Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Actually, the idea of the 40-hour day began over--yesterday makes 130 years at Haymarket Square in the city of Chicago, my hometown. And the idea is very simple: that after 40 hours of work, which is a reasonable time in most industrialized countries in the world, that people then get overtime pay. It is something that helps strengthen families and is good for workers to have money in their pockets. But the idea here, under the guise of flexibility--which is a really nice word--is it allows employers to deny extra hours to workers who want overtime. Instead, they can pick those who are willing to work long hours without pay for promises in the future that they would be able to have comp time, that they would be able to make it up at a time of their boss' choosing. Oh, they say over a negotiation, but go ahead and try and negotiate with your employer about that. While the majority argues that providing comp time to private sector workers creates parity between the public and private sector, workers in the public sector have many more protections than workers in the private sector right now. Union density in the public sector is five to six times the union density of the private sector. Workers represented by unions have far more bargaining power than unrepresented workers, greatly increasing the potential for employer abuse of comp time and decreasing the employees' ability to defend themselves from such abuses.…”