Mother's Day -- Growing up, I was one of the few children I knew whose mother worked full time. There were moments I resented her for not picking me up from school like the other moms but, ultimately, my mother has always been one of my best friends and also my role model. "You must be able to take care of yourself before you can take care of someone else," was her frequent refrain. From her, I learned to value both independence and the freedom of choice.

Curiously, this Mother's Day also finds Washington talking about freedom, this time in the workplace. Tuesday, Senate debate begins on Senator John Ashcroft's (R-Missouri) Family-Friendly Workplace Act (S.4), a bill that would offer employees the option of earning flex-time or comp-time for overtime hours. When government starts talking about regulating my workplace, I always get nervous --"family-friendly" is usually Beltway code for mandates, regulations and red tape. But Ashcroft's bill is different; it would actually expand choice without the burden of mandates.

The key to Ashcroft's bill is to think of it as corrective. As current labor code mandates, per the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay their hourly employees in cash for any time worked over 40 hours. There is simply no room for negotiating alternative arrangements; as the Heritage Foundation's Fellow in Labor Policy Mark Wilson says, "Now the only choice is cash." As a result, many employers who cannot afford overtime pay will not allow their employees to work a minute over 40 hours.

Ashcroft's bill would allow employers the option of offering comp-time or flex-time. First, the difference between the two: comp-time would allow employees previously eligible for overtime pay to trade that pay for one and a half hours of paid time off. Flex-time, on the other hand, is a straight trade, hour for hour, of overtime for paid time off. The distinction is important because only 4.5 percent of women who hold hourly positions are allowed to work overtime at all. Flex-time would be a viable alternative for those employers who could not otherwise afford to let their employees work overtime.

The Family-Friendly Workplace Act, despite its social-engineeringesque title, is not a mandate; in fact, it works to free the market by introducing choice into the workplace. Ashcroft's bill expands the narrow scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act to allow employer and employee to negotiate the best set of options for their own situations. Remember that current law prevents such arrangements; it limits employers to cash or nothing. Comp-time and flex-time would become new bargaining tools for employers who want to make their hourly positions more attractive. It's as simple as competition.

The policy alternative appears to be expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); in effect expanding the burden of mandates on employers. The FMLA was intended as a last resort for employees in crisis who had run through the options of paid time off, and any time taken under the FMLA goes unpaid. The beauty of Ashcroft's alternative is that first, the time off is paid, and second, the employee has the right to make his own decisions about when or why to take time off. The FMLA specifies "legitimate" reasons for being away from work; the Family-Friendly Workplace Act would allow the individual to choose.

This debate is not about government mandates -- it's about choice and freedom. If a parent has to schedule a parent-teacher conference during work hours, the Family-Friendly Workplace Act says fine, as long as you make up the time. Without it, an employee is hamstrung by the current cash-only policy. The opposition to the Ashcroft bill has begun a filibuster (although federal employees already enjoy options like flex-time and comp-time); they are apparently afraid of letting individuals decide what's in their own best interest.

Enough of government's meddling -- the cash-only mandate of the Labor Code, while well-intentioned, backfired by preventing some employers from affording that option. With the shadow of Mother's Day behind us, it is time to move away from mandates and towards freedom and choice for everyone.

-Katherine Post,

Public Policy Fellow