ENZI CALLS FOR VOTE ON AMENDMENT TO HELP WORKERS ACHIEVE BETTER LIFE-WORK BALANCE

Washington, D.C. –U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of theSenate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today said he supports an “Employee Option Time” amendment that will give private sector employees the right to choose flexible work schedules so they can achieve a better balance between work and family responsibilities, and urged Democrat leaders to allow a vote on the amendment. “The ‘Employee Option Time’ amendment would remove one of the barriers for achieving a work-life balance by allowing workers the same rights to voluntary, flexible time scheduling that federal employees have enjoyed since 1978,” Enzi said. “I hope that we can come together to give fairness to the private sector employees that have been left out in the cold for 28 years. “I urge my Democrat colleagues to allow a vote on this most important amendment.” The “Employee Option Time” amendment to the minimum wage bill offered by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) would give employees the option of “flexing” their schedules over a two-week period by having their hours calculated on a bi-weekly, rather than weekly, basis. “This way, a working mother could work 50 hours in one week and 30 hours in the next week, while her husband worked an opposite schedule and their children enjoyed an extra 10 hours a week with a parent,” Enzi said. Forty-three percent of all U.S. workers already have this right, including all federal employees. The program is enormously popular – 69 percent of the women and 68 percent of the men who have it use it.