Skip to content
CIVIC HERALD
HR 6818 · 119th Congress · HouseIn committee

Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights Act

In plain language: This bill extends protections and benefits to part-time and temporary workers at businesses and government workplaces with more than 15 employees. It requires employers to provide these workers with equal hourly pay rates, promotion opportunities, and proportional time-off benefits compared to full-time coworkers doing similar jobs. Employers must also offer available shifts to qualified current employees before hiring new staff or outside contractors. In addition, it reduces the waiting period for workers to qualify for job-protected family and medical leave from one year down to 90 days.

Provisional: our plain-language summary, pending review.

Provisionalunreviewed: impact, issue tags, provisions, stakeholders, summary
People affected—Not determinable from the text provided; applies broadly to part-time, temporary, and full-time workers at covered private employers (>15 employees), state entities, and federal agencies.
Fiscal magnitude—no CBO estimate published
Reach78provisional · pending reviewrigor: heuristic llm
Your matchSign in →See how this matches your values.

Issues

What this bill touches.

Childcare & leave+50Workplace standards+65

The sign shows the bill's direction on each issue (+ toward, − away); the number is its magnitude. Color never encodes good or bad, and never party.

Who it affects

Who it helps · who it burdens.

Who it helps

  • Part-time and short-term employeesGain the right to equal pay rates, pro-rata benefit accrual, and promotion opportunities compared to full-time peers, as well as the right to be offered available work hours before an employer hires outside staff or contractors.provisional
  • Short-tenured and newer employeesGain eligibility for job-protected Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave after 90 days of employment rather than 12 months and 1,250 hours of work.provisional

Who it burdens

  • Covered private and public employers (more than 15 employees)Prohibited from offering lower pay or benefits to part-time staff, required to collect and track employee work-hour availability statements, obligated to offer open hours to existing staff before hiring new workers or contractors, required to maintain 3-year compliance records, and subject to civil penalties and lawsuits for violations.provisional
  • Federal workplace regulatory agencies (DOL, OPM, OCWR, GAO)Must draft and issue implementing regulations within 180 days of enactment, and the Department of Labor must investigate complaints, enforce compliance, and assess civil monetary penalties.provisional

Who opposes it

  • Temporary staffing agencies, subcontractors, and external job applicantsDirectly subordinated in hiring and contract opportunities because covered employers must offer available shifts to existing qualified employees before bringing in external applicants, temp agency workers, or contractors.provisional

Dollar-level funding (FEC sector totals) is coming in a later phase.

What it does

The provisions, in plain language.

  1. Expands Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) eligibility across private, federal, congressional, and executive branch workers by lowering the requirement from 12 months and 1,250 hours of work to at least 90 days of employment, starting one year after enactment.

    Sec. 101provisional

  2. Prohibits employers with more than 15 employees from providing lower pay rates, fewer promotion opportunities, reduced benefit accruals, or worse working terms to part-time or short-term employees compared to full-time staff performing substantially equal work.

    Sec. 202provisional

  3. Requires employers upon hiring to obtain a written statement of an employee's desired weekly work hours and availability, and inform the worker of their right to update that statement in writing at any time.

    Sec. 203(a)provisional

  4. Requires employers to schedule qualified existing employees for their requested hours before hiring new employees, temporary agency staff, or subcontractors, unless doing so would trigger overtime pay.

    Sec. 203(b)provisional

  5. Requires employers who hire new staff or contractors instead of assigning available hours to existing qualified workers to compensate those existing workers for the hours worked by the new hires.

    Sec. 203(c)provisional

  6. Prohibits employers from interfering with employee rights under the Act or retaliating against workers who request hours, report violations, or participate in proceedings.

    Sec. 204provisional

  7. Allows employees to sue employers in federal or state court within two years (or three years for willful violations) to recover lost wages, benefits, interest, liquidated damages, attorney's fees, and equitable relief such as reinstatement.

    Sec. 205(b), (d)provisional

  8. Authorizes the Department of Labor to investigate complaints, assess inflation-adjusted civil penalties up to $5,000 for willful violations, and file lawsuits to recover damages and job relief on behalf of affected workers.

    Sec. 205(c)provisional

How your members of Congress line up

Loading your members of Congress…

Timeline

How it moved.

  1. Dec 17, 2025Referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committees on House Administration, Oversight and Government Reform, and the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
  2. Dec 17, 2025Introduced in House
  3. Dec 17, 2025Introduced in House

The original text

Read it for yourself.

Read the original text →

Sources & provenance

Congress.govrefreshed 17 days ago

Checking your session…