Newspeak Extraordinaire: The Working Families Flexibility Act
Work more, get paid less, and think this equals “earning power”
Newspeak is the fictional language in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by George Orwell. It is a controlled language created by the totalitarian state Oceania as a tool to limit freedom of thought, and concepts that pose a threat to the regime such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, and peace.
Orwell’s “Newspeak” deliberately transformed the meanings of words. It was science fiction then but now, we are so steeped in it’s tentacles we can’t recognize it.
“Working Americans need more time to be able to take care of family responsibilities, but right now federal law doesn’t allow the use of compensatory time in the private sector. Our bill changes that, offering workers more flexibility with their time at work and better balance with the demands of family.” — Martha Roby, Republican sponsor of the bill
How convenient — framing the need to work overtime as something that no longer carries monetary compensation. Instead, workers can forego payment and simply spend some extra time with their family. Easy peasy.
The family is continually held up as a model of social and moral fortitude, society’s fail-safe when chaos reigns. In reality, the concept of family has served as a springboard for legislation that erodes not only women’s rights, but also families’ earning power. From the passage of “Right to Work” to the recent, “Family Flexibility Act”, language insinuates government has a vested interest in the wellbeing of American families. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Introduced by the Republicans, again this year, The 2017 Working Families Flexibility Act, is a misnomer if ever there was one. It allows employers to offer comp time in lieu of time-and-a-half pay to workers who work more than 40 hours in a week. The problem is that there are no repercussions for employers who fail to honor, either the requested pay out for over-time, or a request for comp time. No additional funding has been allocated to the Department of labor [DOL] for “investigation, enforcement or education, despite adding significant complexities to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).” This means that a worker who is intimidated or coerced under a comp time agreement would not be able to solicit more “cost-effective administrative remedies through the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).”
There is a stunning lack of flexibility built into the act for the employee since the employer is not bound by any legal mandate to guarantee time off, or expeditiously dispense overtime pay.
The Republicans tout the age-old social institution of “family”, as the premier stabilizing force in society. It’s propagandized into legislation and manipulated by master politicians. The strength of the family is paramount to the GOP — they wax poetic about it at every opportunity — but none of them are advocating for legislation that allocates federal funding for child-care, or paid family leave — things that would actually help the working poor. And let’s be realistic. America is now the land of “the working poor.” Millions have graduated to the precariat class — contingent workers with no benefits and no promise of upward mobility. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) cites that 40% of the total employed workforce labor in contingent jobs where protection laws and benefits such as health insurance aren’t available.
Another very significant aspect is being overlooked: we’ve normalized working more than 40 hours a week
The very fact that so many families are struggling, despite working 40 hours a week, points to the obscene inequity in a capitalist system. We’ve normalized the fact that wages are not only stagnant but will remain so and working over 40 hours a week is a necessity — the only way to guarantee survival. It’s being written into legislation this very moment. Clever semantics has completely dismissed the idea that “upward mobility” will no longer be accessible for most people. This is only the beginning of legislation positioned to erode labor protections while masquerading as “flexible.”
The problem? Flexibility will not pay the rent as more and more people fall into poverty and out of the middle class. The 2016 Out of Reach study from The National Low Income Housing Coalition found that, “In no state, metropolitan area, or county, can a full-time worker earning the prevailing minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.”
Flexible is just another word for getting screwed
The fanatical propaganda advocated by Republican elites ensures that the economic hardships of the poor and vulnerable are disguised — rendered inconsequential. Hell, they just don’t work hard enough. Let’s not pay them for overtime work and interpret the loss as an added benefit that will give them more time with their families. It’s one of the most egregious manipulations of labor law I’ve seen yet.
Adding to the subterfuge is the mythic idea of American productivity. The singular American construct of the “rugged individual” and a “pull yourself up by your boot straps” ethos still saturates social political discourse. Apex capitalist predators amassed huge fortunes in the late nineteenth century by securing government subsidies through the Pacific Railway Act of 1862. These “rugged individuals” hired tens of thousands of immigrant laborers to perform backbreaking work under horrible conditions for menial wages. The same story is repeated through each epoch. The “rugged individualist” assumes the mantel of voracious exploiter of human capital and exploitation remains the hallmark of American ingenuity. Exploitation of workers and mistreatment of the vulnerable can always be justified in terms of “progress” for the few. We see it in the GOPs fight to stall minimum wage increases and the current “American Health Care Act” that if passed, will put us just this much closer to realizing Hitler’s vision of “useless eaters.”
“The Working Families Flexibility Act” announces that people can expect t0 work more than 40 hours a week because they won’t have a choice. Plus, they can expect to be penalized for not making enough money to begin with. The Republicans’ answer to extreme economic distress is to legislate a way to avoid paying people for working over time.
The idea of “Flexibility” in this instance personifies Orwell’s concept of “Newspeak.” It’s one more piece of legislation poised to erode labor protections while priming us to except the fact that we will be exploited. In the same way we’ve normalized war and the fact that people who can’t afford health care shouldn’t have it, we’re on the cusp of normalizing a totalitarian state that tells us we should work harder for less money, not get paid appropriately, and watch idly as the super rich oligarchs legislate us straight to Hell.
