Political Quotes

“we have a very important bill on the floor today, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 1997. As the gentlewoman from Ohio, my colleague, pointed out in her opening remarks, the work force today is very different than it was in the 1930's when the law that we are amending was put in place: Mostly males in the workplace, very few mothers in the workplace. Today we find ourselves where working families have an awful lot of demands that are placed on them. With those demands, workers throughout our country are asking for more flexibility. They are working with their employers, demanding more flexibility to meet their demanding schedule at home, at school, as their children are involved in sports and other activities. When this law was written in the 1930's, the Congress saw fit to make sure that anyone who worked for a local government had this option of compensatory time off in lieu of overtime, and that is why employees who worked for local city governments, county governments, State governments and the Federal Government have had this option now for almost 60 years, and they enjoy it. They like it because it works. All we are trying to do here today is to give hourly workers who work in the private sector the same option that public sector employees have had for almost 60 years.”