[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



[[Page H8076]]


CUT IN LABOR-HHS APPROPRIATIONS IS ASSAULT ON AVERAGE WORKERS AND THEIR 
                                FAMILIES

  (Mr. KLINK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, this week the Labor-HHS appropriations bill 
is going to be taken up by this House. This really, Mr. Speaker, is an 
assault on average American working persons and their families.
  This bill will come to the floor with a cut of 31 percent in 
enforcement for health and safety protections. At a time when 55,000 
American workers a year are killed on the job, when tens of thousands 
more are permanently disabled each year from work-related injuries and 
diseases, we are going to cut the agency that enforces worker safety by 
33 percent.
  There is a cut in the dislocated workers' program of 31 percent. Now 
I happen to come from an area where, in 13 counties in southwestern 
Pennsylvania, about 150,000 workers were dislocated from the 
manufacturing industries. We have to retrain those workers. We are 
trying to cut back on welfare, we are trying to make sure that people 
have work at a time that we are saying if you are dislocated because 
your company shuts down or because something else has happened, that we 
are not going to retrain you for work anymore. We are going to cut that 
back by 31 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, all the worker safety is being cut, including MSHA, 
which has really cut down on the number of mine deaths. In the 25 years 
before MSHA was created in the late 1960's, over 12,000 miners were 
killed. In the 25 years since then it is about 2,000. These are the 
kinds of cuts American workers cannot afford.

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