A Turtle Selling Beachfront Property In Kentucky

Sen. Mitch McConnell tries to con Kentuckians and the rest of the country into thinking Republicans care about working-class families in a USA Today op-ed piece.

One bill I recently introduced with Sen. Ayotte, the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act, would help Americans better balance the demands of work and family by allowing workers to take time off as a form of overtime compensation. It's an idea that's tailored to the needs of the modern workforce, it's something a lot of working men and women say they want, and there's no reason not to provide a little more flexibility to working families. Another bill I introduced, the Working Parents Home Office Act, would reduce the hassle and cost of child care for working parents already stretched thin enough. My legislation would do that by changing the law to allow parents to write off a home office even if they happen to have a crib in the room. Currently, the law treats working moms and dads unfairly by disqualifying them from this deduction if they care for their child while working in a home office. So making that change is just common sense.

I've talked about this particular piece of nonsense before: the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act really needs to be called Your Employer Doesn't Have To Pay You A Dime For Overtime Anymore Act.  Here's how the scam works:  your employer can choose to give you comp time instead of overtime pay.  Your employer then decides when you're allowed to take that comp time, and then decides when that comp time expires.

So you work 44 hours one week, you get 4 hours of comp time.  Only your employer never has to actually let you take it, that's up to your employer. You could cash out the comp time, but only at standard hourly rate, and not overtime.  In other words, it suddenly becomes very, very easy for employers to pressure all workers into taking comp time instead of overtime, and then pressuring them into not taking that comp time ever.  Boom, unlimited overtime without pay.

How many employers do you think would love to have that option?  "Work overtime and take this comp time that you'll never be able to use or else" seems like a pretty great deal for the bosses and not so much for employees.

Of course the GOP House passed this bill last year.

Oh, and that other part, the Working Parents Home Office Act?  How many working-class parents do you know have a home office?  Because the tax burden of a home office is really the issue with being able to pay for childcare, right?

And finally, let's remember that Mitch the Turtle here voted against the Family Medical Leave Act, guaranteed sick pay legislation, and the Paycheck Fairness Act, things that actually would help families struggling here in Kentucky (and did when Clinton signed the FMLA into law).

This con game is what Mitch McConnell is selling, and the only thing between you and your boss getting you to work like indentured servants is the Democratic party.

Might want to keep that in mind.