Feed aggregator

Right now the House is considering H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013. This commonsense legislation modernizes an outdated federal law that prevents private-sector employers from offering employees the option to accrue paid time off or ‘comp time’ for working overtime hours.  

Moments ago House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) highlighted the ways H.R. 1406 empowers private-sector employees with greater workplace flexibility.   

At the heart of the legislation is worker choice. Workers choose whether to accept comp time; workers choose when to cash out their accrued comp time; and workers choose when to use their paid time off so long as they follow the same standard public-sector employees do. Americans sacrifice a lot to provide for their families. Let’s get the federal government out of the way and give workers the flexibility they need to thrive at home and at work.

To learn more about the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013, visit edworkforce.house.gov/YourTime.

                                                 # # #

House Republicans today met with working parents to discuss the need for more flexibility in the workplace. At the CENTECH GROUP Inc. office in Falls Church, Virginia, members listened as small business owners and private-sector employees described how the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013 (H.R. 1406) would help more Americans juggle the demands of family and work. Sponsored by Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), the legislation would allow private-sector employers to offer employees the opportunity to accrue paid time off, or ‘comp time,’ for working overtime hours. 

House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Representative Martha Roby (R-AL), and Representative Renee Ellmers (R-NC) joined working parents to highlight the commonsense proposal that will help families nationwide.

Following the roundtable, members discussed the legislation in a short media availability. Watch the members’ remarks below:

<div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> </div>

On putting parents before politics
The bill is very simple.  If you are a working parent – as I am – you know one thing all of us have in common and that all of us need is more time. That’s what this bill will allow. It is a commonsense bill that puts parents before politics. – Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

On helping workers attend to the needs of their families
There are single dads and [families] where both parents are working and they want to spend time with their kids, going to parent-teacher conferences, baseball games... Time is so important and this bill addresses that need. – Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

On modernizing an outdated law
The times have changed and the number of women in the workforce has changed, yet so many of our federal laws and regulations have not kept pace. They were written at a different time… We need to update these laws. – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)

On getting government out of the way of working families
This is your time. You get to choose how to use it. Our message to all working Americans is very clear: We want to get Washington out of the business of telling Americans how to use their time. – Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL)

On empowering workers with more options
We shouldn’t have to be faced with the decision of taking our child to the pediatrician or spending that special time with them in lieu of a conference call or a business decision that we have to make – we should be able to make those decisions. – Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC)
 

NOTE: The House is expected to vote on the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013 tomorrow. Watch the debate here.

To learn more about H.R. 1406, visit edworkforce.house.gov/YourTime.

# # #

The Ways and Means, Education and the Workforce, and Energy and Commerce Committees today released an updated version of the ObamaCare Burden Tracker (#ObamaCareBurden), which reveals the burden on employers and families has increased to almost 190 million hours. The Burden Tracker, first released in February, is a real-time, online resource to help the public keep track of all of the new government mandates, rules, and red tape resulting from ObamaCare.

The burden of ObamaCare is already being felt, even though many provisions of the law, including the requirement for most Americans to buy government-approved health insurance or pay a tax, are not set to take effect until 2014. According to the Obama administration’s own estimates, ObamaCare will require American job creators, families, and health care providers to spend almost 190 million hours per year on compliance.* This burden has increased over 60 million hours since February of this year.

Every hour and dollar spent complying with the Democrats’ health care law are time and resources being taken from spending time with family, growing a business and creating jobs, or caring for patients. Since many small businesses do not employ in-house lawyers and accountants, compliance costs are especially expensive and burdensome. Given the new demands of complying with the law, it is not surprising that over 70 percent of small businesses cite the health care law as a major obstacle to job creation.

What could be done in 189,822,836 hours? 

• Mount Rushmore, which took 14 years to build, could be constructed 1,547 times.
• Halley’s comet, seen from Earth once every 76 years, could be spotted 285 times.
• The Empire State building, which took 7 million man hours to build, could be constructed 27 times.

*Based on administration estimates released by the Office of Management and Budget.

# # #

Full Report

read more

House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Chairman Phil Roe (R-TN) released the following joint statement after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia invalidated a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule that would have punished employers for failing to post a biased notice of workers’ labor rights in the workplace:

Today’s federal appeals court decision is a win for workers and job creators nationwide. The NLRB’s vague and biased poster regulation was nothing more than a marketing campaign for Big Labor at the expense of workers and employers. It’s time the board stopped rewriting the law to advance a political agenda and started applying the law as prescribed by Congress.

NOTE: In December 2012, House Republicans filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to urge the court the strike down the poster regulation. The congressional brief raised two critical legal issues:

1. Congress did not – and has not – granted the board the authority to require a general notice posting by employers. Unlike the National Labor Relations Act, other labor and employment laws explicitly authorize notice postings. Absent that explicit authority, and a clear intent by the authors of the National Labor Relations Act to withhold that authority, the board’s regulation exceeds its lawful powers; and
      
2. Congress has restricted the board’s authority to actual parties, in pending cases, and adjudicated facts based on an evidentiary hearing. The limited scope of the board’s authority is central to the law’s constitutional standing, and it cannot be expanded at the whim of the board majority.

A similar brief was filed in two federal district courts in 2011.

# # #

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, chaired by Rep. John Kline (R-MN), today held a hearing to examine the appropriate federal role in accountability and explore innovative state and local efforts to hold schools accountable for student performance.

In his opening remarks, Chairman Kline reiterated the importance of reauthorizing the nation’s K-12 education law, known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) or No Child Left Behind, and outlined four Republican priorities for rewriting the law: restore local control, reduce the federal footprint, improve teacher effectiveness, and empower parents.

“We have an opportunity to work together in good faith to bring true reform to America’s K-12 schools. To change the law to more effectively support the teachers, school leaders, superintendents, and parents who are working tirelessly each and every day to ensure our children have the skills they need to succeed,” Chairman Kline said. “We laid a considerable amount of groundwork last Congress, holding 14 hearings with dozens of witnesses to explore the challenges and opportunities facing our schools. I hope we can build upon that progress as we move forward with legislation that will change the law by offering states and school districts the flexible, dynamic education policies they deserve.”

During the hearing, members listened as education leaders described local reforms that have helped raise the bar on student performance and offered recommendations for federal education reforms.

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education John White urged a simpler federal framework for K-12 schools: “Congress must promulgate a framework of accountability, choice, and high quality teaching while keeping its parameters simple for leaders of states, districts, and schools, whose greatest challenge day to day is achieving coherent planning around the needs of students.”

Mr. White added, “A strong ESEA reauthorization will be uncompromising in its commitment to accountability but humble in its view of the federal role and its potential to create confusion more than coherence.”

Dr. Chris Richardson, superintendent of Northfield Public Schools in Northfield, Minnesota, stated, “Congress needs to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as soon as possible, providing all schools and students with relief from the broken, outdated components of current law.” Dr. Richardson stressed the need to “reestablish and recalibrate” the federal and state roles in education. “Federal investment in public education represents, on average, just ten percent of total district expenditures,” he said. “As such, any reauthorization should ensure that federal policy establishes, at most, a proportional role, to avoid the proverbial ‘tail wagging the dog.’”

Mr. Matthew Given, Chief Development Officer of the education solutions firm EdisonLearning, stated, “Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act presents a tremendous opportunity to further innovation that leads to measurable, sustainable improvement for all students. We all agree that schools must be held accountable for teaching all students and cannot walk away from failure.”

# # #

Last month marked the 30th anniversary of the landmark “Nation at Risk” report. By starkly illuminating the failures in K-12 schools, this Reagan-era report sparked a national conversation on the state of education in America.

Without a doubt, “Nation at Risk” could be considered the catalyst for the modern education reform movement. In the years following the report’s release, states and school districts advanced a number of initiatives aimed at raising the bar for students. The federal government doubled education spending and, through the groundbreaking No Child Left Behind law, took steps to narrow student achievement gaps, strengthen curricula, and demand greater accountability.

But as I’ve said before, hindsight is 20/20. Despite the best of intentions, we can now see clearly that our federal efforts haven’t worked as we’d hoped. The ‘Adequate Yearly Progress’ metric is entirely too rigid and actually limits states’ and school districts’ ability to effectively gauge student learning. The antiquated ‘Highly Qualified Teacher’ requirements value tenure and credentials above a teacher’s ability to actually teach. Strict mandates and red tape result in unprecedented federal intrusion in classrooms, stunting innovation. And despite a monumental investment of taxpayer resources, student achievement levels are still falling short.

It’s time to change the law.

Last Congress, we advanced a series of legislative proposals to rewrite No Child Left Behind. Instead of working with Congress to fix the law, however, the Obama administration chose to offer states temporary waivers from some of No Child Left Behind’s most onerous requirements in exchange for new mandates dictated by the Department of Education.

As more states adopt the administration’s waivers, my concerns grow. These waivers are a short-term fix to a long-term problem, and leave states and school districts tied to a failing law. School leaders face uncertainty, knowing the federal requirements they must meet to maintain their waiver are subject to change with the whims of the administration.

In the coming months, we will again move forward with a proposal to rewrite No Child Left Behind. This legislation will be based on four principals that my Republican colleagues and I believe are critical to rebuilding and strengthening our nation’s education system.

First, we must restore local control, and encourage the kind of flexibility states and school districts need to develop their own accountability plans that provide parents more accurate and meaningful information about school performance.

Second, it’s time to reduce the federal footprint. The Department of Education operates more than 80 programs tied to K-12 classrooms, many of which are duplicative or ineffective, each with its own set of strict rules. Innovation and effective reform cannot be mandated from Washington. We must put control back in the hands of the state and local leaders who know their students best.

Third, we need to shift our focus to teacher effectiveness. We should value our educators based on their ability to motivate students in the classroom, not their degrees and diplomas. States or school districts must be granted the opportunity to develop their own teacher evaluation systems based in part on student achievement, enabling educators to be judged fairly on their effectiveness in the classroom.

Finally, we’ve got to empower parents. Any effort to provide students with a top-quality education must include the involvement and support of parents. Whether through charter schools, scholarships, tax credits, open enrollment policies, or other options, parents should be free to select the school that best fits their children’s needs.

As the “Nation at Risk” report concluded, “Reform of our educational system will take time and unwavering commitment. It will require equally widespread, energetic, and dedicated action.”

We have an opportunity to work together in good faith to bring true reform to America’s K-12 schools. To change the law to more effectively support the teachers, school leaders, superintendents, and parents who are working tirelessly each and every day to ensure our children have the skills they need to succeed.

We laid a considerable amount of groundwork last Congress, holding 14 hearings with dozens of witnesses to explore the challenges and opportunities facing our schools. I hope we can build upon that progress as we move forward with legislation that will change the law by offering states and school districts the flexible, dynamic education policies they deserve. Today’s hearing is an important part of that effort, and I look forward to our witnesses’ testimony.

# # #

The Committee is scheduled to consider the following measures:

• H.R. 3 – Northern Route Approval Act
• H.R. 1092 – To designate the air route traffic control center located in Nashua, New Hampshire, as the “Patricia Clark Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center”
• Other matters cleared for consideration

read more