[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 6 (Tuesday, February 1, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        A CONTINGENT WORK FORCE

  Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, the U.S. Senate is often referred to 
as ``the world's greatest deliberative body.'' I think most Senators 
are fairly well informed in the affairs of this country, but sometimes 
we just miss the boat.
  What if I were to tell you that there is a business trend most 
Senators know nothing about that affects 34 million workers, more than 
one-quarter of our work force? What if I told you that this trend 
leaves these workers with substantially lower wages, no health or 
pension benefits, little job security, and few legal protections? And 
what if I told you that this trend has a substantial impact on our 
productivity, our standard of living and our competitiveness as well?
  Mr. President, I think the Members of this body and all Americans 
want to know more about this issue and that is why I am here today.
  The problem I have described is a reality and it involves the growth 
of the contingent work force. It includes millions of part-time and 
temporary workers, leased employees and independent contractors. Let me 
give an example of this phenomenon.
  When President Clinton took office 1 year ago, he told the Nation 
that to improve our competitiveness, we must invest more in our own 
people, in their jobs, in their future. Twelve days later, the Bank of 
America announced plans to fire thousands of full-time bank tellers and 
rehire them as part-time workers. The company's action was not driven 
by economic necessity. In fact, Bank of America had just earned a 
record $1.5 billion in profits for 1992. But the company slashed the 
hours of thousands of loyal workers, cut their paychecks in half, 
terminated their health, pension, and vacation benefits. So much for 
investing in our work force. Thank you, Bank of America.
  But they are not alone. This heartless and cruel action was symbolic 
of a much larger trend. Many U.S. businesses have been hiring part-
time, temporary, and other contingent workers to replace full-time 
workers as part of a restructuring effort aimed at cutting labor and 
health care costs.
  As this chart shows, for example, the temporary health industry has 
grown three times faster than the work force as a whole over the past 
decade. Look at the difference. One has been almost a straight line 
with a slight increase and the other has gone up at a meteoric rate. 
Some predict the contingent workers will outnumber full-time workers by 
the end of this century. But even today, the largest U.S. employer is 
not General Motors, it is not IBM, it is not Ford, it is Manpower, 
Inc., a temporary service firm that employs over half a million people 
each year. Time magazine has concluded that the growth of the 
contingent work force is the most important trend in business today and 
that it is fundamentally changing the relationship between Americans 
and their jobs.
  Many Americans, including many in the Senate and in the House of 
Representatives, are unaware of the effects of this insidious trend. 
But look closely and you will realize that its implications are 
staggering. Companies like Bank of America are cutting much more than 
just wages and benefits. They are cutting job security. They are 
cutting worker training. They are cutting opportunities for 
advancement. In short, they are cutting the heart out of the American 
work force. True, some workers want temporary or part-time assignments 
because of other commitments or because they need a stepping stone to a 
full-time job. But over 1 million full-time workers are losing their 
jobs each year, including tens of thousands of white-collar workers at 
previously stable firms like IBM and Procter & Gamble. And a growing 
number of these workers cannot find new full-time employment.
  This problem is not going away. It is insidious. It continues to 
grow. The fact is most Americans know little about it, and certainly 
Members of Congress have given it little heed.
  Workers find themselves stuck in a holding pattern, typically without 
fair wages, without benefits, without hope for advancement. Take part-
time workers as an example. As the chart shows, part-time workers earn, 
on average, 62 cents for every dollar earned by full-time workers, 
leaving many of their families below the poverty line; 65 percent of 
full-time workers have employer-provided health care benefits as 
compared to only 15 percent of part-time workers. Nearly half of all 
full-time workers get pension benefits from their employers as compared 
to only 10 percent of part-time workers.
  These are not just numbers. These are real people. These are your 
neighbors, your friends, people your children know, with whom they go 
to school, people like Hilary Atkin, of San Francisco, who lost her 
full-time job in 1990 and ever since has been working at temporary 
jobs, living in a trailer and going without health insurance; like 
Sheldon Joseph, a Chicago advertising executive who was laid off and is 
now a temporary worker at a community center; like Abraham Keels, of 
Cincinnati, who had worked for General Electric for 15 years when the 
company laid him off and rehired him as an independent contractor with 
no benefits; like Mary Meyers, who lost her job at IBM after 21 years 
and now she earns $7 an hour at a Wal-Mart store in Fishkill, NY; like 
Mary Rockymore, of Pittsburgh, who works two part-time jobs as a bakery 
clerk and a medical secretary, but she has no health insurance for her 
children notwithstanding her two jobs.
  These workers want full-time jobs. The American economic system 
demands it. The viability of the capitalist system requires it. But 
they cannot find those jobs. They are struggling. They are decent 
people trying to make ends meet. Many of them actually have to turn to 
their Government for help. But the sad truth is that, like corporate 
America, the Federal Government has turned its back on these workers.
  For example, millions of contingent workers find themselves excluded 
from workers' comp when they are injured on the job. In addition, 
according to the General Accounting Office, the majority of States 
exclude independent contractors and part-time workers from their 
unemployment insurance programs, which are funded in part by Congress. 
And millions of working Americans are excluded from the protections of 
Federal employment laws like OSHA, civil rights, the National Labor 
Relations Act, and our minimum wage laws.
  The recently enacted Family and Medical Leave Act, for example, only 
covers workers who are employed 25 or more hours per week for at least 
a year. It is no accident that an increasing number of American workers 
are excluded from these basic protections. American employers are 
devising new strategies to allow them to hire workers without having to 
worry about complying with these laws. American workers fought long and 
hard for these Federal rights, but if this trend continues, we will be 
right back where we were at the beginning of this century before these 
statutes were enacted.
  We are not talking just about the problems of the individuals who are 
laid off from permanent, regular, full-time jobs and become part-time 
workers. We are talking about the viability of the capitalistic system 
as we know it. We are talking about the strength of our economy. We are 
talking about the question of whether or not part-time workers are 
going to have enough money to buy the automobiles that are coming off 
the line or the new appliances that are being manufactured. The Federal 
Government, as a matter of fact, has become part of the problem, as the 
case of James Hudson illustrates. You may remember him. He was written 
up in the Washington Post in a very large story. Hudson died of a heart 
attack last year shortly after completing a 16-hour cleanup shift at 
the Lincoln Memorial after the July 4 Independence Day celebration. He 
had held his temporary job with the Department of the Interior with no 
pension or life insurance benefits for 8 years.
  After a public outcry, Congress acted to help Hudson's wife and seven 
children. But that is just the family of James Hudson. There are many 
other James Hudsons--more than 1,000 at the Department of the Interior 
who have held temporary assignments for over 2 years and more than 
450,000 Federal workers employed in temporary and part-time positions 
overall.
  I hope this short speech that I am making in this Chamber will alert 
those who are the heads of these various Government agencies to take a 
look at the propriety of their continuing to employ people on a part-
time basis and deny people the benefits they would otherwise be 
entitled to as full-time employees.
  If the Federal Government treats workers like disposable assets, how 
can we expect business to act any differently? Ultimately, this trend 
poses a substantial risk to our free enterprise system as a whole. 
Henry Ford recognized that he had to pay his workers enough so they 
could buy his cars, but today, as millions of workers find themselves 
relegated to the contingent work force, their earnings will be slashed 
and their benefits eliminated. These workers will no longer be able to 
purchase the very products they are making, to buy a car or afford a 
mortgage or to contribute much to the economy. It is a simple truth: 
Disposable workers have no disposable income.
  In addition, when companies replace full-time employees with 
disposable workers to cut labor costs, these costs do not simply 
disappear; they are borne by workers and by taxpayers. That is why the 
National Governors Association is worried that if this trend continues, 
we will create a permanent underclass dependent on Government programs. 
The more contingent our work force becomes, the more dependent workers 
will be on Government programs for income assistance, health care, and 
retirement income.
  We need a high wage, high productivity strategy to ensure U.S. 
competitiveness into the next century. But that strategy cannot succeed 
without long-term investment in workers' skills. We must, as Labor 
Secretary Robert Reich has stated, treat our work force as our most 
precious asset. The increasing use of contingent labor is a central 
feature of a low-wage strategy, and it takes us in the opposite 
direction. It devalues workers and breaks the work bonds that have 
traditionally linked workers and employers, a critical component of a 
high-productivity workplace. As British author Charles Handy said, if 
you treat people as casual labor, they will respond casually.
  I intend to sound the alarm on this issue. On February 8, next 
Tuesday, I will be chairing a labor subcommittee conference on the 
contingent work force. Participants will include Secretary Reich, 
corporations such as AT&T, Hewlett Packard, and contingent workers. I 
intend to seek solutions to this problem through voluntary cooperative 
initiatives and enforcement of new laws and new legislation to protect 
contingent workers. In light of this trend we may need to rethink many 
of our traditional assumptions about work, training, pensions, 
unemployment insurance, and a host of other issues.
  Normally our committee structure is such that, when a committee 
meets, only members of the committee, whether it is a subcommittee or 
full committee, are permitted to participate. I invite all of my 
colleagues to participate. It will be a conference in which you are 
entitled to participate and ask questions and act as if you are a full 
member of the committee because I think there is one thing that is 
certain. This insidious trend is tearing at the social fabric of our 
Nation, and I do not think anybody is paying attention.
  Unless we start to pay attention, it will turn this land of 
opportunity into a burial ground for the American dream.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah [Mr. Hatch], 
is recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  Mr. HATCH. Thank you, Mr. President.

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