Countywide : Takasugi’s 1st Bill Passes Key Panel

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) is celebrating his first legislative success with the passage by an Assembly committee of a bill he carried that would allow employees of California businesses to bank up to 240 hours of time to compensate for overtime worked.

“I think it gives a little more flexibility,” Takasugi said. “Sometimes (workers) are not able to use (compensation time) in the pay period and if they don’t use it by then it’s lost.”

Assembly Bill 2092 would change the current state law mandating that all compensation time off must be used before an employee’s next pay period, and would allow employees to bank the time for up to a year. If passed, it would go into effect on Jan. 1, said Julia King, Takasugi’s legislative assistant.

The bill passed the Labor and Employment Committee by a 9-0 vote Wednesday, but still faces a test in both houses of the Legislature.

“It’s a good sign, though, just to get a Republican bill out of the labor and employment committee,” King said.

Takasugi carried the bill at the request of the California State Bar Assn., which penned the proposed legislation, King said.

Major corporations that do business in several states are regulated by federal law and are not affected by the bill, which is geared to small and medium-sized California businesses, particularly restaurants, King said.

The legislation has the support of the California Newspaper Publishers Assn., the California Restaurant Assn. and the California Manufacturers Assn.

“It’s actually a good employer and employee bill and that’s very rare, when you find something that they’d both like to do and the law is standing in the way,” King said.