Today, the House Education and the Workforce Committee is considering H.R. 1180, the “Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017.” In an April 5 memo, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey and Labor Counsel Celine McNicholas explained that H.R. 1180 would not give workers any more flexibility—instead it would further erode the right to overtime by allowing employers to delay paying overtime wages by a year.

“H.R. 1180 is about giving employers, not working families, more flexibility,” said Eisenbrey. “Namely, the flexibility to avoid paying overtime. If Congress were serious about helping working families, they would strengthen overtime protections instead of giving employers one more way of shirking their responsibilities.”

In a blog post, EPI Policy Director Heidi Shierholz wrote that “everything the comp time bill purports to provide for workers is actually already available under the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The bill only provides a new employer right to avoid paying workers the overtime they have earned.” Shierholz goes on to explain that workers are never better off under comp time than overtime, and that H.R. 1180 “adds nothing for workers but delay and risk.”

Interviews with Eisenbrey and Shierholz can be arranged by emailing news@epi.org.