More Stress Anyone?

[Guest guest]

" At Circus McGurkus the workers say 'Work us, please work us' " .

from - If I Ran the circus by Dr. Suess

 

 

Molly Ivins

Creators

04.24.03

 

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?

itemid=14890 & CFID=6876787 & CFTOKEN=68058034>

 

Republicans take aim at the 40-hour work week

Everybody gets screwed on this one, except the

bosses.

 

AUSTIN, Texas -- Boy, there is no shortage of

creatively terrible ideas from the Republican Party

these days. Those folks are just full of notions

about how to make people's lives worse -- one horrible

idea after another bursting out like popcorn -- and all

of them with these sickeningly cute names attached to

them.

 

Consider the Family Time and Workplace Flexibility

Act (Senate version) and the Family Time Flexibility Act

(House version). The Bush administration is leading

the charge with proposed new rules that will erode the

40- hour workweek and affect more than 80 million

workers now protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

 

To hear the Republicans tell it, you'd think these

were family-friendly bills, something like Clinton's

Family Leave Act, designed to help you balance the

difficult combined demands of work and family. With such a

smarm of butter over their visages do the Republicans go

on about the joys of " flexibility " and " freedom of

choice " that you would have to read the bills for maybe 30

seconds before figuring out they're about repealing

the 40-hour workweek and ending overtime.

 

As The American Prospect magazine notes, when

Republicans talk about " flexibility, " it means

letting business do whatever it wants without standards,

mandates or worker and consumer rights. Ever since

FDR's New Deal, working overtime gets you

time-and-a- half in money, which has the happy effect of holding

the work week down to 40 hours -- or at least

preventing it from ballooning grossly.

 

The proposed Bush rules, which the two Republican

bills codify and expand, would:

-- Exclude previously protected workers who were

entitled to overtime by reclassifying them as

managers. Companies are already using this ploy

where they can get away with it. Say you're

frying burgers on the night shift at McDonald's, making

overtime, and suddenly -- congratulations --

you're the assistant night manager, with no raise and

no overtime.

 

-- Eliminate certain middle-income workers from

overtime protections by adding an income limit,

above which workers no longer qualify for

overtime. You like that? You make too much to earn

overtime.

 

-- Remove overtime protection from large numbers

of workers in aerospace, defense, health care, high

tech and other industries. Pay attention, this

one is coming right out of your paycheck.

 

Big Buisness is lobbying hard on these bills. If you

work overtime to pay your bills, look out. The trick

is, employers get to substitute comp time for

overtime, and the employers get the right to decide when -- or

even if -- a worker gets to take his or her comp

time.

The legislation provides no meaningful protection

against employers requiring workers to take time off

instead of cash and no protection against employers

assigning overtime only to workers who agree to take

time instead of cash. Everybody gets screwed on this

one, except the bosses. Isn't it lovely?

 

The proposed rules changes and the Republican bills

provide a strong financial incentive for employers

to lengthen the workweek, on top of an already

staggering load. By 1999, in one decade, the average work year

had expanded by 184 hours, according to Kevin Phillips'

book " Wealth and Democracy. "

 

He writes, " The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports

that the typical American works 350 hours more per year

than the typical European, the equivalent of nine work

weeks. "

 

The bills give employers a new right to delay paying

any wages for overtime work for as long as 13

months.

According to an analysis by the Economic Policy

Institute, under the new bills an employee who works

overtime hours in a given week might not receive any

pay or time off for that work until more than a year

later, at the employer's discretion.

 

" Without receiving interest or security, the

employees in essence lend their overtime pay to the employers

in the hope of getting back some time later as paid

time off, " the report states. " Employees' overtime

compensation is put at risk of loss in the event of

business failure and closure, bankruptcy or fraud.

Furthermore, employees get no guarantee of time off

when they want or need it. "

 

The EPI explains why Big Bidness loves these bills:

" A company with 200,000 FLSA-covered employees might

get 160 free hours at $7 an hour from each of them (160

hours is the maximum allowed under the bills).

That's the equivalent of $224 million that the company

wouldn't have to pay its workers for up to a year

after the worker has earned it. Considering that, under

normal circumstances, the employer might have to pay

6 percent interest for a commercial loan of this

magnitude, it could save $13 million by relying on

comp time to 'borrow' from its employees instead. "

 

The slick marketing and smoke on this one are a

wonder to behold. We're being told that private sector

workers will get the same " benefit " of comp time as public

employees. Wow, keen, except the government has no

profit motive for pushing comp time instead of

overtime. Boy, does this stink.