[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


      IN OPPOSITION TO THE LABOR-HHS-EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Engel] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about the proposed cuts in 
the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill because in the 7 years I 
have been fortunate enough to serve in Congress, this bill is truly the 
worst bill I have ever seen. This bill is nothing less than a frontal 
assault on the working men and women of this country. The cuts will 
only serve to decrease productivity, increase costs and cost lives.
  I am a member of what used to be called the Education and Labor 
Committee, which is now called the Economic and Educational 
Opportunities Committee. And the minute the new Republican majority 
took control, they changed the name of the Committee. They purged the 
word labor out of the Committee and purged the word labor out of all 
the subcommittees. That, to me, sums it all up. They want to just purge 
labor, purge labor unions and purge the working men and women of this 
country.
  The cuts in OSHA in this bill, and OSHA takes care of the health and 
safety of American workers, they slash OSHA enforcement programs by 33 
percent, a third. This would decimate the agency's enforcement program, 
leaving millions of working Americans with no where to turn for safety 
and health protections. With 17 workers dying on the job each day, 
these shortsighted cuts will increase this carnage sharply.
  OSHA laws did not just happen overnight. They came in gradually. And 
we have now had OSHA protection for 50 or 60 years. And we have seen 
that as long as we have had the OSHA protection, American workers, less 
and less American workers have been injured, maimed or killed on the 
job so the OSHA laws are working. Why would we want to turn the clock 
back to before the time there were these protections? Why would we want 
to endanger the health and safety and welfare of America's workers?
  In this bill, the National Labor Relations Board is also cut by 30 
percent. Currently the National Labor Relations Board has the power to 
prevent and fix unfair labor practices committed by employers and 
safeguard employees' rights to organize. The cuts will result in 
severely weakened workers' rights to fair and decent conditions on the 
job.
  Now, as rationale in all the hearings we have held in the committee, 
people who want to eliminate OSHA and want to eliminate the NLRB say, 
you know, these impose very big hardships on employees and most 
employers are good. I agree, most employers are good and they are 
responsible. Those are not the employers that we are worried about. To 
those employers who do what is right and do what they are supposed to 
be doing and protect the health and safety of their workers, OSHA ought 
not to affect them. It is those few employers who do not care about the 
health and safety of their workers which is the reason why OSHA laws 
were put into effect in the first place.
  So now we are going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead 
of trying to fix what is broken, we want to gut the whole program and 
throw the baby out with the bathwater and leave American workers 
exposed.
  To me worker safety is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. 
It is an American issue. I do not know why my Republican friends want 
to gut the program.
  Now, in this bill, also there is a 34-percent cut planned for the 
dislocated workers program. That means that 140,000 fewer workers will 
be helped finding new jobs, workers who need help in getting the skills 
for jobs in our changing economy due to increased corporate and defense 
downsizing. We talk about welfare reform. We want to keep people off 
the welfare rolls. We want to get people off the welfare rolls. How do 
you do that, by cutting the dislocated workers program which helps 
people get jobs, train jobs and find jobs?
  It makes no sense whatsoever. So we must stop punishing the workers 
of this country in order to fund initiatives like tax cuts for the 
wealthy. The American workers deserve better from us.
  My father was an iron worker. I remember walking the picket lines 
with him during a strike when I was a boy. Workers do not want to 
strike. They do not want to lose pay. They do a strike only as a last 
resort. The attitude that we see in some quarters in this new Congress, 
making workers a pariah, is just unbelievable. Davis-Bacon reform, 
Davis-Bacon protects prevailing wages so people in my area of the 
country, New York City, where there is a very, very high cost of living 
can get a decent wage. We do not want to depress people's wages and 
have cheap labor coming in from elsewhere, but that is exactly what 
happens if Davis-Bacon is repealed, and the Republicans are again 
assaulting Davis-Bacon. Some of us believe that $4.25 is not enough for 
anybody to live. That is the minimum wage. We think it should be 
raised. Our Republican friends do not want to raise the minimum wage; 
they want to eliminate the minimum wage.
  This is backsliding. This is not what ought to be done. That is only 
the labor part of this bill. What we see later on in education is even 
worse.
  I urge my colleagues to look at this legislation, to vote against it. 
We hear the votes still are not there. We ought to defeat this bill, if 
it comes up this week, and hopefully reason will prevail.


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