U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today denounced President Obama’s latest plan to take over decision-making for American businesses and working families, saying the administration’s proposed expansion of overtime pay eligibility could force small businesses to cut jobs or reduce salaries and could deprive middle class workers of the chance to negotiate flexible work schedules.

On Wednesday, the Labor Department proposed a regulation that will more than double the salary level under which workers would be eligible for overtime pay whenever they work more than 40 hours in any given week. Currently, salaried workers who earn less than $23,660 are automatically entitled to overtime pay. Under Obama’s proposal, salaried workers who earn less than $50,440 would be automatically entitled to overtime pay. The proposal also will force employers to track the hours of salaried employees each week to prove whether they worked more than 40 hours.

“The president continues to circumvent Congress with his repeated executive overreaches, and this latest one on overtime pay will hurt middle class families and small businesses,” Isakson, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. “This proposal will discourage employers from offering flex time or comp time because they now would have to track every hour worked by their salaried employees. The president’s Big Brother approach takes us down the same path of slow growth and high unemployment that we see in many European countries today. I prefer the dynamic free-market system that has worked since America declared its Independence.”

Isakson argued that legislation he co-sponsored in March is a better solution for the types of choices workers are seeking in today’s wired world. That legislation, the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act (S.803), would allow workers to choose to voluntarily arrange “flex-hours” or “comp time” with their employees for overtime work, rather than taking overtime pay, thus allowing them the same flexibility extended to hourly workers in the public sector.

“The Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act will allow hardworking Americans the flexibility that all workers are seeking today as they balance the demands of work and life,” said Isakson. “The private sector should provide workers the ability to enjoy the commonsense flexibility that is already available to federal employees.” 

Currently, the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits private sector employers from offering compensatory time, or “comp time,” to their hourly employees. By contrast, the law allows federal employees to receive comp time or overtime pay. The Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to allow private employers to offer comp time to employees at a rate of one-and-one-half hours for every hour of overtime work. A completely voluntary process, employees could still choose to receive overtime pay as their compensation. Isakson’s bill simply gives private sector employees the same choice between comp time or overtime pay that federal employees already have.

Isakson introduced the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act in March 2016 with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.