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But at a hearing on the bill last month, Karen DeLoach, a bookkeeper at a Montgomery, Ala., accounting firm, said she liked the idea of swapping overtime pay for comp time so she could travel with her church on its annual mission trip to Nicaragua. "I would greatly appreciate the option at work to choose between being compensated in dollars or days," she said. The GOP plan is an effort to change the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which requires covered employees to receive time-and-a-half pay for every hour over 40 within a work week. The proposal would allow workers to bank up to 160 hours, or four weeks, of comp time per year that could be used to take time off for any reason. The bill would let an employee decide to cash out comp time at any time, and forbids employers from coercing workers to take comp time instead of cash. Republicans and business groups have tried to pass the plan in some form since the 1990s. Democrats say the bill provides no guarantee that workers would be able to take the time off when they want. The bill gives employers discretion over whether to grant a specific request to use comp time. Opponents also complain that banking leave time essentially gives employers an interest-free loan from workers.
[Associated
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