GOP Rakes Rep. Peters Over ‘Silence’ on Working Families Flexibility Act

Rep. Scott Peters won a bruising battle with GOP incumbent Brian Bilbray in the 52nd District six months ago. But the Democrat whose district includes Coronado isn’t getting a breather before the 2014 elections.

On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee said it launched a digital ad campaign that targets Peters among “20 vulnerable Democrats.”

The NRCC attacks Peters and others for what it calls “their continued silence on ... the Working Families Flexibility Act, which allows for private sector employees to have paid time off … a crucial issue for women and working families.”

Introduced April 9 by GOP Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama, the bill has 166 co-sponsors, including fellow Republicans Duncan D. Hunter and Darrell Issa, who represent East County and North County districts.

The bill would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to “provide compensatory time for employees in the private sector.”

In a news release, NRCC Communications Director Andrea Bozek said: “Most mothers in America are part of our country’s workforce, and House Democrats are forcing them to choose between work and family.

“It’s time for these out-of-touch Democrats to stand up for the thousands of working families in their districts.”

But a San Diego-based spokeswoman for Peters called the Working Families Flexibility Act (HR 1406) a “smoke-and-mirrors bill that offers neither the flexibility nor the support that working families need.”

MaryAnne Pintar, district director for Peters, said Monday the bill would cut overtime payments without any guarantees that workers will have the time away from work they need to care for loved ones or themselves.

“If this bill really helped working moms, it wouldn’t be opposed by leading women and working family advocates from across the nation,” Pintar said.

She said Peters co-sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act earlier this month and urged its support in a speech on the House floor.

“Scott Peters is a proven champion for all women,” Pintar said. “Working women are smart and won’t be fooled by the NRCC’s ridiculous attack.”

Pintar said the GOP bill fails to promote family friendly or flexible workplaces.

“Instead, it would erode hourly workers’ ability to make ends meet, plan for family time and have predictability, stability and true flexibility at work,” she said via email.

“Real family friendly policies offer both the pay and the time that workers and their families need.”

Alleigh Marré, regional press secretary for the NRCC, couldn’t say how much the ad campaign would cost.

“It can vary with these types of ads because the cost depends largely on the number of clicks,” she told Patch via email. “But I can tell you we will be running them through the end of the week.”

Where will the ads appear?

“We are targeting women and selected sites with high female web traffic,” Marré said.

Although this is the first GOP campaign targeting Peters on this particular bill, it’s “the third or fourth time” he has been the subject of negative ads in the wake of the November election, spokeswoman Pintar said.

“They want the seat back,” she said of the Republicans.

Pintar said groups opposing HR 1406 include 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women, the American Association of University Women Center for Law and Social Policy, the Family Values@Work Consortium, the Labor Project for Working Families and the National Partnership for Women & Families.

In a mid-April blog post on Huffington Post, a senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research assailed the measure as undermining the 40-hour workweek.

Eileen Appelbaum, the economist, wrote: “The bill rehashes legislation Republicans passed in the House in 1997, some 16 years ago, and that they introduced again in most subsequent Congresses. Its major effect would be to hamstring workers—likely increasing overtime hours for those who don’t want them and cutting pay for those who do.”

Further, she wrote:

In principle a worker’s agreement to receive comp time instead of overtime pay is supposed to be voluntary. But anyone who has worked at a $10 an hour job understands what it is to get an offer from your employer that you can't refuse.

Under the provisions of the bill, employers are not supposed to threaten, intimidate or coerce employees into agreeing to comp time in lieu of wages. But employers don’t need to resort to such tactics. Everyone understands that in this economy, with unemployment still at recession levels, the employer holds all the cards. Workers who refuse to go along with an employer’s request for comp time instead of wages know that their commitment to their employer will be questioned.

The ad campaign is being unveiled now, said the NRCC, because a vote on the measure is scheduled next week.

The GOP ads, said the NRCC, will link to a “landing page with a petition encouraging the user to sign up and demand their representative provide more freedom for working mothers [and] will run in local districts across the country to put pressure on Democrats to support this commonsense legislation.”