Skip to main content

Updated: Workflex in the 21st Century Act Continues To Work Its Way Through Congress



This morning, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce is set to hold another hearing on the Workflex in the 21st Century Act (H.R. 4219 (115)).  Readers might recall that last year, I highlighted this bill, sponsored by California Republican Representative Mimi Walters (and co-sponsored by Washington Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers and New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik).  For those needing a refresher, the Act would exempt companies from state and local paid leave laws if these companies met minimum federal paid leave standards and flexible work requirements.  This bill is considered a "first of its kind" in so much that it would combine guaranteed paid leave and increased workplace flexibility under one piece of legislation.

As for the specifics of the paid leave portion of the bill:

  • Paid leave would be extended to all full time and part time employees.
  • Employees could accrue leave over the course of a plan year or employers could choose to offer a leave lump sum amount at the start of the plan year.
  • New employees would be subject to restrictions on the use of leave during the first 90 days of employment.
  • Paid leave would be scaled to the size of the employer's workforce and the tenure of employees.
  • Employers, rather than taxpayers, would pay the cost of the paid leave

As for the specifics of the flexible work (a/k/a workflex) portion of the bill:

  • To be eligible for a workflex arrangement, an employee would have to be employed for at least 12 months by the employer and would have to have worked at least 1,000 hours during the previous 12 months.
  • Employers would be required to offer at least one of the following workflex arrangements to eligible employees:  compressed work schedule, biweekly work program, telecommuting program, job sharing program, flexible scheduling, or a predictable schedule.

While many Republicans and business groups have started to rally around the Act, there has been some resistance against it.  For instance, late last year, the National Women's Law Center wrote a letter to Congress and criticized the Act as harming families by allowing employers to "circumvent state and local laws designed to protect working people."  In particular, the group characterized the Act as unjustly allowing employers to decide when and whether workers would be allowed to use paid time off and to decide what constituted "predictable" or "flexible" schedules.  While this bill is still in the early stages of working its way through Congress, it will be one to keep an eye on going forward (as other paid leave legislation looks to gain a foothold).


For a copy of the Workflex in the 21st Century Act:  https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4219

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more