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Bill Owens on Jobs
Democratic Representative (NY-23)
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Helped create Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment Corporation
Bill Owens is a leader on job creation in Upstate New York who helped bring over 2,000 jobs to the region. When the Plattsburgh Air Force Base closed, he helped create the Plattsburgh Airbase Redevelopment
Corporation to ensure the land was used to create jobs, and currently there are more than 500 jobs based there as a result of his leadership. Bill also fought tirelessly to help recruit businesses from Canada to Upstate New York.
Source: 2010 House campaign website, billowensforcongress.com
, Nov 3, 2009
Voted NO on allowing compensatory time off for working overtime.
Congressional Summary:- Amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to authorize private employers to provide compensatory time off to private employees at a rate of 1 1/2 hours per hour of employment for which overtime compensation is required.
- Authorizes an employer to provide compensatory time only if it is in accordance with an applicable collective bargaining agreement.
- Prohibits an employee from accruing more than 160 hours of compensatory time.
- Requires an employee's employer to provide monetary compensation for any unused compensatory time off accrued during the preceding year.
- Requires an employer to give employees 30-day notice before discontinuing compensatory time off.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
Rep. COURTNEY: This is the fifth time that the majority party has introduced [this bill since] 1997; and each time, the huge flaws in this legislation have resulted in its complete collapse.
And once again, it doesn't deserve that support. Despite the representations made in its title--that it promotes workers' flexibility, that it gives workers choice--a closer examination of the bill shows the opposite is true. The better way to describe this bill is the More Work, Pay Less bill. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act created a bright line to protect people's right to a 40-hour work week, and make sure that that next hour after 40 hours is paid for with the time-and-a-half of wages. That created the weekend in America. That created the time off that middle class families have taken for granted for decades.
What this bill does is it blurs that line; it creates total chaos in terms of trying to come up with a system to set up ground rules with a case-by-case written contract, and then leaves it to the enforcement of State Labor Departments Wage and Hours Divisions, which are totally incapable of going into the tens of thousands of workplaces all across America.
Reference: Working Families Flexibility Act;
Bill H.R.1406
; vote number 13-HV137
on Apr 9, 2013
Form unions by card-check instead of secret ballot.
Owens signed H.R.1409&S.560
Amends the National Labor Relations Act to require the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify a bargaining representative without directing an election if a majority of the bargaining unit employees have authorized designation of the representative (card-check) and there is no other individual or labor organization currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit.
Requires that priority be given to any charge that, while employees were seeking representation by a labor organization, an employer:- discharged or otherwise discriminated against an employee to encourage or discourage membership in the labor organization;
- threatened to discharge or to otherwise discriminate against an employee in order to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of guaranteed self-organization or collective bardaining rights; or
- engaged in any unfair labor practice that significantly interferes with, restrains, or coerces employees in the exercise of such guaranteed rights.
Source: Employee Free Choice Act 09-HR1409 on Mar 10, 2009
Member of House Committee on Agriculture.
Owens is a member of the House Committee on Agriculture
The House Committee on Agriculture has general jurisdiction over federal agriculture policy and oversight of some federal agencies, and it can recommend funding appropriations for various governmental agencies, programs, and activities, as defined by House rules. The Committee was established in 1820; in 1880 forestry was added to its jurisdiction. Its jurisdiction now includes:
- Adulteration of seeds, insect pests, and protection of birds and animals in forest reserves.
- Agriculture generally.
- Agricultural and industrial chemistry.
- Agricultural colleges and experiment stations.
- Agricultural economics and research.
- Agricultural education extension services.
- Agricultural production and marketing and stabilization of prices of agricultural products, and commodities (not including distribution outside of the United States).
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Animal industry and diseases of animals.
- Commodity exchanges.
- Crop insurance and soil conservation.
- Dairy industry.
- Entomology and plant quarantine.
- Extension of farm credit and farm security.
- Inspection of livestock, poultry, meat products, and seafood and seafood products.
- Forestry in general, and forest reserves other than those created from the public domain.
- Human nutrition and home economics.
- Plant industry, soils, and agricultural engineering.
- Rural electrification.
- Rural development.
- Water conservation related to activities of the Department of Agriculture.
Source: U.S. House of Representatives website, www.house.gov 11-HC-Ag on Feb 3, 2011
Page last updated: Jan 19, 2017