Holiday Pay Act
Sponsored By: Senator Gallego, Ruben [D-AZ]
Introduced
Summary
Requires at least 1.5 times pay for work on federal public holidays. This bill would add a new Section 8 to the Fair Labor Standards Act to require covered employees to receive at least 1.5 times their regular rate for work on legal public holidays listed in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a).
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- Workers: Holiday work would earn a separate premium that is not creditable toward overtime, keeping extra pay for those hours.
- Employers: Covered employers would need to pay the holiday premium and update payroll and timekeeping to reflect the new pay and overtime exclusion.
- Scope: The rule applies to employees engaged in commerce, in producing goods for commerce, or employed by enterprises that do, using the federal list of legal public holidays.
- Enforcement: Remedies and statutes of limitations are updated so unpaid legal public holiday pay is treated like unpaid overtime for recovery.
- State and local law: State or local laws that require higher holiday rates would still apply and cannot be overridden.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Higher pay for holiday work
If enacted, employers would have to pay covered employees at least 1.5 times their regular rate for each hour worked on a legal public holiday. "Legal public holiday" would mean the federal holidays listed in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a). The regular rate used to compute the 1.5x pay would follow the FLSA rule for the regular rate (section 7(e)). This would apply only to employees covered by the FLSA commerce and enterprise rules.
Holiday pay enforcement and technical fixes
If enacted, unpaid holiday pay would be treated like unpaid wages. You would be able to use the same civil remedies, penalties, and the Portal-to-Portal statute of limitations to recover unpaid holiday pay. The bill would also say employers could not count the holiday premium toward a specific overtime credit under current law. It would add the new holiday-pay rule into existing exemption and enforcement cross-references and remove an older statutory section (section 10) as a technical change.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Gallego, Ruben [D-AZ]
AZ • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov