Cant Happen - According to the bill, if the employee chooses PTO and then never uses it, then the employee has to pay them the OT after a certain amount of time.
Because businesses can be trusted to report PTO accurately and fairly, and will gladly pay out-of-pocket to their employees, amiright? In the meantime, the business are earning interest on the employee's money. Because that's totally fair.
It works that way pretty well right now for many many companies, including the federal government which already uses this system. By the way, if the company requires you to punch in and out (which many do), then its really easy for both the employee and employer to keep track of hours.
Very true. This system allows the employee to choose based on their lifestyle. A lot of employees would rather have the extra time off to spend with their family rather than have the extra cash. A friend of mine made liberal use of this policy so she could spend extra time with her mother in her final illness. She worked significant overtime for a couple of weeks and used the comp time earned to spend a couple of days with her mom near the end.
I like the idea. It can be somewhat abused, but the people that abuse it can be abusive already. But I can see the concern over this at the end of the year: 'you only had x overtime hours.' 'but i had y!' 'you only had x, take it or leave it.'
Do you really think it will be true PTO that companies will give? I would imagine that an unscrupulous company would not be ok with a worker taking a large chunk of time off at any point, even in an emergency. If you work in retail, you certainly would not be allowed to use your earned overtime PTO on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or any other holiday. Might it also hurt expectant mothers and fathers? While it's probably a fantastic law for those with young children, I would assume most firms would force the worker to first cash in all their PTO prior to applying for paid maternity/paternity leave; in this case it would certainly amount to a direct paycut, I don't know anyone who still has the job security to take the full 3 months anyway.
I really don't get the concern. Its no different than how it is now. If a company has a time management system, then this will not be an issue. If a company does everything by hand, then youre just as likely to be fighting for the hours of OT or general PTO. Right now, employees are probably getting screwed. Boss: "Work 4 extra hours this week and take a half a day next friday". With this system, which is frequently used, the employee loses 2 hours. That said, I don't know why we need legislation that should be left up to the company. There is no reason to over complicate this. If you work for a good employer, then they will work with you regardless. If you have a bad employer, then they will do whatever they can to screw you regardless.
How silly is the notion that if overtime pay is not mandated, it can't be given voluntarily. What if we did away with mandates and prohibitions? "Shall" and "shall not" are phrases we as a free society should be skeptical of. People should be free to offer whatever compensation is sufficient to get the work they need done.
To the factory goons, overseers or bounty hunters? Please stop pretending an owner would negotiate directly with employees if he could pay others to antagonize them.
That's why OT laws exist, companies in a free society were just giving out OT like candy. Hell, why do labor laws exist at all. Remember the good ole days where the market set prices and employees had great working conditions without any pesky laws.
Or, like every job I've had with comp time, the manager and or ******* co-workers will nag you into taking time within a certain window, so they don't have to deal with it or can horde Fridays and/or pre-holidays for themselves. What's worse, a company can under-project their annual firm-wide overtime compensation and under-budget accordingly; such that when people ask for the overtime pay, the company says they don't have it and just tells them to go home at 1:20 instead of five.
