Going Into Overtime (And Ripping It Out)

Don't look now America, but Paul Ryan and the House GOP just voted to give employers the option to end time-and-a-half pay for hourly overtime and replace it with comp time, which employers would be under no rules to actually allow workers to take.  That's right, the cleverly-titled Working Families Flexibility Act just passed the House and is on its way to the Senate.

The measure, backed by Republicans, would let employers give workers paid time off instead of time-and-a-half pay the next time they put in extra hours. The vote tally was largely along party lines, with no Democrats voting in favor of the bill. Six Republicans also voted against it. 

G.O.P. leadership has touted the legislation, called the Working Families Flexibility Act, as an attempt to codify flexibility for employees. 

"I don't think there's anything more powerful than giving them more control over their time so that they can make the best decisions for themselves and their families," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said Tuesday morning in a press conference held by Republican leaders in the House. 

The Trump administration also came out in support of the measure on Tuesday. The White House said in a news release that the president's advisers would recommend Trump sign the bill into law if it was presented to him in its current form. 

But Democrats stand in strong opposition. Their chief concern is that employers have the final say on when comp time can be used, which means bosses can defer compensating employees for overtime work.

The GOP House passed similar legislation in 2013, and Mitch McConnell's been trying to pass legislation to end overtime pay for quite some time now, most recently in 2014.   Now that Trump is in the White House and is indicating that he'll sign the measure, only a Senate Democratic filibuster stands between you and "white working-class hero" Trump taking your overtime pay.

But hey, her emails.