NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | May 19, 2017 | PAGE 5
RETIREMENT
GOP Congress to states: Stop helping workers save for retirement
The Republican-led Congress
just passed a law to make it
harder for states to offer volun-
tary retirement savings plans.
Five states, including Oregon,
are in the process of setting up
state-sponsored low-fee retire-
ment accounts for workers who
don’t have any employer-spon-
sored retirement plan. The states
asked the U.S. Department of
Labor (DOL) to remove legal
uncertainty by declaring that the
plans aren’t subject to the fed-
eral pension law known as
ERISA. DOL did that, but finan-
cial services firms, which collect
fees for setting up retirement
savings plans, called for Con-
gress to undo the DOL ruling.
A bill to do that passed the
House Feb. 15 on a 231-193
vote, with all but three Republi-
cans for it and all but one Demo-
crat against. It then passed the
Senate May 3 by 50-49, with all
Democrats against it, and all but
two Republicans for it. As of
press time, the bill was awaiting
President Trump’s signature.
“In the face of a multi-trillion
dollar retirement savings crisis,
Congress chose to side with the
special interests over working
Americans,” said Oregon
Treasurer Tobias Read in a
statement reacting to the Senate
vote. Read says Oregon’s pro-
gram will go forward despite
the act of Congress. It will
launch July 1 as a pilot project,
expanding to employers with 10
or more workers in 2018, and to
all employers in 2019.
WORKERS RIGHTS
An end to
overtime?
U.S. House passes a bill letting
employers offer ‘comp’ time in-
stead of paying overtime.
A bill that passed the U.S.
House of Representatives on
May 2 would allow employers
to offer “comp time” instead of
paying overtime. HR 1180, the
“Working Families Flexibility
Act of 2017,” would under-
mine the federal overtime pro-
tection that has been in place
since 1938. House Workforce
Committee Chair Bradley
Byrne (R-Ala.) called the 1938
Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA) an “antiquated federal
law” in a hearing on HR 1180.
FLSA is the law that sets the
federal minimum wage and re-
quires employers to pay time-
and-a-half to hourly workers
when they work more than 40
hours a week.
The point of the FLSA’s
overtime provision is to dis-
courage long hours — by
making it more expensive for
the employer to schedule
them. HR 1180 would undo
that disincentive because the
employer could offer the paid
time off at the regular hourly
rate instead of paying the time-
and-a-half rate. Not only that,
but the paid time off would
come at the employer’s discre-
tion up to a year later. It would
amount to an interest-free loan
by the worker to the employer,
because the worker wouldn’t
be paid anything for the hours
until the comp time is used.
HR 1180 says workers
could accrue up to 160 hours
of comp time; any not used by
the end of a year would have
to be cashed out at the time-
and-a-half rate within a month.
The bill says employees
would have to agree to the
comp time swap. But the bill’s
critics say given the power dif-
ferential, many nonunion
workers would feel compelled
to accept comp time.
When it reached the House
floor, it passed 229-197. Not a
single Democrat voted for the
bill, and six Republicans
joined the Democrats in voting
“no.” A companion bill, S.801,
is now in the Senate Health,
Education, Labor, and Pen-
sions Committee. The White
House in a statement said Pres-
ident Trump would sign the
bill if it reaches his desk.