girls whether they are available to fathers or not. This will make the bosses feel that women will cost them more to employ than before this policy and it will also impact the companies decision to hire and promote or pay females ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"DTMY3mU3","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Calder)","plainCitation":"(Calder)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1242,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/NV4EDLVG"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4C6u8dIT/items/NV4EDLVG"],"itemData":{"id":1242,"type":"webpage","title":"How paid family leave hurts women","container-title":"CNN","abstract":"Vanessa Brown Calder says deregulatory initiatives could help women more than mandated paid leave would -- by improving their bargaining power in the workforce.","URL":"https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/opinions/trump-budget-paid-leave-calder-opinion/index.html","author":[{"family":"Calder","given":"Vanessa Brown"}],"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",3,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Calder). On the basis of all these arguments if I would be in politics no matter which party I would belong but I would think about the general public and would vote against this Act because after reading so much in depth about this law although there are some benefits of this Act but certainly the cons are overweighing the pros, therefore, I would not support this Act.

Work Cited

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY An-Empty-Promise-the-Working-Families-Flexibility-Act.Pdf. Apr. 2017.

Calder, Vanessa Brown. “How Paid Family Leave Hurts Women.” CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/opinions/trump-budget-paid-leave-calder-opinion/index.html. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

Devaney, Tim. “House Passes GOP ‘comp Time’ Bill.” TheHill, 2 May 2017, https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/331645-house-passes-comp-time-bill.

HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/?err_code=404&err_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fentry%2Fworking-families-flexibility-act-will-hurt-women-and%2520us%252058fe4d21e4b086ce589813ef. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

Roby, Martha. Actions - H.R.1180 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017. 3 May 2017, https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1180/all-actions.

The House Just Passed a Bill That Affects Overtime Pay. https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/news/economy/overtime-pay-bill-passes-house/index.html. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.