[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23308-23312]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                FSC/ETI

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on the FSC legislation that was just 
passed, I want to say a few words. The American middle class is the 
heart and soul of our country, but you would never know it from the FSC 
bill. We should be helping middle-class families, not hurting them, but 
this bill uses your taxes to ship your jobs overseas. It allows 
President Bush to cut your overtime pay, and it allows big tobacco 
companies to market cigarettes to your children.
  On issue after issue in this legislation, elite corporate interests 
are the winners at the expense of average Americans. If the middle 
class is the backbone of America, then this bill is contrary to 
American values. And if President Bush really cared about the middle 
class instead of just big corporations, he would veto this bill when it 
comes to his desk.


                               Education

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, on another matter, President Bush may be 
leaving 5 million children behind in our schools, but he is sparing no 
expense in a national campaign to cover up the failures of his 
administration on public school reform. Somehow the Bush administration 
can never find the money in the budget to hire and train teachers to 
help failing schools to expand afterschool programs. But when it comes 
to politics and PR campaigns, he can find thousands and thousands of 
your tax dollars for White House propaganda. In a line that President 
Reagan made famous: There you go again.
  They use taxpayers dollars to produce political ads for their bad 
Medicare bill, and they are doing it again with their failed education 
program.
  I refer to the October 11 AP story by the education writer, Ben 
Feller. He writes:

       The Bush administration has promoted its education law with 
     a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make 
     clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. The 
     Government used a similar approach this year in promoting the 
     new Medicare law and drew a rebuke from the investigative arm 
     of Congress which found that the videos amounted to 
     propaganda in violation of Federal law.

  That is why we ask Secretary Paige to take this propaganda off the 
airways now. You just used a similar process on Medicare, and the GAO 
found it violated Government law. They are following the same 
procedure. This violates Government law, and it ought to be taken off 
the air and taken off now.
  The videos and documents emerged through a Freedom of Information Act 
request by People for the American Way that contends the Department is 
spending public money on a political agenda. The group sought details 
of a $700,000 contract Ketchum received in 2003 from the Education 
Department.
  One service the company provided was a video news release geared for 
television stations. The video includes a news story that features 
Education Secretary Rod Paige and promotes tutoring now offered under 
law. It does not identify the Government as the source of the report. 
It also fails to make clear that the person purporting to be a reporter 
was someone hired for the promotional video. Those are the same 
features, including the voice of Karen Ryan, that were prominent on 
videos the Health and Human Services Department used to promote the 
Medicare law and were judged covert propaganda by the General 
Accounting Office in May.
  It is the same business, a different subject matter, and it is 
completely unacceptable. Enough is enough. It is time to get serious 
about improving our schools. It is time for the Bush administration to 
realize improving education in America is not about slogans. It is not 
about propaganda. It is time to get about the hard work of training 
more teachers, smaller class sizes, extra help for the children who 
need it.


                           Stem Cell Research

  Now, to get back to my earlier comment about stem cell research--and 
I see a number of my colleagues on the floor who will address this 
issue as well--last evening I noted and saw my good friend the majority 
leader take the Senate floor to defend the indefensible, President 
Bush's stem cell policy. Here is what the majority leader said: Stem 
cell research shows great promise. It shows great promise, and the 
President's policy harnesses that promise and it also strikes a balance 
with the values of our people.
  The fact is that the President's position does not strike a balance. 
It does not harness the promise of stem cell research. In fact, it is 
an attempt to have it both ways. It is an attempt to satisfy the group 
of the President's supporters

[[Page 23309]]

who oppose stem cell research on religious grounds while pretending to 
the vast majority of Americans who support such research that he is 
really behind it. No amount of rhetoric can hide the fact that the 
biggest obstacle to finding cures for paralysis or Parkinson's disease 
or juvenile diabetes or heart disease through use of embryonic stem 
cell is President Bush.
  President Bush is fond of claiming that he is the first President to 
approve funds for stem cell research. That sounds good, but it is not 
true. Here is the actual record: For a number of years, the 
Congressional Appropriations Act had carried a prohibition against 
using Federal funds for research that destroyed an embryo. Now that we 
better understand the importance of embryonic stem cell research, a 
prohibition would never pass today. President Clinton had asked a 
special committee at NIH to reexamine this policy, and they concluded 
that the use of embryos for research was ethical and scientifically 
important.
  In January of 1999, the HHS General Counsel concluded that despite 
the appropriations bill language, NIH money could be used to support 
research on cell lines derived from embryos as long as NIH did not pay 
for the destruction of embryos. Following this decision, NIH set up a 
special committee to review grant applications for such research. In 
April of 2001, the new Bush administration suspended the committee and 
barred NIH from awarding any funds for embryo research.
  In August 2001, President Bush announced the policy that has 
effectively slowed stem cell research to a crawl. Under his policy, 
only stem cell lines that had been created prior to 8 p.m., August 9, 
2001, would be available for funding with Federal money. Virtually 
every scientist involved in the field said this policy was hopelessly 
restrictive, but President Bush did not listen.
  The experience of Professor Douglas Melton at Harvard, a 
distinguished medical researcher, illustrates the folly of the Bush 
restrictions. Professor Melton has created 17 stem cell lines that meet 
all of the ethical guidelines laid down at NIH, but his stem cell lines 
were created after the date in the President's Executive order. He 
receives no Federal funding for his work. He has had to create a whole 
separate lab to conduct his research because his regular lab had 
received Federal funds. For this dedicated researcher, the barriers 
created by President Bush's policy in lost time and denied resources 
and, most of all, in potential missed opportunities for patients have 
been tragic.
  The fact is that some of our most distinguished scientists are moving 
abroad to do their research. The last thing we need is a reverse brain-
drain.
  When President Bush announced his policy, he claimed that more than 
60 stem cell lines would be available. At the time, experts said that 
the President was simply wrong, and he was wrong, but he has not 
changed his policy. The reality is that only 22 cell lines can actually 
be used by scientists. The rest have failed to develop into usable 
lines. Even the few lines that NIH will fund are all contaminated with 
mouse cells. Because of the danger of using these contaminated lines, 
FDA rules make it almost impossible to use any of these lines to 
develop or test cures in human beings.
  Worse yet, every single one of those lines comes with a restrictive 
contract known as a materials transfer agreement that actually 
prohibits doctors from using them in patients. Let me make sure my 
colleagues understand this. NIH researchers are legally barred from 
using any of the stem cell lines available to them to help treat 
patients. Do not just take my word for it; go look it up. All the 
restrictions are laid out in black and white on the NIH stem cell Web 
site.
  Most people would look at the facts that have come out since George 
Bush laid down his policy and admit they made a mistake and then make a 
change. No shame in that. But will George Bush admit he made a mistake, 
admit that it is time for a change? Oh, no, he is never wrong. He has 
never made a mistake. Sound familiar?
  The reality is that the American people know the Bush policy is 
denying help and hope to millions of American patients and their 
families. The majority of the Senate knows it, too. Fifty-eight 
Senators sent a letter to President Bush to reverse this disastrous 
policy before more precious time is lost in the battle against diseases 
such as diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal injury, and more. That letter was 
signed by 14 Republicans, including prominent pro-life conservatives 
such as Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott, Ted Stevens, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and 
Gordon Smith. These pro-life conservatives understand that the embryos 
that would be used in research are byproducts of in vitro fertilization 
procedures to be used to help couples who would otherwise not be able 
to have children. If these embryos are not used in research they will 
be discarded or frozen in perpetuity. We are not talking about 
destroying embryos for research; we are talking about using embryos in 
research that would otherwise be destroyed in any event.
  In an eloquent editorial published in the Salt Lake Tribune in April 
2002, Senator Hatch wrote:

       Regenerative medicine is pro-life and pro-family. It fully 
     enhances, not diminishes, human life. If encouraged to 
     flourish, it can improve the lives of millions of Americans 
     and could lead to new scientific knowledge that is likely to 
     yield new treatments and cures.

  Why would anyone oppose that? As everyone knows, Nancy Reagan 
strongly supports that position. The Nation's scientific community 
knows that embryonic stem cells have a unique potential to repair 
injury and treat disease. According to a letter signed in 1999 by 36 
Nobel laureates, those who seek to prevent medical advances using stem 
cells must be held accountable to those, and their families, who suffer 
from horrible disease, as to why such hope should be withheld.
  A later letter was sent by 80 Nobel laureates, and it said: Current 
evidence suggests that adult stem cells have markedly restricted 
differentiation potential. Therefore, for disorders that prove not to 
be treatable with adult stem cells, impending human pluripotent stem 
cell research risk unnecessary delay for millions of patients who may 
die or endure needless suffering while the effectiveness of adult stem 
cells is evaluated.
  Those most affected by the Bush administration's cruel restrictions 
on this lifesaving research know it is wrong. Over 140 organizations 
representing patients and health professionals, including Vanderbilt 
University Medical Center, wrote to President Bush, urging him to end 
these unwarranted restrictions. The organizations signing that letter 
represent patients afflicted with cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and many 
other serious illnesses.
  Their letter was written on the third sad anniversary of the 
announcement of the President's failed policy. It notes the grim 
statistics, that in the 3 years since that announcement, ``more than 4 
million Americans have died from diseases that embryonic stem cells 
have the potential to treat.''
  Even the Bush administration has admitted that adult stem cells 
cannot match the potential of embryonic stem cells. The conclusion of 
an NIH report in June of 2001 couldn't be clearer:

       Stem cells in adult tissues do not appear to have the same 
     capacity to differentiate as do embryonic stem cells.

  The fundamental fact is that the Bush administration's first action 
on stem-cell research was to block the sensible policy that President 
Clinton had instituted to allow NIH to fund stem-cell research with 
strict ethical guidelines. As I noted earlier, President Clinton was 
the first President to allow NIH to fund embryonic stem-cell research, 
not President George Bush. His sensible policy was never implemented 
because the Bush administration blocked it.
  If George Bush had not reversed President Clinton's sensible and 
well-reasoned policy, National Institutes of Health funded scientists 
would today be able to conduct research on stem cells uncontaminated 
with mouse cells. Because of George Bush's restrictions, they cannot.
  If George Bush had not reversed the Clinton policy, National 
Institutes of Health funded scientists today would

[[Page 23310]]

be able to search for breakthrough new cures by researching stem cells 
from patients with genetic disorders. Because of George Bush's 
restrictions, they cannot.
  If George Bush had not reversed the Clinton policy, National 
Institutes of Health researchers would be free today to research cell 
lines that could actually be used in patients. Because of George Bush's 
restrictions, they cannot.
  It is time to lift these restrictions. Millions of patients and their 
families hope that George Bush will lift those restrictions. But 
everyone in this Chamber knows he will not. To restore hope and renew 
the promise of medical progress, we need a change in November. We need 
a President who will not let a blind and stubborn ideology stand in the 
way of cures for diabetes, hope for cancer, relief for those suffering 
from many other disorders. America's patients need a change. They need 
John Kerry.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 12 minutes.


                        The State Of The Economy

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see a number of my colleagues here. I 
will be brief. But I want to address the subject matter which was so 
eloquently addressed by our friend and ranking member on the Joint 
Economic Committee this past week in the hearings that were held about 
the state of our economy. I see him on the floor. I want to make some 
opening comments and hope he will help me to understand this issue 
better.
  I have in my hand President Bush's statement that he made in 
Minnesota 2 days ago. President Bush, in Minnesota 2 days ago, said:

       Our economy has been growing at rates as fast as any in 
     nearly 20 years.

  I also have in my hand:

       I have proposed and delivered four rounds of tax relief. . 
     . .

  This is from the President's radio talk on Saturday. Two days ago he 
talked about the economy ``expanding,'' ``growing,'' ``the best in 20 
years.'' Then on Saturday in his radio talk:

       I have proposed and delivered four rounds of tax relief and 
     our economy is creating jobs again. We have added 1.9 million 
     jobs in the past 13 months.

  What he doesn't point out is the economy is working well for Wall 
Street but not for Main Street; that we are still short 1.6 million 
jobs. This will be the first President since Herbert Hoover who has 
presided over an economy where we have not produced the jobs.
  In that report we had last week, we found out a great many of those 
jobs were temporary jobs. Of that number of 96,000 jobs, a third of 
those were temporary. As was pointed out in the Joint Economic 
Committee where the Senator from Maryland serves, it reminded us the 
real unemployment rate is 9.4 percent because so many people have given 
up looking for work. And the long-term unemployment rate is the highest 
for the longest in the history of keeping the information by the 
Department of Labor.
  But I want to know if the senior Senator saw Monday's Washington 
Post. This is not a month ago. This isn't 6 months ago. Here it is, a 
front-page story:


                 permanent job proves an elusive dream

  The story goes on about the rise of temporary workers.
  The story goes on and talks about Phillip Hicks. He lost his job and 
could only find temporary work.
  It continues. I will ask unanimous consent the entire article be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2004]

                 Permanent Job Proves An Elusive Dream

                         (By Jonathan Weisman)

       Cynthiana, Ky.--Phillip Hicks had loaded his rusting pickup 
     and was heading to work one afternoon last year when his 
     tearful daughter called from a pay phone. She had been pulled 
     over for speeding, she told her father, and worse, she was 
     driving with a suspended license. The police had impounded 
     her car and left her by the side of a dusty highway.
       To most workers at the sprawling Toyota plant where Hicks 
     works, the detour to pick up his daughter would be a 
     headache, no doubt. To Hicks, 40, it was considerably more. 
     He called his employer to say he would be late for the swing 
     shift. But since Hicks is a temporary worker, his daughter's 
     brush with the law became a permanent blemish on an already 
     shaky employment record. Temps are allowed only three days 
     off a year, and Hicks was coming up against that.
       ``They told me I had an attendance problem,'' he sighed 
     wearily, his soft mountain accent revealing his roots in coal 
     country to the east.
       Hicks is among the ranks of what economists call the 
     ``contingent'' workforce, the vast and growing pool of 
     workers tenuously employed in jobs that once were stable 
     enough to support a family. In a single generation, 
     ``contingent employment arrangements'' have begun to 
     transform the world of work, not only for temp workers, but 
     also for those in traditional jobs who are competing with a 
     tier of employees receiving lower pay and few, if any, 
     benefits.
       The rise of that workforce has become another factor 
     undermining the type of middle-wage jobs, paying about the 
     national average of $17 per hour and carrying health and 
     retirement benefits, that have kept the nation's middle-class 
     standard of living so widely available.
       Hicks has spent four years as a temp worker building cars 
     for Toyota Motor Corp., making manifolds and dashboards for 
     Camrys, Avalons and Solaras sold all over the United States. 
     He works alongside full-fledged Toyota employees who earn 
     twice his salary, plus health and retirement benefits.
       When Toyota announced it would be coming to Georgetown, 
     Ky., in 1985, it promised to invest $800 million in the 
     community and employ thousands, with thousands more jobs 
     coming through its suppliers. By 1997, the plant exceeded all 
     expectations, with 7,689 full-time workers, a payroll over 
     $470 million, and a ripple effect creating more than 34,000 
     other jobs in the Bluegrass state.
       But by 2000, Toyota was carefully controlling any additions 
     to the workforce. When Hicks left his family in Knott County, 
     Ky., to seek work at the plant 140 miles away, the only door 
     left open was through a temporary agency, Manpower Inc. At 
     $12.60 an hour, the job would not even let him afford the 
     $199-a-week health insurance premium for his family of five. 
     But Hicks said Manpower assured him that after a year--two at 
     the outside--he would be on Toyota's payroll, earning $24.20 
     an hour, with health insurance, a dental plan, retirement 
     benefits, incentive pay, the works.
       ``I could stand on my head for a year or two for a $20-an-
     hour job with benefits,'' he shrugged.
       The increasing use of temps ``is part of the diminished and 
     inferior wages and fringe benefits you see in all the new 
     jobs that are becoming available,'' said William B. Gould IV, 
     a labor law professor at Stanford University and former 
     chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.
       The government does not have up-to-date figures for the 
     size of the entire contingent workforce, which includes 
     temps, independent contractors, on-call workers and contract 
     company workers. In 2001, the Labor Department classified 
     16.2 million people--as much as 12.1 percent of the labor 
     force--as contingent workers.
       It does track one slice of that workforce: temporary 
     workers. Since January 2002, the Nation added 369,000 temp 
     positions, about half of the private-sector jobs created 
     during that stretch. Temporary jobs accounted for one-third 
     of the 96,000 jobs added to the economy in September. In 
     1982, there were 417,000 workers classified as temporary 
     help. Today, there are more than 2.5 million, according to 
     Labor Department data.
       That is about equal to the number of manufacturing jobs 
     lost in the past decade. Barrie Peterson, associate director 
     of Seton Hall University's Institute on Work in South Orange, 
     NJ, said that as many as half of those lost manufacturing 
     positions may have been converted to temporary employment.
       The change can be abrupt. At A&E Service Co., a small auto-
     parts assembler in Chicago, employees were told on July 15 
     that the firm ``will no longer hold general labor employees 
     on its payroll. All general labor employees that choose to 
     work at A&E Service Company, LLC must be employed by Elite 
     Staffing effective immediately.'' On the announcement, 
     workers were asked to check a box accepting or declining the 
     new temporary employment, then sign and date the form.
       Temps no longer fit the stereotype of the secretary filling 
     in for a day or two. Jobs categorized as precision 
     production, repair, craftsmanship, operations, fabrications 
     and labor now account for 30.7 percent of all temp jobs, 
     nudging out clerical and administrative support, which 
     represent 29.5 percent of the temporary army.
       Peterson calls it ``the perma-temping shell game,'' part of 
     a broader effort by employers to convert sectors of their 
     workforce to temps.
       Satisfaction with the arrangement varies. About 83 percent 
     of independent contractors in the Labor Department survey 
     said they were satisfied. By contrast, about 44 percent

[[Page 23311]]

     of temps and 52 percent of contingent workers said they were 
     not satisfied.
       The impact of the temp trend on the American middle class 
     can hardly be overstated. As the Federal Reserve Bank of 
     Chicago noted in a paper last year, temporary workers 
     ``receive much lower wages than permanent workers, although 
     they frequently perform the same tasks as permanent staff 
     members.'' An analysis by Harvard University economist 
     Lawrence F. Katz and Princeton University economist Alan B. 
     Krueger found that states with the highest concentration of 
     temps experienced the lowest wage growth of the 1990s.
       Toyota executives say they use temporary workers as a 
     buffer, to insulate their full-time staff from the ups and 
     downs of consumer demand. Since it opened in 1988, through 
     two recessions, the Georgetown plant has never laid off an 
     employee, said Daniel Sieger, manager of media relations for 
     Toyota Motor Manufacturing in North America.
       Even without layoffs, however, the plant's full-time staff 
     has declined by 706 positions from the 7,787 employees it had 
     in 2000, according to Toyota. Over that time, the temp 
     workforce dipped from 409 in 2000 to 301 in 2002, then rose 
     to 425 late this summer.
       Toyota managers say they will try to hire all of their 
     long-term temporaries by the end of the year or in early 
     2005, after they see how many Toyota workers accept an early 
     retirement package. Forty-seven temps were hired in late 
     September. The management move came after The Washington Post 
     spent a week in Kentucky examining the temporary employment 
     issue at the Georgetown plant. Before September's hires, it 
     had been two years since the plant hired a full-time ``team 
     member,'' Toyota managers said, a period during which the 
     plant shed 240 full-time positions. Temporary employment 
     during that time rose by 124.
       ``Certainly the long-term temporary issue is one that we 
     regret,'' said Pete Gritton, the plant's vice president of 
     administration and human relations. ``We never intended to 
     have those people in here for four years or whatever as 
     temporary.''
       Temporary employment is an increasingly important issue for 
     unions. The expansive labor contract reached between the 
     United Auto Workers and Ford Motor Co. in September 2003 
     includes six pages of rules governing the use of temps. Under 
     the agreement, Ford can bring on a temporary worker for a 
     maximum of 89 days, after which the worker must be hired or 
     dismissed. Most temps can only work two days a week, as well 
     as ``premium'' days such as holidays.
       Just 62 miles west of the Toyota plant, the UAW made a 
     stand at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant, refusing even to 
     countenance 89-day temps.
       ``It's a big, big deal,'' said Mike Stewart, the UAW's 
     building chairman at the plant in Louisville. ``Any time you 
     get this kind of [compensation] divide, it just means less 
     people making less money who can't afford your product. We 
     will always keep temps to a minimum.''
       The use of temporary workers appears to be most pervasive 
     in plants owned by foreign companies, which tend to locate in 
     states where laws make union organizing difficult, said Susan 
     N. Houseman, a researcher at the independent W.E. Upjohn 
     Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, MI. One 
     Japanese auto parts plant estimated that a 5 percentage point 
     reduction in the share of temps in the workforce would 
     increase total labor costs by $1 million over a year, an 
     Upjohn study found.
       At BMW's auto plant near Greenville, SC, about 175 
     temporary workers supplement a production workforce of 3,500, 
     keeping the assembly line churning out Z-4 roadsters and X-5 
     sport utility vehicles for the U.S. and global market through 
     lunch hour and break times, said Robert M. Hitt, a spokesman 
     for BMW Manufacturing.
       At Faurecia S.A., a BMW supplier in nearby Fountain Inn, 
     SC, about a third of the workers making door panels, consoles 
     and dashboards for the Z-4 are temps, said Campbell Manning 
     of Palmetto Staffing Group Inc., the temporary employment 
     agency that staffs the French auto parts supplier.
       ``They don't hire permanent,'' she said. ``After 90 working 
     days, they used to roll onto the payroll. Now they just keep 
     them as long-term temps.''
       Palmetto Staffing charges Faurecia a flat $12-an-hour for 
     each of its temps. If Faurecia hired its own permanent 
     workers, expenses for workers compensation insurance, 
     unemployment insurance and other demands would add $4 to $5 
     onto a $9-an-hour wage. Benefits would add more.
       Even the temps cannot argue with the logic of hiring a 
     lower-cost workforce. ``I don't really blame Toyota,'' said 
     Roy Biddle, who went to work at the Georgetown plant at the 
     same time Phil Hicks did, nearly four years ago, with similar 
     assurances that he would land a full-time job after a year. 
     ``The law's the law, and they're just doing what they can do 
     under the law.''
       To temper expectations, Toyota last year implemented a new 
     policy capping temporary employment at two years. After that 
     period, workers must leave, but can reapply in six months. If 
     hired again, a worker starts at the entry wage of $12.60 an 
     hour, compared with more than $14 per hour if they have been 
     there for a few years.
       About 160 long-term temporaries, like Biddle and Hicks, 
     were grandfathered in and allowed to stay indefinitely.
       Nancy Johnson, director of the Center for Labor Education 
     and Research at the University of Kentucky, said that because 
     of the new policy, temps now cycle from one plant to another, 
     working at Toyota, then at nearby E.D. Bullard Co., making 
     fire helmets, then perhaps at an auto parts supplier before 
     heading back to Toyota.
       At the Kentucky State Cabinet for Health and Family 
     Services' community office in Georgetown, social workers say 
     more Toyota temps are applying for state aid to cover food 
     costs and medical bills.
       ``It's the traditional Japanese model that people talked 
     about in the '80s,'' Johnson said. ``Toyota never lays people 
     off, sure, but the temps are absorbing the financial swings 
     of all these companies, and they're doing it at a price.''
       Rick Hesterberg, a plant spokesman, noted that $12 to $14 
     an hour in central Kentucky compares favorably to wages even 
     for some permanent jobs. ``These people still make good 
     money,'' he said of the temps. ``It's nothing to snuff your 
     nose at, at least in this part of the country.''
       But many Toyota temps say their problems go beyond money. 
     Indeed, life seems always on the edge of disaster, where even 
     rewards--the small gift bag of cookie cutters or the ``Star 
     Performer'' T-shirts that are given out to temps--seem more 
     like petty humiliations. In February, a Toyota temp posted an 
     anonymous ``discussion'' paper in the assembly-line men's 
     rooms, pleading ``the `E' word, `E' for exploitation.''
       ``There are temps at [Toyota] who have been here for 3 
     years, some approaching 4 years, many waiting for the 
     permanent job offer,'' the essay reads. Toyota ``is 
     exploiting their patience, their economic status, their work 
     ethic, their work contribution, their reliability, their 
     health, their safety.''
       Chris, a graduate of Western Kentucky University, once 
     interned at Toyota during college, doing computer-aided 
     design and drafting. He spoke on condition that his last name 
     would not be used. Even with a degree and an internship on 
     his resume, he, too, was steered to Manpower as the only door 
     into Toyota. But unlike the other temps, he figured his 
     temporary stint would quickly lead not just to the factory 
     floor, but to the white-collar suites.
       Now, after four years, he frets that his wife wants a 
     second child but he's not sure how they'll pay for the 
     insurance.
       ``These people are making extreme sacrifices, working 
     second shift, no benefits, low pay,'' fumed Matt Roberts, 31, 
     a full-time Toyota worker since 1997. ``It's a disgrace to 
     the American dream. That's what it is.''
       For years, the United Auto Workers has tried to unionize 
     the Toyota plant, to no avail. Recently, the use of temps has 
     become a major issue. For full-time workers, the temps 
     present a quandary. On the one hand, the full-time workers 
     may see the temps as Toyota does, a buffer protecting their 
     jobs. The more low-paid workers there are at the plant, the 
     more profitable the company will be, and the less likely to 
     resort to layoffs, suggested David Cole, director of the 
     Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. A union 
     might threaten that buffer by demanding that temps be brought 
     on full-time or dismissed.
       ``The temps may help keep the union out,'' Cole said. 
     ``It's in the selfish, vested interest of the full-time 
     workers to keep more temps.''
       But some Toyota workers do not see it that way. Several 
     full-time employees said the growing presence of temps at the 
     plant is holding back their wage gains, while limiting their 
     movement in the plant. Some employees say they have been 
     stuck working nights because any open day-shift positions are 
     quickly filled by temps.
       ``If you break down, they've got a new guy waiting at the 
     door,'' said Roberts, who with his wife, another Toyota 
     worker, clears a six-figure income. ``You're creating a tug 
     of war. There's no protection for either side.''
       In Georgetown, the divisions can show up in strange, some 
     say demoralizing, ways.
       Toyota is famous for the ``kaizen''--continuous 
     improvement--checks that it pays to workers who come up with 
     suggestions that save money. Earlier this year, Hicks and 
     Chris helped devise a change that cut two jobs from their 
     small quadrant of the assembly line. The change meant more 
     work for everyone, but it was more efficient. Toyota rewarded 
     the idea by sending out $500 checks to every member of the 
     team, every full-time member, that is.
       The two temps who came up with the suggestion got nothing. 
     Their group leader did feel bad. He gave each of them a $25 
     gift certificate to the Toyota company store.
       Then a full-time worker slipped them both $50.
       ``You guys got us this money,'' Chris recalled him saying. 
     ``Sorry I can't give you more.''

  Mr. KENNEDY. The article does track one slice of the workforce: 
temporary workers. Since January 2002, the nation has added 369,000 
temporary positions, about half of the private-sector jobs created 
during that stretch.

[[Page 23312]]

  This report says half of all the private sector jobs created under 
this Administration since January 2002 are temporary positions. These 
are jobs without benefits. You talk about health insurance or 
retirement? Those are virtually nonexistent.
  This is what is happening in this country. It is amazing to me to 
hear the President talk about how the economy is growing and crow about 
the increased numbers of jobs that we had--96,000 this last month, 
which is not even enough to keep up with the growth of the population. 
And then we find a third of those jobs are Government jobs, a third are 
temporary jobs, and the other third are not paying very much.
  I want to also mention that, as difficult as this is, those are 
figures that point out what happens to real people in their lives. But 
whatever happens to these individuals I have just mentioned pales in 
comparison to the kind of pain minorities and women are feeling; women, 
whose real income has declined, and minorities--Hispanics, African 
Americans--whose unemployment has increased dramatically.
  I see the Senator from Maryland on his feet now. I am interested in 
his reaction to that hearing and to those figures.
  Before I run out of time, I would also like him to address the 
subject of the foreign purchase of over half of the U.S. debt. Nearly 
$2 trillion of the national debt is now owned by foreign holders. 
Recent figures show China and Japan owning $1.3 trillion in U.S. 
Treasuries. I am concerned these foreign nations are basically buying 
up America. We know who has the whip in hand when you control the 
resources. One morning we will wake up and foreign countries will own 
America. If they control our economy, then they control our destiny. 
The American economy and American destiny ought to be in Americans 
hands.
  Mr. SARBANES. Will the Senator yield on that last point?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to.
  Mr. SARBANES. The fact of the matter is, the tax cuts for the very 
wealthy, which is the centerpiece of the Bush economic plan, are being 
financed by borrowing overseas, primarily from China and Japan. That is 
what it comes down to. We do these excessive tax cuts, we run a 
deficit, and we have to finance the deficit. Where do they find the 
money to finance the deficit? They sell U.S. Government paper overseas, 
primarily to Japan and China. So we are borrowing money from overseas 
in order to finance these tax cuts.
  It is bad enough to borrow internally, from our own people, in order 
to do this. But to go overseas and do it, as the Senator points out, 
and then give them this claim on American production on out into the 
future as far as one can see is absolutely irresponsible.
  The Senator from Massachusetts made a very important point.
  The President and his associates are busy out in the countryside 
trying to put the spin on the jobs figures. The fact is, the economy 
picked up 96,000 jobs last month. That is not enough to keep pace with 
the growth in population. This is the first administration since 
Herbert Hoover not to produce a net gain of jobs in the course of the 
administration. The Bush administration is down 800,000 jobs, a total 
of 1.6 million private sector jobs, and 2.7 million manufacturing jobs.
  The last time you have an administration which failed to have a net 
gain in jobs in the course of its 4 years was 75 years ago in the 
administration of Herbert Hoover. This is a dismal job performance 
record. Yet the President is going around the country telling people we 
have turned the corner. The trouble is every time you go around the 
corner we are going in the wrong direction. That is the problem with 
the President's policies. He may have turned the corner, but the corner 
is taking us in the wrong direction.
  Second, as the Senator from Massachusetts pointed out, if you factor 
into the unemployment rate the people who have dropped out of seeking a 
job because they are so discouraged by the economic conditions they 
encounter, and people are working part time for economic reasons--
namely, they want to work full time but they can't find a full time 
job, so they are working part time--if you include that in the 
unemployment figure as well, which is the most comprehensive measure of 
unemployment, the unemployment figure is 9.4 percent, coming up to 10 
percent unemployed.
  The final point I want to make is that unemployment benefits 
usually--and it is a very important point because I see many colleagues 
on the floor who have joined with the Senator from Massachusetts and 
myself to try to extend unemployment insurance benefits, and the 
Senator from Washington was very much involved in that effort and we 
welcome so strongly her leadership in it--usually are for 26 weeks. 
When we hit an economic downturn, we extend it because the job market 
doesn't pick up quickly enough to get people back to work. We usually 
extend it out to 39 weeks. The administration has resisted efforts to 
extend the payment period for unemployment insurance. We now have a 
record number of long-term unemployed.
  This is the record even before the Bush administration of the long-
term unemployed. It ran along here, and now it has shot up to almost 22 
percent of those unemployed who have been long-term unemployed.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in this article, besides the 
administration being against the increase in the minimum wage, they are 
against unemployment compensation and against overtime. In this report 
in 1982, there were 417,000 workers classified temporary. Today, there 
are 2.5 million. This is about equal to the number of manufacturing 
jobs lost in the past decade.
  These are the statements that we have about how good the economy is.
  Mr. SARBANES. The Senator is absolutely right. We are confronting a 
very serious economic situation for our workers. There is real 
anxiety--indeed even fear--in working America about what is going to 
happen to people in terms of their employment and how they support 
their families. But we are not producing jobs fast enough to put people 
back to work. Yet the administration won't support extending payments 
for unemployment insurance.
  How are these people supposed to support their families? These are 
working people. By definition, you cannot draw unemployment insurance 
benefits unless you have a work record. You must have been working and 
have built up a working record in order to qualify. We are talking 
about working Americans. How do they support their families?
  The President talks about 95,000 jobs as though it is some success. 
It is not a success. This is the only President in 75 years in that 
entire period of time who has not had a net gain of jobs during his 
administration.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Senator. I see my time has expired. I thank 
my friend from Maryland for his excellent observations.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized for 10 
minutes.

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