Trent Lott: “I hope that we can come to an agreement on this. Senator Daschle has indicated he would like to work with us on it. The…”

“I hope that we can come to an agreement on this. Senator Daschle has indicated he would like to work with us on it. The President said during the election campaign and, in fact, 2 weeks ago, he would like to work with us on giving some flexibility to workers' schedules. I believe he has indicated that again today. Senator Ashcroft has done such a magnificent job on this bill. In fact, I believe the President said flextime is very important--flexibility is very important. I wrote it down and gave a copy of it to the Senator from Missouri. So, we all agree that having a little option of taking your comptime in terms of higher pay or the option of it being some time off, that's a good idea. We all agree, I think, that working spouses ought to have a little flexibility in their schedules. That is who really benefits from the flextime portion of this bill. Now, if there are questions or concerns about making sure that it is fair and there is no intimidation, it is truly voluntary, hey, let's work that out. We ought to do that. We want those protections. We want those guarantees. But I want somebody to explain to me how I can explain to the hourly workers in my State that they should not have these options even though Federal employees do.”