Although the national spotlight has been trained this week on the Senate and the beginning of the Judiciary Committee's markup of the recently introduced comprehensive immigration overhaul bill, the House on Wednesday passed an employment-related bill related to overtime.

The Working Families Flexibility Act (H.R. 1406) passed the House on a vote of 223-204, mostly along party lines. The Republican-sponsored bill would allow private sector employers to offer hourly workers the option of receiving compensatory paid time off instead of time-and-a-half cash wages for overtime worked beyond 40 hours a week.

Republicans say the bill simply offers workers a needed choice between spending more time with their families instead of receiving cash for overtime worked. But Democrats, along with unions and advocacy groups, charged that the measure would undermine the 40-hour work week and give employers too much say in determining workers' schedules, since the employer would approve when the employee could take his or her comp time.

The bill is part of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) "Make Life Work" agenda of legislation designed to appeal to working families, but it also has been introduced several times in previous congresses. Leading up to the vote, House Republicans produced a series of videos and fact sheets on the bill, while Democrats and their allies lined up a coalition of some 160 groups opposed to it. And Democrats had their own video, too.

During floor debate on Wednesday, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House  Education and the Workforce Committee, said the bill was "an opportunity to make life a little easier for working families across the country."

The bill "simply removes an outdated federal policy to deny private sector workers the flexibility they need to better balance family and work," Kline said.

But more than 20 House members, all Democratic women, asked unanimous consent to make statements against the bill. For example, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) called the measure a "wretched Mother's Day gift." The day after the vote, House Democrats released another video of that portion of the debate.

The bill doesn't have much chance of ever becoming law, however, since there's no companion bill in the Senate and given the high degree of Democratic opposition, it's unlikely that it would make it through that chamber.

The House vote did give Democrats the opportunity to raise the profile of other worker-friendly policies such as paid sick leave--which they argue would be a better alternative. And with the New York City Council having approved a sick leave measure this week, advocates are hoping the issue might finally get more national attention.