This bill establishes a five-year trial program allowing private sector employees to receive paid time off instead of cash for overtime hours worked, subject to specific agreement conditions.
Mary Miller
Representative
IL-15
The Working Families Flexibility Act of 2025 establishes a five-year trial program allowing private sector employees to receive paid time off instead of cash for overtime hours worked, subject to specific agreements. This program includes rules for accrual, payout, and employee choice, while prohibiting employer coercion. The bill also mandates GAO reporting on the program's usage and establishes new penalties for violations of the compensatory time rules.
Working Families Flexibility Act Proposes 'Comp Time' Instead of Overtime Pay: 5-Year Trial for Private Sector Workers.
The Working Families Flexibility Act of 2025 aims to change the decades-old rule that overtime must be paid in cash. Under this proposal, private-sector employers could offer employees 1.5 hours of paid time off (compensatory time) for every hour of overtime worked, rather than the standard time-and-a-half pay. To qualify, you must have worked at least 1,000 hours for your employer in the last year. This isn't a permanent shift yet; the bill sets up a five-year trial period to see if trading cash for clock-out time actually helps or hurts the American workforce.
Trading the Paycheck for the Calendar
For a lot of us, time is the one thing we can't buy. If you're a parent trying to catch a soccer game or a caregiver who needs an afternoon off, banking 160 hours of 'comp time' (the bill's maximum cap) might sound like a dream. However, the bill is very specific: this has to be a choice. For union workers, it must be part of the collective bargaining agreement. If you aren't in a union, you have to sign a written agreement before the overtime is even worked. You can change your mind at any time and ask for the cash instead, and the boss has 30 days to pay up. If you leave your job—or get fired—the employer is legally required to pay out every unused hour at your highest rate of pay.
The 'Undue Disruption' Catch
Here is where the fine print matters for your daily life. While you earn the time, you can’t always use it exactly when you want. Section 2 of the bill says an employer must let you use your banked time within a 'reasonable period,' provided it doesn't 'unduly disrupt' the business. This is a bit of a gray area. For a retail worker during the holiday rush or a construction crew on a deadline, a manager might argue that taking a week off 'disrupts' operations, effectively locking your time away when you need it most. Because the bill doesn't strictly define what 'unduly disrupt' means, it leaves a lot of power in the hands of the person signing the schedules.
Protection or Pressure?
The bill explicitly forbids employers from 'intimidating, threatening, or coercing' anyone into taking time off instead of cash. If a boss breaks these rules, they could be on the hook for double the amount of wages owed as 'liquidated damages' (Section 3). But in the real world, pressure isn't always a shouted threat; it’s often a subtle hint that the 'team player' takes the comp time while the person asking for cash gets fewer overtime shifts in the future. To keep tabs on this, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will have to track complaints and enforcement actions for five years to see if the flexibility is truly voluntary or if it’s just a way for companies to keep more cash in their pockets.