WASHINGTON – Congress will soon be voting on a bill that could be very important to your business. The U.S. House of Representatives is planning to vote next week on H.R. 2575, the Save American Workers (SAW) Act, that seeks to redefine a full-time worker under Obamacare as an employee who works 40 hours a week and not 30 hours a week, which is currently the standard.

You can encourage your representative to vote for H.R. 2575, which would return the definition of a full time employee to the traditional 40 hours per week threshold. This change would make it significantly easier to provide flexible schedules and better manage your workforce.

So far more than 475 convenience store industry stakeholders have sent more than 580 letters to 248 U.S. representatives. NACS encourages members to continue sending letters and ask Congress to vote “yes” on H.R. 2575 — it only takes 2 minutes to send a letter. Our grassroots system will identify your legislators based on your business and home address.

NACS supports H.R. 2575 because it amends the health-care law to establish 40 hours per week as the threshold for determining full-time employment. Also, aligning the health-care law’s definition of full-time employee status with current levels would help avoid any unnecessary disruptions to employees' wages and hours, and would provide significant relief to employers.

Furthermore, increasing Obamacare’s 30-hour per week definition for full-time status would:

• Make it easier for employers to provide more hours to all employees, thereby increasing their take-home pay.
• Help employers offer more generous health-care coverage to full-time employees without making premiums prohibitive.
• Help ensure that lower-income employees have access to more affordable health-care coverage options.

U.S. Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the SAW Act in June 2013 with 113 original co-sponsors.