[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 35 (Tuesday, March 18, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1046-H1047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IN SUPPORT OF HERMAN FOR SECRETARY OF LABOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the nomination 
of Alexis Herman as the Secretary of Labor. Alexis Herman is facing 
considerable difficulties. They have slowed down the process of 
confirming her nomination. If you read the accounts in the press and 
the media, you will find they are rather bizarre.
  Alexis Herman is criticized for being too effective. She is 
criticized for being a great communicator. She is criticized for 
knowing the ways through the political maze. All of these that are 
normally considered virtues, all these characteristics that are 
normally considered virtues have suddenly become barriers to Alexis 
Herman being confirmed as the Secretary of Labor.

                              {time}  1315

  What is going on, Mr. Speaker? I fear that when you compare the 
difficulties faced by Alexis Herman on the one hand and her 
difficulties, leaving the Department of Labor without any leadership 
for all this time, when you compare those difficulties with what is 
being offered in this Congress by the Republican majority, you might 
make a logical case for conspiracy.
  The Republican majority that is holding up the confirmation of Alexis 
Herman, leaving the Department of Labor without leadership, has 
aggressively taken the lead in terms of placing legislation on the 
agenda which will definitely hurt working people.
  The agenda of the Department of Labor is definitely under 
consideration here. We are proposing and will have on the floor of this 
House this week a bill which will change the Fair Labor Standards Act. 
The Fair Labor Standards Act has been in effect since the New Deal, 
Roosevelt, when we had abuses of labor that were abominable. And part 
of the way we curbed those abuses of working people where they were 
forced to work around the clock, on the weekend, and given the same 
hourly wage, one way to curb that, one way to make the employers divide 
up the pot and employ more workers instead of working a few long hours 
with no wages was to implement a Fair Labor Standards Act which says, 
``You cannot work anybody more than 40 hours a week without paying them 
time and a half for their overtime pay. You work 40 hours a week, the 
wage rate must be raised to time and a half.''
  Now we have on the floor a bill which will take that away. The 
Republicans are coming for the overtime of Members. They take away the 
cash payment. They want to say that employers who are now under the 
Fair Labor Standards Act should be taken out from under the Fair Labor 
Standards Act and given the option of giving comp time, time off, to 
workers. Oh, they say, this is going to be a choice that the employees 
will make. If they do not want to take time off, they want cash, they 
will have it. But we have statistics and we have studies which show 
that employers, people who employ people, are already swindling workers 
out of vast amounts of overtime pay.
  One employer study group has admitted that as much as $19 billion was 
swindled away from workers in cash payments last year, so they do not 
really have a choice. Any employer will choose to want to invest his 
cash, he will hold onto the cash and give the employee time off.
  This is going forward, it is on the floor, it will be on the floor 
this week.
  Now in addition to that very anti-working person, anti-the-working-
families out there legislation, we have a

[[Page H1047]]

TEAM Act passed in the Senate. The TEAM Act in essence says that 
employers may organize groups which run counter to the independent 
unions, actually undercut the activities of the independent unions or 
will guarantee that unions will never be organized; they are 
independent.
  In addition to that, I just came from a hearing this morning where an 
attack was being made on organized labor's contributions to political 
campaigns. Organized labor is being singled out, and they are being 
pummeled by the Republican majority because they made contributions in 
large numbers to Democrats. The labor unions are being told you cannot 
do this. They want new regulations on labor unions.
  Labor unions are already the most overregulated institutions in our 
society. The regulations on labor unions, as my colleagues know, do not 
compare with anything else. We do not regulate corporations as much as 
we regulate labor unions, but we are going to impose more regulations 
on them to keep them from making contributions to people they consider 
operating politically in their own interests.
  I have a chart which shows that all of the sectors of the American 
economy are giving large amounts of money to political candidates. The 
chart is from the Center for Political Responsiveness which shows what 
the financial sector gave, the agricultural sector gave, the defense 
industry, the energy industry. All of these are greater than organized 
labor.
  Alexis Herman should be put in place because we need that leadership 
in labor, and let us stop the attack on organized labor.

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