Today, the House is set to vote on the Working Families Flexibility Act, legislation that would weaken rules requiring businesses to pay employees overtime wages when they work more than 40 hours in a given week and instead give employers the option of providing their workers with “comp time,” or time off from work. The bill is being touted as a Republican response to the need for today’s working parents to balance work and family by allowing them to accrue unpaid overtime hours.

A big worry of opponents of the bill is that employers will have the power to coerce employees into taking comp time instead of having to pay them overtime wages. When confronted with this possibility, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), told the Sirius radio show The Morning Briefing with Tim Farley that employees will be able to turn to existing worker protections against coercion under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA):

The employee absolutely can pick up the phone and call the Department of Labor and report their employer because that is not allowed. The anti-coercion and discrimination provisions in this bill are very clear, that an employer cannot not use compensatory time in any way to coerce or discriminate or force an employee to take compensatory time… All of the protections that are currently under the Fair Labor Standards Act exist under this bill as well for the employee to make sure the employer does not take advantage of the employee.

But workers may not be as well protected as Roby indicated. While the bill does give workers the right to sue, George Zornick reports at The Nation that they are denied the use of a faster and cheaper avenue through the Department of Labor. On top of this, it doesn’t give the Department of Labor any extra funds to investigate or enforce the anti-coercion provisions. This means that workers who experience intimidation may have to hire their own lawyer and shell out lots of money to bring a case.

Meanwhile, the balance of power often rests with employers. Workers are fighting wage theft, or employers violating FLSA overtime laws, at huge rates. A 2009 survey reported that two-thirds of low-income employees had experienced a wage law violation in the previous week alone. The problem has been on the rise, with actions filed in federal court alleging wage and hour violations increasing by 400% between 2000 and 2011. Many employers are already failing to follow the FLSA’s rules.

Opponents have other concerns with the legislation. The FLSA requires overtime pay for work over 40 hours a week, which provides a big disincentive to ask employees to work long hours. That could diminish if employers can offer comp time instead. Employers may also be able to deny requests to use the comp time if they can claim it “unduly disrupts the operations of the employer” or that the request didn’t come in “within a reasonable period.”

In the radio interview, Roby also pointed to the fact that public sector workers have had this arrangement since 1985. But as Alex Seitz-Wald reports at Salon, “that move was to cut costs for government, not provide workers with more freedom,” plus government employees generally have a union to help them fight employer violations.

In fact, this is an old idea that has had trouble gaining traction over the years. Seitz-Wald points out that Republicans introduced similar legislation in 1996, 1997, and 2003. If Republicans are looking for policies that can help today’s working families, they could consider paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, and protections for workers who request flexible working conditions.

In a bid for women’s support and votes, the GOP launched an aggressive ad campaign on “mommy blogs” on Tuesday. The ads will tout its deceptively titled Working Families Flexibility Act that would weaken overtime pay laws:

The banner ads will be featured on over 100 websites popular among women and geo-targeted to be viewed by residents in 20 Democratic-held congressional districts targeted by the GOP for 2014. […]

The $20,000 ad buy, running on sites including Ikeafans.com and MarthaStewart.com through Friday, will call on Democrats to vote with House Republicans next week on a bill to give hourly private sector workers more flexibility to choose between compensatory time and cash payment for overtime work.

“Tell Rep. Kyrsten Sinema you shouldn’t have to choose between work and family,” reads one ad set to run in Sinema’s suburban Phoenix district. “Will Rep. Collin Peterson stand up for working moms?” reads another that’s slated to run in Peterson’s western Minnesota district. The banner ads link to a petition site calling on lawmakers to support “more freedom for working moms.”

There’s no doubt that many Americans are overworked and in need of policies that better allow them to balance their families and their jobs. But the GOP’s solution is not much of a solution at all. Rather than giving workers the ability to accrue paid leave through regular working hours, it would instead allow workers and employers to trade traditional time-and-a-half pay for overtime hours for compensatory time off.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) currently requires overtime for work over 40 hours, providing a disincentive to push employees to work long hours, which could diminish if they can offer comp time offered instead. The current law is also already difficult to enforce, as many workers claim they are denied time-and-a-half pay, and some employers may force their employees to use comp time instead. On top of all of this, employers may be able to deny requests to use comp time if they can claim it “unduly disrupts the operations of the employer” or that the request didn’t come in “within a reasonable period.”

There are other policies that Republicans could focus on if they are interested in promoting family friendly work solutions: They could support paid family and medical leave (currently only guaranteed as unpaid leave), paid sick days, and protections for workers who request flexible working conditions.

The push for paid sick days in various cities and states has won some crucial victories, the latest of which was in New York City. But “preemption bills,” laws orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that override any efforts to implement paid sick days, are also gaining speed, with the latest passed by Florida’s state Senate on Friday. The bill, which had huge support from Disney World, Darden Restaurants (owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster), and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, would delay local government efforts to adopt paid sick leave policies.

The bill was a response to voters’ efforts in Orange County to pass paid sick leave legislation, the Orlando Sentinel reports:

The measure would render moot a 2014 referendum in Orange County over whether to require that many businesses offer paid sick leave to workers.

More than 50,000 Orange County voters tried to place the earned sick-time measure on the Nov. 6 ballot last year, but the County Commission voted to keep it off. Afterward, a three-judge panel ordered the board to put it on the 2014 ballot. But even if the sick-time ordinance passes then, the bill would preempt Orange from adopting it.

Florida is the latest state to see these preemption bills. They have also sprung up in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Mississippi. The model legislation is part of ALEC’s concerted efforts at the state level to weaken wage and labor standards. Since 2011, 105 bills have been introduced in 31 state legislatures, 67 of which were sponsored by ALEC-affiliated lawmakers, and 11 have been signed into law.

Big business has been fighting paid sick leave in Florida and elsewhere by claiming that it will drive up costs. Yet a study of San Francisco’s policy shows that a majority of businesses saw no impact on profitability or a positive one, and other research has shown such policies to be good for business and job growth.

The middle class has been shrinking since the recession as most of the country’s wealth has traveled upward. But any policy aimed at helping working families that also comes with a hefty price tag has little chance of passing through Congress and becoming law.

That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for trying to bolster the middle class, though. The Center for American Progress’ David Madland and Karla Walter put together a list of six policies that could be enacted now that would have a huge impact on those struggling to get by without costing the government anything. Here are some surprising highlights:

Boost retirement savings: Most Americans don’t have enough saved up for retirement to maintain their standard of living: Nearly 60 percent of middle-class retirees will outlive their savings and about half of all households are at risk of having an insecure retirement.

In response, the government could facilitate the creation of a new hybrid retirement plan that combines a traditional pension and a 401(K), the Secure, Accessible, Flexible, and Efficient (SAFE) Savings Plan, and by opening the federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), the 401(K) plan for federal employees, to the public. Neither would cost any federal money. The SAFE plan is estimated to cost about half as much as a 401(K) while providing the same benefit level and being more secure. The TSP would provide more suitable investment options with lower fees.

Reduce housing costs: One in five homeowners are underwater on their mortgage. Given that many middle-class families rely on home value to build wealthy, this is a big financial burden.

To address this problem, investors can provide principal forgiveness — permanently reduce the outstanding principal balance of an underwater loan. This would not just give struggling homeowners a boost, thus helping the economy by increasing their spending, but it would also help ensure the long-term success of mortgage modifications and stabilize the hardest hit housing markets. In order for investors to avoid taking the full loss, they could offer “shared appreciation,” in which the borrower pledges to share a portion of future appreciation when the home is eventually sold or refinanced.

Ensure paid sick days: Given that there are no federal laws that guarantee paid sick days, nearly 40 percent of middle-class workers and 55 percent of low-income workers don’t have access to them. Workers who go to their jobs sick cost the economy $160 billion a year.

The government could guarantee the ability to accrue job-protected, paid sick days, which would provide greater job security and reduce turnover. The Healthy Families Act is one way to do just that.

For the second time in three years, legislation that would have required businesses in Philadelphia to provide workers with paid sick leave has failed at the hands of Mayor Michael Nutter (D). Nutter vetoed the city council’s paid sick leave proposal last week, and the council Thursday fell one vote short of being able to override the veto.

The failure left city councilman Bill Greenlee, the bill’s chief backer, disappointed but vowing to continue pressing for paid sick leave, Philadelphia’s CBS affiliate reports:

“I’m very disappointed,” said city councilman Bill Greenlee, who tried but failed to get the 12 votes needed to override Mayor Nutter’s veto. “I’m particularly disappointed for the 180,000 workers who could have had a benefit that other cities are providing.”

Philadelphia’s proposal would have given workers one hour of sick leave for each 40 hours they worked, with workers at businesses with between six and 20 employees up to four sick days a year and those at businesses with more than 20 employees up to seven. Nutter vetoed the bill because he said it would have imposed strict costs on small businesses, a claim that while popular among paid sick day opponents has been debunked by numerous studies.

Portland, Oregon became the fourth American city to pass paid sick leave legislation earlier this year, joining San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC and the entire state of Connecticut. The New York City Council reached a deal that should lead to paid sick leave legislation soon. Across the country, 40 percent of private sector workers go without paid sick days, while 80 percent of low-income workers don’t receive any paid sick leave.

Florida’s House of Representatives is pushing forward a bill that would prevent any municipality in the state from adopting its own paid sick leave policy.

The state’s House Majority Leader Steve Precourt (R) says the move is necessary as “momentum for those things” is “building.” And he should know — Precourt represents Orlando, FL, where the county council knocked a paid sick leave initiative off the ballot in the final hours before the deadline. That effort was expected to make it onto the 2014 ballot but, if Precourt’s bill passes first, it will be forever banned.

Efforts to stop paid sick leave legislation are collectively referred to as preemption bills. They are orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, a right-wing group trying to coordinate conservative laws across states. Most infamously, ALEC was responsible for ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws. To put it mildly, Majority Leader Precourt is an active member:

Precourt’s proposal actually goes further than Wisconsin’s bill by incorporating ALEC model legislation that would preempt local living wage requirements as well. (ALEC’s slate of bills promoting a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions for America’s workforce was recently detailed in a report by the National Employment Law Project.)

Precourt attended the 2011 ALEC meeting where legislators were handed complete copies of Wisconsin’s 2011 Senate Bill 23. He reported receiving $487.38 from the corporate-funded “scholarship fund” to attend the 2011 ALEC meeting.[...]

Also at that 2011 ALEC meeting, Precourt and sixteen other Florida legislators attended a “State Night” dinner at Antoine’s Restaurant, where lawmakers sat down with corporate lobbyists for meals that averaged around $120. But Florida legislators were not asked to pay a dime for their expensive night out: their tab was picked up by the corporate-funded ALEC “scholarship fund.”

The paid sick leave initiative in Precourt’s home county had garnered 50,000 signatures before business interests colluded with a seven-person council to slow the effort to a halt.

Big businesses oppose the law because they see it as an unnecessary financial burden — similarly, Precourt criticized paid sick leave as “injecting more and more [economic] uncertainty.” That criticism is unfounded and thoroughly debunked; sick leave is actually good for economic interests, not to mention simply humane.

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I) has promised to veto his city council’s final version of paid sick leave legislation, and is using flawed reasoning to defend his decision to do so.

Bloomberg claims that the legislation, which would provide five days of paid leave for employees of companies bigger than 15 people, would “hurt small businesses and stifle job creation… Supporters claim it will only take effect if the economy is healthy, but there is never a good time to make New York City less competitive. The bill is short-sighted economic policy that will take our city in the wrong direction, and I will veto it.”

It’s a good thing that the council has enough votes to override Bloomberg’s veto, because his reason for opposing the law doesn’t add up. Several studies have demonstrated that paid sick leave has no effect on job creation. In fact, a survey by Public Citizen found that when San Francisco enacted paid sick day legislation (a bill that required far more businesses to comply), it saw a jump in business expansion and employment growth (PDF):

But after implementation of the paid sick-leave law, San Francisco experienced an increase in employment. A study by the Drum Major Institute found that employment in San Francisco increased 3.5 percent between the start of 2006 and the start of 2010. In San Francisco’s five closest neighboring counties, employment fell 3.4 percent during the same period. The same study found that despite predictions to the contrary, the number businesses in San Francisco grew by 1.64 percent between 2006 and 2008 while falling by 0.61 percent in neighboring counties. San Francisco also experienced growth within both large and small businesses, and within the retail and food service industry during this period. (These industries expected to be affected most by the ordinance.)

The impact on businesses themselves was minor. A majority reported that understanding and implementing the ordinance was either “not difficult” or “not too difficult.” Additionally, while only 14 percent of businesses reported a negative impact on profits, more than 70 percent reported that the law had either no impact or a positive impact on their profitability. Productivity, and thus profitability, suffers when workers are forced to come to work when they are sick. One study on the impact of illness on productivity estimates that businesses lose twice as much money to workers who show up at work while sick than when workers stay home due to an illness.

Another study of Connecticut, done by the Center for American Progress, found much the same thing, noting that “full use of this leave would cost an employer only 0.4 percent of their sales revenue on average. Without paid sick days, employees come to work unhealthy, costing employers $160 billion per year due to lower productivity levels.”

There are myriad benefits to paid sick leave outside of workforce productivity; it helps families, is good for morale, and helps people recover from illness. Business efficiency can’t be the only end goal. But if Bloomberg is inspired by business interests alone, then he should still feel compelled to support the law. Three million Americans workers missed a day at their job because of illness in the month of February alone. It’s likely many did so without pay; 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers have no paid sick leave, and are likely to pick coming to work sick over missing a day of wages. That means they’re spreading illness to customers, getting more people sick, and being less efficient overall.

After years of debate, the New York City Council has finally come to an agreement on paid sick leave legislation. It is now poised to pass a bill that would require any company with more than 15 employees to provide five days of paid leave annually, and any company with fewer employees to give 5 days of unpaid leave.

On Thursday, Speaker Christine Quinn (D), considered a favorite for the New York City mayoral race, signaled that she would be willing to work on a compromise. Quinn had previously refused to bring the bill up for a vote, expressing unfounded concerns that paid sick leave would be bad for business and lead to job loss.

Just hours after Quinn said she would participate, the deal was reached:

“Throughout these negotiations I have always said that I was willing to listen and engage all sides,” said Quinn in a statement. “Because of deliberate, thoughtful, and at times hard-nosed negotiations, we now have a piece of legislation that balances the interests of workers, small business owners, and local mom and pop proprietors across this City.”

The legislation is not as strong as paid sick leave laws in Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Portland, Oregon, which all require companies with more than five employees to offer paid sick days. The New York City proposal also will be implemented slowly: it wouldn’t take effect until 2014 and would only apply to companies with more than 20 employees for the first year and a half. Some low-wage workers, like the many restaurant workers in establishments with fewer than 15 people, will still be forced to choose between losing wages or coming into work sick. Quinn’s colleague and mayoral opponent Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio tweeted that he will keep pushing to make the law more inclusive:

The final #paidsickdays bill excludes over 300,000 NYers & took far too long. I intend to keep fighting for these New Yorkers left behind.

— Bill de Blasio (@deBlasioNYC) March 28, 2013

Companies with more than 20 employees would have until April 1, 2014 to comply with the law; companies with between 15 and 20 employees will have until October 1, 2015. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to veto the proposal if it is passed, but the Council likely has enough votes to override his rejection.

Since 2010, New York City’s earned sick leave initiative has been debated but never passed, largely thanks to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s (D) refusal to allow a vote. Now, with her hat firmly in the ring for the 2013 mayoral race, Quinn is hinting that she might wind up putting her weight behind the bill. But it isn’t yet clear what concessions might be made, and it’s possible the policy might be seriously “watered-down,” in order to get her support.

Currently, New York’s paid sick leave proposal would require companies with five or more employees to provide five paid sick days a year; for companies with fewer than five people, sick leave would be required, but unpaid. Here is why it’s important that Quinn support a serious, comprehensive piece of paid sick leave legislation, and not let the bill get watered down:

1. It’s good for business. At first impression, paid sick leave might sound like a loss for employers — paying people not to come to work — but it’s actually good financially for a company. When people come to work sick, they spread illness, getting other employees sick and thus leading to an even bigger loss in producitvity. Sick employees are also less productive and stay sick longer when they don’t take time off.

2. Sick leave doesn’t kill jobs. Quinn has said she supported the paid sick leave initiative, but wanted to wait until the economy had recovered in New York. But it’s a debunked theory that paid sick causes job loss, and there’s some indication that proper regulations can actually spur job growth. After paid sick leave passed in San Francisco, the city actually saw significant job growth.

3. Sick workers are a public health risk. About 40 percent of private sector workers in the US lack paid sick leave, and 80 percent of low-income and food workers are among that group. Food workers and service industry workers who come into work sick are a hazard for public health. Look, for example, at the additional 5 million cases of swine flu that can be attributed to people sick on the job.

4. It’s a family-friendly policy. Single parents are the most likely to have no paid leave, and often have the responsibility of caring for a sick child on their own. Single moms are more likely to live in poverty and have less job stability. For them, sick days can make a huge difference. As Center for American Progress policy analyst Sarah Jane Glynn has previously points out, “A single mother with no paid sick days, working full-time earning $10 an hour (the average wage for a worker without paid sick days), would fall below the poverty line if her child caught a bad case of the flu and she had to miss three days of work without pay.”

It’s likely that Christine Quinn has just woken up to the fact that opposing paid sick leave could be a politically toxic move. But Quinn has also gotten herself the reputation, much like that of her possible predecessor Mayor Mike Bloomberg, of being a supporter of hyper-efficiency in the name of business. If the pro-worker policy of paid sick leave doesn’t appeal to her on its humanitarain grounds, then she should at least support it for the good of her city’s businesses.

Marking the 20th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act in Boston yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for federal legislation that would allow workers to earn paid sick leave each year. The FMLA allows workers unpaid leave to care for family members or newborn children, but Pelosi said she wanted legislation that would require workers to earn up to seven paid sick days each year, the Associated Press reports:

Pelosi said federal laws should guarantee that workers can earn paid time off.

“It’s not just about women, it’s about families,” Pelosi said Monday. “Many men take advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act.”

Three million Americans missed work because of illness in February, and many of them likely did so without leave. 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers do not receive paid sick days, increasing the spread of costly illnesses and driving down productivity in a way that hurts both businesses and the overall economy. Nearly 80 percent of America’s food workers receive no paid sick leave.

Massachusetts state lawmakers are pushing a proposal to give workers one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked. Passing paid sick leave into law would make it just the second state to require paid sick days. Portland joined Seattle, Washington DC, and San Francisco as the fourth American city to require paid sick leave earlier this month. Philadelphia also approved a paid sick leave provision this month, though it is likely to veto it for a second time.

The push for federal paid sick leave legislation began in 2004, and the Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers to earn seven sick days a year, has been regularly re-introduced since then. It has not advanced, however, as opponents of paid sick leave continue to use misleading studies to claim that it will hurt American businesses.