Burgess Owens: “our most endangered species in America is the family, and we do not want to be guilty of taking cash away from families…”

“our most endangered species in America is the family, and we do not want to be guilty of taking cash away from families which is used to put bread on the table, to buy shoes, and to pay the rent. This is a revolutionary and reckless change in labor law. The Fair Labor Standards Act has existed since 1938 as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. This experiment need not be so radical and so extreme as it is constructed in this legislation. We could provide adjustments and relief for comfortable middle class wage earners who want time off at the same time that we protect low income workers who need cash payments of overtime in order to meet their basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. This law is not enforceable. That is the problem. It will not be enforceable. There will be no choice for the people who want the cash to put food on their tables. In fiscal year 1996, the Department of Labor found overtime violations among employers involving 170,000 workers. The lowest wage workers are the most common victims of this abuse. In other words, under the present law, they are not being paid their overtime. They are being swindled out of overtime. The Employer Policy Foundation, this is an employer-supported think tank in Washington, they reveal that workers lose approximately $19 billion a year. $19 billion is swindled under the present law. This loose law here, which proposes to give choice to people, will be even worse.”