Rob Andrews: “Mr. Chairman I rise to oppose this legislation. I fully appreciate the demands of balancing family and work, as my…”

“Mr. Chairman I rise to oppose this legislation. I fully appreciate the demands of balancing family and work, as my colleague from North Carolina just mentioned. Tonight is my 3-year-old daughter's back to school night at her gymnastics camp. Her mother will be there; I will not because we are not always able to balance our work and time schedules easily. There are some flaws in this bill, though, that I think do not hold out the promise that my friend just talked about. First of all, is the bill truly voluntary? Is the choice truly voluntary? I believe that in the situation here where an employer systematically grants overtime to the employee who chooses comp time and systematically denies overtime to the employee who chooses cash, that the employee who chooses cash, the employee who chooses to have a few more dollars in his or her paycheck, is going to be denied a truly voluntary choice, and I think that employee has no meaningful or realistic remedy.”