Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I include in the Record a letter from the Amalgamated Transit Union against the bill. Amalgamated Transit Union, Silver Spring, MD, May 1, 2017. Dear Representative: On behalf of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the largest labor organization representing public transit workers in the United States, I am urging you to oppose the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017 (H.R. 1180). The title of the legislation is extremely misleading, as the bill actually provides flexibility only to employers-- not workers--and hurts working families who are already struggling to make ends meet. In response to an epidemic of workers plagued by mandatory excessive hours, Congress in 1938 made the wise decision to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), establishing the 40-hour workweek that we all take for granted today. This landmark legislation, requiring that employers pay a time- and-a-half cash premium for overtime work, serves as the only deterrent from employers demanding excessive hours by making overtime work more expensive for them. H.R. 1180 would remove this barrier. Forced overtime is already a serious problem in the transit industry, and many of ATU's bargaining units are increasingly in the private sector and thus subject to FLSA rules.…”