Albert Russell Wynn: “let us be straight about this, ladies and gentlemen. Comp time is not flex time. If employers want to give employees all…”

“let us be straight about this, ladies and gentlemen. Comp time is not flex time. If employers want to give employees all these benefits and all these opportunities to care for children and loved ones, they can do it now. It is called flex time. Come in early, leave early, come in late, leave late. That is possible. This is comp time and this denies people basic income. I do not want to hear that oh, well, they can go to court and we lowered the legal standard. The fact of the matter is minimum wage workers are not going into anybody's court. They are not going down the street to see Robert Reich to talk about a labor violation. Those remedies are not practicable. Let us talk about the real world. In the real world, wages have stagnated over the last 20 years. People need overtime to make ends meet. In 1995, the average full-time worker in manufacturing worked about 4.4 hours of overtime to make an additional $3,800 a year. They need that money. Now, they are going to tell employees well, this is optional, it is up to the employee if they want to take it. Let us talk about this so-called option. The reality of the workplace is that most employees want to keep their jobs and therefore go along with their employer. That means that when the employer suggests comp time, they are going to take it. This so-called option does not really work. The employee does not have a choice because the employer has to approve the comp time. He has to approve when they can take it.”