Federal Firefighter Flexibility and Fairness Act

I 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 4707 To amend section 5542 of title 5, United States Code, to provide that any hours worked by Federal firefighters under a qualified trade-of- time arrangement shall be excluded for purposes of determinations relat- ing to overtime pay. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OCTOBER 16, 2019 Mr. SARBANES (for himself and Mr. WITTMAN) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform A BILL To amend section 5542 of title 5, United States Code, to provide that any hours worked by Federal firefighters under a qualified trade-of-time arrangement shall be ex- cluded for purposes of determinations relating to over- time pay. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Federal Firefighter 4 Flexibility and Fairness Act’’. 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 04:15 Oct 23, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H4707.IH H4707 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 2 •HR 4707 IH SEC. 2. TREATMENT OF HOURS WORKED UNDER A QUALI- 1 FIED TRADE-OF-TIME ARRANGEMENT. 2 Section 5542 of title 5, United States Code, is 3 amended by adding at the end the following: 4 ‘‘(h)(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this 5 section, any hours worked by a firefighter under a quali- 6 fied trade-of-time arrangement shall be disregarded for 7 purposes of any determination relating to eligibility for, 8 or the amount of, any overtime pay under this section. 9 ‘‘(2) For purposes of this subsection— 10 ‘‘(A) the term ‘qualified trade-of-time arrange- 11 ment’ means an arrangement under which 2 fire- 12 fighters who are employed by the same agency 13 agree, solely at their option and with the approval 14 of their employing agency, to substitute for one an- 15 other during scheduled work hours in the perform- 16 ance of work in the same capacity; and 17 ‘‘(B) the term ‘firefighter’ means a firefighter 18 as defined by section 8331(21) or 8401(14).’’. 19 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 04:15 Oct 23, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H4707.IH H4707 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS