Under the federal Fair Labor Standard Act, employees are entitled to be paid time and a half their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Private employees cannot elect, nor can private employers offer, “comp time” in lieu of overtime pay. Private employers can offer (or may be able to require) time off within a single workweek to offset longer-than-normal hours or to prevent an employee from exceeding the 40-hour threshold in a single workweek, but private employers cannot not offer true comp time to employees to offset overtime. Unlike the private sector, under some circumstances, public sector employees can elect “comp time” in lieu of overtime pay. On May 2, in a vote along party lines, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend to private employers the ability to offer employees the option to elect comp time in lieu of overtime, something that has been in place for a number of years for public employers. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the White House both support the bill, but the bill may face a filibuster by Democrats in the Senate. Here are links to an article from SHRM and an article from CNN on the bill and the House action.
