Joe Courtney

That amounts to an interest-free loan paid for by the workers' wages.

I look forward to an opportunity to discuss legislation like the Healthy Families Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act that make a real difference to our nation's working families.

What is worse, this legislation... has nothing to do with promoting workplace flexibility.

This Tuesday was Equal Pay Day. I spent the afternoon at another institution... talking about a meaningful economic agenda for women and families.

I would argue that in fact you are almost putting at risk of going backwards, and so we--flexibility is a critical item.

This bill just provides a way for employers to pay workers less in the name of workplace flexibility.

Working families deserve better than a bill that forces them to choose between overtime pay and the family-friendly policies they desire.

But to be clear, nothing in this bill requires that the worker has access to time off when she really needs it.

What is worse, this legislation, as I said, has been considered several times before and failed to gain any traction.

Instead, however, we are debating legislation which frankly has been recycled through this committee numerous times and never prevailed that forces workers to compromise their paycheck in order to have more time off from work.

I was hopeful that today would be an opportunity to continue that discussion and that we would examine legislation that gives working families greater flexibility in managing their work and family demands.

I hope again that you will continue that effort.

We must ensure our federal resources are used more efficiently to give students the opportunity to embrace and succeed in STEM subjects.

Secretary Carter appeared before this committee a few weeks ago and confirmed that we are still spending $2 billion a week in Afghanistan.

I mean we are going to be living with budget caps through this entire period of time under the Budget Control Act.

Together, we believe that in order to be successful in fixing America's broken immigration system, any viable remedy must do four things: strengthen our national security, create a role for employers in an employment system that functions…

Again, I just want to reference at the close here the, again, the positive signal that the AFL and the Chamber issued recently in terms of their, you know, joint commitment to try and reform and improve this system.

I think more importantly, those jobs would still remain as jobs that would then be available to, presumably, additional guest workers who would come in, and paid under the prevailing wage rate or paid less than the average wage rate, which…

It seems like a reform is going to have to do better, as far as data being available, again, to U.S. workers.

I think we have got to embrace whatever sort of traction we can get around this town.

I mean, your testimony, Ms. Bauer, really was focused a lot on, you know, some real horror stories of people who were sort of trapped under the existing system with an employer and nowhere else to go.

We need to be careful about how we administer any temporary guest worker program to ensure that foreign workers are not exploited and that U.S. workers have a shot at available jobs.

I hope today's discussion is the start of a productive debate on immigration reform--one that seeks to serve this nation's workers and employers.

I am deeply encouraged by this progress and agree with the joint statement released by the chamber and the AFL that today's effort at comprehensive immigration reform present a historic opportunity for U.S. workers and businesses to work…

But nonetheless, the election has really changed the political dynamics surrounding this whole issue.