Without question, one of the most important "workplace" changes that has happened in my lifetime, and the lifetimes of many of you who are reading this, is the increase in the number of women, especially mothers, who work outside the home. For example, between 1948 and 1995, the percentage of women who work outside the home almost doubled, from 33 percent to 59 percent. During the same time period, the percentage of women with young children in the workforce increased almost five-fold. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that today 70 percent of women with children at home are employed, and 62 percent of two-parent families with children now have both parents working outside the home.

With this change in our society and in our workplaces has come the increased pressure that many working parents feel in trying to balance the needs and demands of their family and their work. A 1994 report by the United States Department of Labor on women in the workforce found that the No. 1 concern for most working women with children under the age of 18 is the difficulty of balancing work and family responsibilities.

While it is never easy to manage the needs and demands of work and family, many places of employment do try to accommodate workers' sometimes competing priorities. As a business owner and employer myself, I know how important it is both to employees and to a productive business to help employees when emergencies and family and personal needs arise. Often that involves allowing flexibility in scheduling -- where that is possible -- to accommodate the demands of both work and family. In fact, the importance of flexibility in hours and scheduling to help working mothers deal with work and family needs was reflected in a recent survey. It showed that for nearly three-fourths of employed mothers, a flexible work schedule would be very important if they were searching for a new position.

While the obstacles to helping workers cope with the demands of work and family are not always in the law, in some cases local, state, or federal laws - meant to protect workers - actually end up restricting their flexibility. One such provision of law is the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which restricts many employees from being able to work for and receive "comp time" in exchange for working extra hours during another work week. Comp time simply refers to an arrangement in which an employee works extra hours in one work week, "banks" the extra time, and uses it (and is paid for it) at a later date when he or she needs or wants to use if for any number of personal or family reasons.

So Congress is responding to the need for flexibility by amending the law that prohibits employees from receiving comp time. The House of Representatives has already passed "The Working Families Flexibility Act" and the Senate is now considering similar legislation. The Working Families Flexibility Act amends the federal law to remove the current prohibition on comp time. It does not require that an employee take comp time; if he or she wants to continue to receive overtime pay, the right to do so is protected. But if the employer and employee agree, then an employee can bank his or her overtime, at a rate of one-and-one-half hours for each hour of overtime, and may use that comp time as paid time off from work at a later time.

That later time might be when there is an important event in a child's life - a kindergarten graduation or an athletic event. Or it might be to accompany a child, parent or friend for medical treatment, for which the employee does not want to take unpaid family and medical leave. Or it might be simply to use some time for personal interests without suffering a loss of income.

Comp time allows a whole new means of giving workers greater flexibility without penalizing employers or employees. I think that is why individual workers have been so ready and eager to express their support for comp time. We in Congress are used to hearing from organized interest groups on various legislation, but the support for comp time has come not from organized groups but from individual workers at their own initiative.

Individuals like Linda Smith of Miami, Fla., who told us about several possible ways she could use comp time, and she also sees it as fitting well with her workplace and work schedule:

"With the implementation of the banked comp time program, I could use my overtime hours to create time for pregnancy leave for a second child, furthering my education, taking care of a debilitated parent, or, closest to my heart, creating special days with my daughter ... From my perspective, a few extra dollars in my paycheck wouldn't be a great inducement to work overtime but comp time would. There are always tasks that need to be performed, but that are constantly set aside because they cannot be tended during the normal work day. With this program, an employee could offer to work overtime to complete these tasks and use the hours worked to take time off at a later date. Also, as in most businesses, the level of work fluctuates throughout the year. With this program, employees could prepare for the changes in scheduling through busy and slow times."

Given the need for more scheduling flexibility and the overwhelming desire of employees to have this option, a logical question would be, why has federal law prohibited it? Part of the answer is historical. The Fair Labor Standards Act, which prohibits comp time, was passed in 1938 when the workforce and workplace were obviously much different. However, the provisions of the same law that apply to public sector employment were amended in 1985 and now they do allow for the option of comp time in payment for overtime hours. But even in 1997, our efforts to modernize the law to allow comp time for all employees have run into strong opposition from some groups who believe that any change might be abused by some employers. We have included numerous protections for employees to ensure that comp time is voluntary. We believe that including such legal protections against abuse is far better than simply denying the option of comp time to all private sector employees, as the law currently does.

So in one way the debate over comp time focuses on a simple change in law that seems long overdue. At the same time on a larger level, it touches on important issues in our lives. That connection could not be expressed better than it was done by Mr. Peter Faust, of Clear Lake, Iowa, another individual who came to Congress and asked us to pass the comp time legislation:

"There are a lot of ways to make money in this country and lots of ways to spend it, but there's only one way to spend time with yourself, family or friends, and that's to have the time to spend. In this country of choice, can the working families have a choice? Some already do. Federal employees have had the choice to save comp time since 1978. State and local employees can save it too. Does the government value the private working families in this country enough to give us the same choice? When I look back on my life, my regret will be, and already is, that on occasions when I needed to be there for my family, or they asked me to be a part of their life, I couldn't be there because I either didn't have the time saved up or couldn't afford the time off without pay."

Mr. Faust closed his testimony with a simple request, "Pass this bill into law." We have every intention of making his wish into a reality.

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