[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 6 (Wednesday, February 4, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H312-H317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE AMERICAN WORKER AT A CROSSROADS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the Majority Leader.


 Congratulations to the Congregation of Graafschap Christian Reformed 
                   Church on their 150th Anniversary

  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, to begin with tonight, I rise today to 
recognize the congregation of the Graafschap Christian Reformed Church 
of Graafschap, Michigan, as they celebrate 150 years of service to God, 
family, and their community.
  On April 4, 1847, 14 pioneers left Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with 
the hope of finding religious freedom and economic opportunity in 
America. They arrived in New York harbor on May 23 and settled on the 
south shore of Macatawa beach in Holland, Michigan, on June 20.
  The settlers soon founded the Graafschap Christian Reformed Church, 
dedicating their first log church in 1848. As Graafschap Christian 
Reformed Church grew in numbers and strengthened her spiritual roots, 
its vision expanded beyond its own congregation and extended into its 
community. In the past 150 years, the church has been a strong 
supporter of Christian education. As a leader in community ministry, 
the congregation has supported and participated in mission projects 
around the world.
  The past and present members of the Graafschap Christian Reformed 
Church have had a profound impact on the Holland, Michigan, area. Now 
with more than 500 members, the church is dedicated to continuing its 
spiritual mission far into the future.
  I would like to extend my thanks to Graafschap Christian Reformed 
Church for 150 years of service and commitment to God and the 
community, and offer my congratulations on the celebration of their 
anniversary. May God continue to bless the congregation and their work 
in the years to come.


                  The American Worker at a Crossroads

  Mr. Speaker, I would like now to move on to another topic, a topic 
that I feel very strongly about and that I have a high degree of 
interest in. The project is called the American Worker at a Crossroads, 
because I think we recognize that the American worker is at the heart 
of our economy. It is not

[[Page H313]]

what Congress does, it is not what the President does, it is not what 
the Federal Reserve does, it is the American worker that is at the 
heart of our economy and determines whether we will have a thriving 
economy and whether we will move forward or whether we will move 
backward.

  What is the purpose of the American Worker at a Crossroads project? 
Very simply, we want to promote the most effective workplace on the 
planet. We want to develop a system of laws and rules and regulations, 
an environment where the American worker has the opportunity to thrive 
and to be successful and to truly develop and contribute with all of 
their skills.
  We want a workplace and a workforce and an economy that provides for 
the American worker when they assume their responsibilities, that when 
they step forward and assume their responsibilities that they will have 
security, that they will have flexibility, and because of the 
opportunity that is provided and because of their taking advantage or 
their taking responsibility for their future, they can have prosperity 
well into the 21st Century.
  The process that we are going through as we take a look at developing 
a strategy is we are stepping back and we are taking a look at where 
the economy was in 1938, the 40s and 50s, but we have picked 1938 as a 
classic year because this is when many of the labor laws were 
originally developed. And we are saying, what was 1938 like and what 
was the environment and what was the economy like in 1938 and how does 
that compare to where we were in 1988 and where we are in 1998 and 
where we expect to be after the year 2000? And as the set of laws and 
rules and regulations that developed out of the 30s and 40s is that the 
kind of framework that is going to allow the American worker to be 
successful in the future?
  We are also taking a look at whether the programs and the activities 
that are currently taking place in the Department of Labor, an agency 
that has a budget of somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 billion per 
year, which makes the Department of Labor bigger than all of the 
expenditures in the State of Michigan, are the expenditures in the 
Department of Labor helping the American worker to achieve their dream 
and their vision, or is it a barrier to the American worker to compete 
in this new environment?
  So, under the Results Act, which says we are going to every agency in 
government, and I have oversight specifically for the Department of 
Labor, we are asking them to meet the Results Act. Where are they 
going? How are they going to get there? And how will the Department 
know whether they got there or not?
  Those are some very basic questions that we should be asking of any 
agency that gets over $30 billion per year.
  Also, as we take a look at the future of the American worker, we are 
going out into America and we are taking a look at the American 
workplace. In the last 2 months we have had 22 roundtables in five 
different cities where management and where workers, where academics, 
where public policy experts, business owners, managers, workers, union 
members, nonunion members, locally elected officials, have all told us 
about what is working and what is not working in the private sector, 
what is working in regards to American labor law and what is not 
working, where we are facilitating and where we are a barrier.
  We have had a great response. We have learned a lot, and I will share 
a little bit of that with you as we go through the special order 
tonight, but it has been fascinating. American workers are being 
successful. They are competing on an international basis; and many of 
them are doing it very, very successfully.
  That is what this project is about. It is about each and every 
American worker. It is about each and every American who wants to work 
and to contribute to this country.
  It is about the single mom. It is about the young father. It is about 
the young couple who are saving for their first house or for the 
middle-aged couple that is facing the task of helping their children go 
through college. It is about the kids who are in college, the skills 
that they are going to need to make sure that they can become 
successful. It is about the young people that are out there that are 
making the decision as to whether they are going to go to college or 
whether they are going to go into a trade or technical school, because 
we need a balance of those occupations filled in this country if we are 
going to be successful.
  This is about the real world. This is not about sitting in Washington 
and reading documents. This is about going to the actual workplaces, 
going to the American worker and going to the different communities 
around this country to find out what is working. This is about trying 
to connect what Washington is doing to what is going on at the 
grassroots level.

                              {time}  2045

  It is about trying to see whether there is a connect or whether there 
is a disconnect between Federal labor policy, Federal labor law and 
what we really need to do to be successful. As we go through this 
process, I think it will lead to a dialogue about change, about how do 
we create a more favorable environment for the American worker that 
recognizes perhaps that the economy of 1998, but more importantly the 
economy of the year 2000 and beyond, is very, very different than the 
economy and the society that we had in 1938 and 1948 when many of these 
laws were first created.
  Let us take a look at 1938. What was 1938 like? Remember, this is the 
era when the Federal Government started to exert a more powerful role 
in to the relationships between employer and employee. You really 
cannot judge whether that was good or bad. That was 60 years ago. But 
let us take a look at 1938 and recognize that many of these laws are 
still on the books and take a look at 1938, take a look at 1998 and 
say, would you, is there still a match or have we changed?
  In 1938, 20 percent, 20 percent of all American workers were 
unemployed. Today the national unemployment rate is in the neighborhood 
of 4 to 5 percent. What kind of workers did we have in 1938? What were 
the American people doing? The employment picture for America in 1938 
reflected that one out of every five, 22 percent of the American 
workers, were agrarian, worked in agriculture, 78 percent were 
nonagrarian.
  Where are we in 1998? Today we have 2.5 percent of the American work 
force involved in agriculture, and 97.5 percent of us work in something 
other than agriculture. What about in manufacturing? Well, man if we 
lost all these jobs in agriculture, they must have moved into 
manufacturing. No. In 1938, 33 percent of the nonagrarian population, 
the nonagrarian work force, 33 percent worked in manufacturing. What is 
it in 1998? It is 15.4 percent. We went from 33 percent of our work 
force in 1938 working in manufacturing to today where it is 15.4 
percent. Where did they go? Retail is up from 15 percent to 18.1 
percent. Services is up from 11.4 percent to 28.8 percent. So we have 
seen a dramatic increase in services.
  Another fast-growing compared to manufacturing or agrarian which went 
down in employees is the size of government. In 1938, 13.1 percent of 
all American workers worked in some level of government. In 1998, it is 
16.3 percent.
  What else is different about 1938 versus 1998? In 1938, the average 
life expectancy for Americans was 59.7 years. Today it is 75.8 years. 
Interestingly enough, 70 percent of the Members of the United States 
Congress were born after 1938. Most of the Members or a good number of 
the Members in this chamber were born after some of the most 
significant labor laws were developed in this country. Those laws are 
still in effect today. In 1938 is when the Fair Labor Standards Act was 
signed.
  Also if you take a look at 1938, there was no television, no computer 
chip, no personal computer, no e-mail, no nylon, no compact disk, no 
Home Depot, no Intel, no Wal-Mart, no Microsoft. For some there was 
also no Bill Gates. Probably also no telemarketing, which probably 
would have been a blessing for all of us.
  The question now becomes do those changes encourage us to take a look 
at labor law and say, does it fit or does it need to change? Since 
American workers are doing different things in different types of 
occupations, do we really need to take a look at whether the labor laws 
that were put in place still match these new industries?

[[Page H314]]

  What is one of the fastest growing sectors in our economy today? It 
is the high tech industry. It is about $866 billion per year. It is 50 
percent higher than the construction sales. How big is it? It is bigger 
than the sale of all food products. It is bigger than the automotive 
industry. The high tech industry is 866 billion; the automotive 
industry is about 433 billion.
  What we need to do, this is what the American worker project is 
about, is we are stepping back, we are taking a look at American labor 
law. We are taking a look at the agencies that have oversight over our 
workers and over the workplace. What we are intending to do as we step 
back and analyze what we have, where we want to go, we are deciding 
that we are going to develop a plan and a strategy to create a playing 
field that is clearly proworker, taking into account what do we need to 
do to provide security and flexibility, recognizing that workers first 
have to step up and assume some responsibility themselves, but provide 
security and flexibility also in a rapidly changing world. How do we 
make sure that employees today, where rather than the expectation being 
you are going to be in one job and you are going to be there for 30 
years and retire from that firm, you may go through four career changes 
in your lifetime, in your professional career?
  It means that we really need to take a look back and say, how do we 
prepare or how do we provide and encourage or create a greater 
opportunity for workers to participate in training, for education to 
make sure their benefits move with them from one job to the next? How 
do we allow them to prepare for anticipated technological changes? How 
do we provide an environment where the American worker can prepare 
himself or herself to compete in a global economy?
  We need to create a proworker agenda because it is the American 
worker that is the driving force in our economy. We have to create an 
environment where the American worker has the opportunity to be 
successful so that as companies choose where they are going to locate 
their plant, whether they are going to locate it in Michigan or whether 
they are going to locate it in California, which is the decisions that 
many times are being made today, but we also know that in a global 
economy, companies are going to be making the decision as to whether 
they locate in Michigan or whether they are going to locate in England 
or whether they are going to locate in China.
  We need to make sure that as organizations go through the process of 
making those decisions that it becomes very difficult for them to come 
anywhere, to go anywhere else but the USA because we will have the 
best-skilled workers. We will have the best infrastructure in place. We 
will have the best learning environment. It is where people will want 
to work. It is where organizations will want their products and 
services produced because we will have the most talented work force. We 
will have labor law in place which allows those workers to be the most 
productive workers on the planet.
  That is what a proworker agenda is about. It is not an agenda that is 
supporting business. It is not an agenda about supporting unions or 
bashing businesses or bashing unions. The focus needs to be on the 
American worker because it is the American worker that each and every 
day gets up and goes to work and works under the rules and regulations 
that we have put in place. And we need to make sure that those rules 
and regulations enable that worker to be the best-trained and the most 
productive worker in the world.

  Let us take a look at some of the other trends that are going on, 
that have implications for the American worker. What kinds of trends do 
we see going on? We know that by the year 2000, the American, the 
population will reach about 270 million people. But we also recognize 
that the annual growth rate of our population continues to decrease. 
Back in the early 1900s, we were growing at roughly 1\1/2\ percent per 
year. By the year 2020, 2030, we will be growing at about 6/10 of a 
percent per year. What this means is that if we want to continue to 
grow and to expand economic opportunity, we are going to have to work 
to make sure that our workers can increase their productivity.
  A second trend that will have implications for the American work 
force is that in 1995, we have about 4, 4.1 workers for every person 
who is over 65. So that means for the people who are between the ages 
of 25 and 64, we have about 4.1 for every person who is over 65. In 35 
years, that ratio will switch. That ratio will move from 4.1 to about 
2.3, meaning that there will roughly be 2.3 workers for every person 
who is over 65.
  Obviously as the number of people in the work force versus the number 
of people who are over 65 creates a number of different challenges. 
There is an inevitable explosion in the cost of entitlements such as 
Social Security. The need for greater participation rate of people over 
65 in the work force, that is a possibility. Do they want to work after 
they are 65? Does American labor, does American tax law encourage 
participation of people over 65 in the work force? Do we provide a 
neutral situation where there is really no tax advantage or 
disadvantage to participating in the work force or not participating in 
the work force? This tells us that perhaps by 2030, we ought to provide 
tax incentives to encourage seniors to participate in the work force.
  Today the situation is much different. I do not know what the answer 
is, but I believe it is a dialogue that we ought to be having in 1998 
rather than in 2025, because the sooner we start discussing this issue, 
the sooner we can start reaching a consensus on how we want to evolve 
tax law and American labor law in a way that will enable us to be 
productive in this country.
  What is another trend that we are aware of? I think this is a 
positive trend. There is going to be a greater diversity in the 
American population. There will be a decrease in the number of white 
non-Hispanics from 76 percent of the population to 68 percent. There 
will be an increase in Orientals from 4 percent to 6 percent of our 
population. The Hispanic population is projected to grow from 9 percent 
to 14 percent. This can be a challenge, or it can be an opportunity. 
But I believe a growing diversity of the Nation's population in the 
work force is likely to create some very interesting opportunities. We 
will bring a greater diversity of skills and backgrounds into this 
country for us to learn and grow from.
  What is another trend that we see? A change in the traditional family 
structure. In 1940, 67 percent of families consisted of a husband who 
worked and a wife who did not. Only 9 percent of families had two 
working spouses. By 1995, the man was the sole earner of only 17 
percent. So from 1940 to 1995, we went from 67 percent to 17 percent. 
Two parents working in the family now is the reality for 43 percent of 
our families.

                              {time}  2100

  In 1970, 11 percent of our families with children under 18 were 
headed by a single parent. By 1996 that number had risen to 27 percent. 
By the year 2005, women are expected to represent 48 percent of the 
work force. More than 70 percent of mothers today are in the work 
force.
  It is not a value judgment about whether those statements are right 
or wrong, good or bad. It is kind of like this is the reality that we 
have in America in 1998 and we need to take a look at what used to be 
nontraditional families or work styles or work patterns in the family 
and does American labor law recognize that kind of reality? Or was it 
set up to support and reflect the reality that most of the time there 
was a parent at home. That is not the case today.
  Do we provide the flexibility, the opportunity for adults to have 
flexibility in their job schedules so that they have a greater degree 
of latitude in making sure that a parent is home with a child, if that 
is what they choose to do, so that parents can adjust their work 
schedules perhaps to a greater degree of flexibility in relationship to 
when their children are at school, when their children are on vacation 
or perhaps when their children have a day off of school? Do parents 
have the kind of flexibility to match their work schedules to their 
children's schedules? Those are some questions that we ought to ask. 
How do we support a family to make different kinds of choices about how 
they will support their family?
  There is a couple of other interesting trends. This relates to how we 
work. I

[[Page H315]]

mean technology is going gang busters. It is unbelievable what 
technology is doing in the workplace. I have been out of the private 
sector for a little over 5 years, and going back and touring different 
plants and going through different facilities it is amazing that even 
in 5 short years how much technology has changed work environments and 
really enhancing the skills and the capabilities of American workers.
  What has happened to the cost of telecommunications? They have 
decreased significantly. What used to cost $9 in 1950, this is a charge 
for a 3-minute call from New York to the United Kingdom, in 1950 that 
3-minute call cost $9. By 1996 we were down in the neighborhood of $3.
  But I think even more interesting than the reduction in the cost of 
telecommunications is the change in processing capability. How many 
transistors can be packed onto a single microchip? It doubles every 16 
or every 18 months. It is expected to reach 125 million by the turn of 
the century. What that means is the number of transistors packed onto a 
single Intel microprocessor. In 1971, a little over, roughly 2,000. By 
1978, model number 2, we moved up in the area of perhaps 50,000. By 
1997, we are approaching 10 million. And they are expecting by the end 
of the century to reach 125 million. And that has a very huge impact on 
the workplace. And the amazing thing is they keep packing this stuff 
onto a transistor while lowering costs.
  We would all like to own a Rolls Royce, perhaps. Coming from 
Michigan, I would prefer to own a car built in Detroit. But if Rolls 
Royce or anybody who makes a hundred thousand dollar car had applied 
the same increases in productivity to producing a car that Intel and 
other chip manufacturers have put into their processing, a hundred 
thousand dollar car in 1975 today would cost $4.50. The cost of 
technology is going down, which is enabling us to increase the 
productivity, the effectiveness of the American workplace and will have 
a significant impact on the workplace of the future.
  Let us talk about some of the places that we have visited. We have 
gone to a number of high-tech areas. We have been in Seattle, we have 
been in Silicon Valley, we have been in Dallas and Houston and Atlanta. 
Twenty-two roundtables. I think we have talked to 187 different people, 
most of the time in the area where they work, if not specifically in 
the facility that they work.
  One message keeps coming back. We need skilled workers. We need a 
system that allows our workers to receive training, training, training, 
training, because the very nature of their jobs continues to evolve. We 
need an environment where we have skilled people entering into the work 
force and when they are in the work force they keep enhancing their 
skills.
  Now, some workers may think that that's threatening, but in the 
workers we talk to it is exhilarating. The ability to take a job and 
grow it and grow it and grow it rapidly is exciting, because each time 
they learn and expand their job it is an opportunity to more fully 
utilize their God given skills.
  What numbers do we see? Occupations requiring a Bachelor's Degree or 
above will average a 25 percent growth, or double the projected growth 
rate for occupations requiring less education and training. We need 
more skilled workers: Systems analysts, computer engineers. These are 
the third and fourth fastest growing occupations from 1994 to 2005. We 
need systems analysts; we need computer engineers. This is a fast 
growing industry. There are great opportunities.
  This is also a kind of an interesting thing. When we are talking 
about software and we talk about the nature of competition, if you are 
a software engineer, we need you. And if we do not provide skills and 
opportunity for individuals to get those skills, what happens? We will 
have software engineers in other parts of the world, because when you 
are writing software, you are not limited by time or distance. If you 
write a program in Indonesia, if you write it in China, if you write it 
in India, you can probably get your product to the office next door 
faster than I could if I was in the office next door and just kind of 
walked over. You can get it over.
  Remember the cost we talked about in telecommunications? Right now 11 
semiconductor companies they had open requisitions for 17,000 
employees. Nearly 40 percent of surveyed manufacturers said skill 
deficiencies prevented them from introducing new technology or 
enhancing their productivity. Manufacturers are saying we can increase 
productivity, lower the cost of our products, increase the value of the 
American worker but we need workers with more skills. Twenty percent of 
surveyed manufacturers said that they are potentially stopping business 
expansion because they do not have enough workers with the skills that 
they need. Eighty-eight percent of surveyed manufacturers reported a 
shortage of qualified workers in at least one job category.
  What have we found in our site visits? We have gone there, we have 
invited people on the other side of the aisle to participate with us. 
The Department of Labor has been at all of our events. Remember 
the opportunity and what we are trying to do is obtain input from 
individual Americans on how they view their jobs, their companies and 
their workplace to better understand what is working and what is 
wasted. All of this with the intent of getting more money back into the 
pockets of the American worker and developing an American worker 
agenda; to encourage candid discussions; to make sure that America is 
globally competitive in the 21st century; to pinpoint and identify 
innovative practices; to identify emerging trends; to make sure that we 
can measure those trends versus the restrictions that may be placed on 
them in labor law; and to obtain an overview of the future.

  We have had some wonderful success stories. One of the places we 
visited, we met with a group of management and union employees dealing 
with the maritime industry, an industry that has seen its work force 
decline from 30,000 to 3,000. They are going to come back to us with a 
proposal and say, you know, some of the labor law and some of the 
Federal restrictions, some of the problems were self-inflicted but some 
of it was the result of American labor law. We are going to come back 
to you with a recommendation from labor and from management on how we 
might modify that labor law because we would like to get those jobs 
back in America.
  We have gone to a job training site and we have heard success stories 
about people who have gone through this. A welfare mom, for 13 years, 
tried to get into an apprenticeship program, constantly excluded. 
Finally got into another job apprenticeship program. She is 33. She is 
off of welfare. She has bought her own home, has her child enrolled in 
a private school. She is now living the American dream. She got the 
skills that were required, moved into a job, bought a home and is 
helping her child now get an education.
  Here is an example one of the corporations we visited and one of the 
colleges that we visited. There is a lot of good stuff going on in 
America's community colleges. But this community college said before we 
do anything to give them, our students, advanced skills or college 
level skills, 60 percent of our students who are coming in are not 
ready for college level work. Think about this. How can we be globally 
competitive if 60 percent of our students who are entering community 
college do not have the basic skills to do college work?
  The constant theme we get is the shortage of workers. Another success 
story. A small waste management, wastewater management plant, an 
excellent story of union and management coming together creating an 
innovative work environment, a team environment. We hear about 
participation, teaming, blurring the lines between management and 
employees to focus on the success of the corporation. Employee 
involvement. The result? The gain sharing plan. Because of this team 
effort between union personnel and management, $2,000 in the pocket of 
each worker in 1996.
  Another thing people are talking about, different work styles. 
Telecommuting. People working from their home because of the change in 
technology. The need for flatter, more flexible work environments. The 
nature of work in many industries is changing and management and 
workers are recognizing that they need to work together to be 
successful in a global economy.
  Another community college that we visited talks about in their 
program

[[Page H316]]

they formed a partnership. Key word: Partnership, teams. Whether it is 
between business and college, whether it is between management and 
workers, whether it is between unions and management, the marriage of 
labor and education is their theme, recognizing that the skills that 
they teach within their community colleges have to be directly 
translated and transferable into a job.

                              {time}  2115

  Talk about rapid change. We visited with a company, a high-tech 
company. Their planning year, they talk about a web year. I did not 
know what a web year was. They told me, ``Well, our planning horizon is 
about 90 days.'' I said, ``That is kind of short-sighted. Why do you 
not plan longer?''
  In their industry they have as much change going on in 90 days as 
perhaps other people have going on in a year. As a matter of fact, this 
company, this high-tech company, 80 percent of their product volume in 
1998 will come from products that were introduced in the last 3 months 
of 1997.
  Talk about a rate of change. Think about this: 80 percent of your 
product volume comes from products that were introduced in the last 3 
months of 1997.
  And you say, it must be a small start-up company. Wrong. They have 
15,000 employees, 15,000 employees, who now recognize that they have to 
compete in four areas. They have to be the most advanced and most 
skilled in technology. They have to be very good at marketing. They 
have got to keep their costs down. And they have got to develop an 
organizational capability. Because not only do they have to get it 
right, but they have to do it over and over and over again because of 
the shortness of the life cycles in the products that they are dealing 
with.
  Does American labor law recognize this kind of environment when we go 
back to 1938 and it took, like, five and a half days to build a car? 
Today, General Motors can build a car in 26 hours; and a company like 
this recognizes that they have to produce new products because, next 
year, 80 percent of that volume will come from the products that they 
just introduced and they have the future of 15,000 employees in their 
hands.
  Another corporation talked to us about areas of low unemployment. 
They have new challenges. Drugs in the workplace. We need to address 
and solve the drug problem. Workers who enter the workforce with a drug 
problem are not fulfilling their key responsibilities to their employer 
when they have this problem.
  Workers need more flexibility. Different family styles, two parents 
working, they need more flexibility to be able to support their 
children at home.
  What does that mean? That is something we are going to have to debate 
and work through. Every place that I have gone to has had a low 
unemployment rate. They take a look at our Federal programs and they 
say, have you got training programs for this and for that, training 
programs for this group? It is not what we need. We need the 
opportunity at a local level to address the workers' skill issue, that 
for those communities that have low unemployment the issue of training 
workers is very different.
  When we have got 4 percent unemployment, the type of work, the type 
of skills and the type of effort we need to bring to those 4 percent in 
the workforce may be very different than if we are in an area that has 
8 or 10 percent unemployment, may be very different in an area where we 
just had a major manufacturer leave and we are trying to retrain the 
workers that were in this business and attract new businesses.
  It is a very complex economy that we work in, and we need to design 
flexibility within our programs so that the leaders at the local level 
can identify the problems and the opportunities that they have, and we 
have to recognize that they are best able to identify what they need to 
do about that.
  Again, we have seen wonderful examples. Sometimes they say we are not 
maximizing what we can do because we have got so many rules and 
regulations coming from Washington.
  A lot of talk about alternative work styles. What I am talking about 
here is we have got full-time permanent employees, we have got part-
time permanent employees, we have got temporary workers, we have got 
contract employees, we have got leased employees. There are all kinds 
of different work arrangements. Should Federal labor law reward one or 
recognize one as being better than others?
  Some of the highest paid workers in the high-tech industry love being 
contract employees or love being independent contractors. They love 
being independent workers who maybe work from their home and go and 
work for certain companies on a specific project for a specific period 
of time and then move on to another challenge or do that as perhaps 
they are developing a business. Is that better or worse than being a 
full-time permanent employee? Current labor law would lead us to 
believe that one is better than another. I am not sure that is the 
right case.
  We need to recognize that people want different work styles because 
the type of jobs and the type of family structure and the type of 
challenges that they want and what is important to them may be very 
different than what they were in 1938 or 1948.
  We met with a group of individuals who have disabilities. We have a 
decreasing rate of population growth. We should do everything we can to 
enable those people to be fully employed as well. Whether we have high 
growth rates or whether we have low growth rates, they deserve an 
opportunity to contribute in our society.
  Then why is it that current Medicare and Medicaid assistance provides 
disincentives for these people to go to work?
  One person mentioned that he has the opportunity to do this, to take 
a $30,000 a year job. If he takes the job, he will lose $29,000 a year 
attending care assistance.
  Maybe there is a better way to do that, a compromise that says, we 
really want you in the workforce. You want to contribute. We know that 
this is not a good trade-off for you. As a matter of fact, this trade-
off does not work for you, that if you go out and take a job and earn 
$30,000, the first $29,000 goes to replace what otherwise you would 
have got from Medicare or Medicaid. How do we fix that? How do we solve 
that?
  It is the best solution for this individual. I think we can reach a 
compromise that would save taxpayers money.
  Why are some of these things happening? It comes back to technology. 
Technology is opening up a whole new world for individuals with 
disabilities to contribute. We need to recognize that, and we need to 
modify American labor law to take that into account.
  Finally, we cannot go around America and talk to workers and business 
without hearing about bureaucracy, red tape, and the Federal Government 
wasting money. Too often, these companies are burdened with costs 
placed on them by the Federal Government that add no value.
  We have got to recognize that there are American workers and American 
businesses that are trying to be globally competitive, who each day are 
going out there; and they are pinching pennies; and they are finding 
pennies; and they are saving nickels; and they are glad they do it. And 
when they do it, that money either goes to the employee or it goes back 
in investment or it goes to a shareholder or goes in lower prices. But 
that is a positive thing to do when we find waste.
  What we are saying with the American working project is saying to the 
American worker and to American business, help us find that waste in 
government regulations. How can you save pennies and nickels in Federal 
rules and regulations that add costs to your business but do not add 
any value? What would you like to do in your business but cannot 
because Federal labor laws are in the way?

  We need help to identify what works and what is wasted. We need help 
in identifying where we need to go and how we are going to get there, 
and we need help from the American worker. We need help because we are 
developing an agenda for you that will help you be successful, will 
help you be competitive and will enable you to be the most productive 
worker on the planet.
  When we combine high productivity with high skills and a favorable 
economic climate, those high-paying jobs will be in America. That is 
where we want them to be. That is where we need them to be. And, by 
partnering together, that is where we will be.

[[Page H317]]

  My colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is not here. I was going 
to yield the last 10 or 15 minutes of this special order to him.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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