Like Cher, Jason Kenney would like to turn back time.

The UCP election platform is basically designed to sweep the last four years of NDP governance off the books and set the clock to before the 2015 election (and in some cases, even farther back than that).

Kenney would eliminate the NDP's carbon tax, pause a massive curriculum review, repeal some privacy protection for youth joining gay-straight alliances at school.

And he plans to push back banked overtime payout rules.

Even Kenney knows he can't roll back the minimum wage raises the NDP instituted during the past four years.  Taking that back just won't fly with voters.  (He is willing to tinker however, by promising a lower minimum wage for youth.)

But he seems to have not foreseen the backlash over messing with overtime.

The platform says the proposed Open for Business Act will "return to allowing banked hours to be paid out at regular pay instead of time-and-a-half."

Alberta, never a very labour friendly jurisdiction in Tory times, had allowed employers to pay out banked overtime at a one to one rate, rather than the one to 1.5 rate required for regular paid overtime.  The NDP revamped the legislation last year to require overtime to be paid out at a rate of at least time and a half, whether in time off or cash, whether in immediate payout or under a banked time arrangement.  That brought Alberta's rules up to the standard in most other provinces.

Kenney has had to clarify and parse the UCP stand to death over the past few days as opponents have cheerfully simplified it down to a promise to reduce overtime pay.

"This does not affect overtime pay.  I repeat — it does not affect or diminish overtime pay," Kenney stressed in Calgary.

Kenney claims hospitality workers wanted the change so there would be no impediment to employers granting overtime during busy times of the year like Christmas, when tips are lucrative.

Is it really likely that restaurant servers went cap in hand to the UCP saying: "Please sir, reduce our overtime pay"?

It's clear that Kenney has been caught out on this plan, saying he never heard any complaints about the old rules, which were in place for 30 years.

"All we are proposing is that we return to exactly the same rules that existed for, as far as I know, decades in Alberta without any, as far as I know, reported abuses."

The proposed legislation changes would actually affect a much broader swath of the workforce than hospitality workers.  Any worker not covered by a contract with overtime provisions could be subject to these provisions.

Opponents are pointing out that employers who institute the one-to-one banked payout rules could hire fewer workers by just pushing their staff to bank overtime to get the job done.

Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan, told journalists, "They would make changes that allow employers to use the banked time system as a mechanism to avoid paying time-and-a-half."

Kenney has scrupulously avoided saying that employers will be happy with the overtime change.  Already under the gun about the effect on provincial revenues of a promised business tax reduction from 12 to eight per cent, he needs to cling to some credibility with working Albertans.

Just admitting the role that employer groups and lobbyist had in formulating this aspect of the Open for Business Act might have made Kenney's defence of the overtime policy a bit less cringe worthy.

The problem with rolling back labour provisions during an election campaign is one of order of magnitude and proximity.  While the UCP and NDP can load their respective cannons with enormous budget, deficit and debt numbers and blast away, the chances of either party hitting their predicted budget target is relatively remote and the numbers are not easy to relate to.

But most working people know to the penny how much they are getting on each paycheque, how much overtime they've worked in the past month, how much time they have banked for extra time with their kids or extra money for savings and day-to-day expenses.

While the UCP is happy to return to an Alberta before the orange crush of 2015, some workers may be thinking twice about what exactly that will mean.

Photo Credit: Edmonton Journal