[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13801-13802]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             KENTUCKY RIVER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue a little bit on 
what my colleague from Illinois was talking about. We are seeing an 
assault on middle-income families across this Nation.
  Today I would like to join my fellow nurses across the Nation in 
standing up against another assault against our rights.
  The Bush administration National Labor Relations Board's rulings in 
three cases, known as Kentucky River, could strip nurses and thousands 
of other workers of their right to belong to a union.
  Two years ago, Congress stopped the Bush administration's efforts to 
classify nurses and other employees as supervisors in order to prevent 
them from receiving overtime pay. Those classified as supervisors do 
not have protected rights under Federal law to join or to form unions.
  Mr. Speaker, I spent 30 years as a nurse; and I can't tell you how 
many times I was appointed supervisor for the evening. Under the 
classifications that are coming down today, so many of our nurses would 
be losing their overtime.
  When we see our nurses, we are finally getting people to go into the 
health care fields, and now we are doing this to them, where they are 
not going to have the protections.
  As American families face record gas prices, rising interest rates 
and higher cost of living, the Bush Administration once again is trying 
to make people work harder for less money and for less benefits.
  In recent cases the National Labor Relations Board has taken away 
workers' protections, workers' rights including the rights of disabled 
workers, temporary employees, and graduate employees.
  This summer could bring more such decisions from the Bush labor 
board. The ``Kentucky River'' decisions could strip hundreds of 
thousands of workers of their rights under Federal labor law. These 
decisions could potentially affect workers in a wide range of 
industries, including health care, building, construction, energy 
broadcasting, and port shipping. Those at risk of losing these Federal 
law protections are skilled and experienced workers who, as part of 
their jobs, give instructions to lesser skilled and experienced 
workers.
  As I said, I had done that for many years. Nurses and others should 
not be penalized for helping those with less experience.
  If workers lose their protections as employees under Federal law, 
they may be fired or otherwise disciplined

[[Page 13802]]

for union activity. They will lose the freedom to choose to join or 
remain a member of a union, and they will lose their ability to have a 
voice on the job.
  For example, for nurses, union membership provides a voice on the job 
and protections needed to be effective patient advocates. A nurse with 
a union works with confidence to make tough calls to be a strong 
patient advocate when patient decisions need to be made. Patients need 
a strong voice to stand up to those who put the bottom line before a 
patient's health care.
  But these decisions will not affect just nurses. Others affected 
include foremen on construction jobs like my brother, Tommy, or those 
who work with a team of workers who could lose their union rights under 
a broad definition of ``supervisor.'' Many a time I have seen people 
like my father, who became a supervisor to teach the younger workers on 
how to weld something. This is what teachers do. It does not matter 
what field you are in. The older you are, the more experienced you are, 
you want to take the younger workers under your wing.
  Thousands of painters, welders, sheet metal workers, plumbers, 
electricians, and others could lose their right to be in a union. 
Workers deserve to be heard on this issue, which is why tens of 
thousands of union members have asked their Members of Congress to 
appeal to the labor board for an opportunity to provide oral arguments. 
Uninterested in hearing from working people, the Bush-appointed labor 
board has refused since 2001 to hear oral arguments in any case. In 
fact, this is the only 5-year period in the last 25 years in which the 
board has not held any oral arguments.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleague to join hundreds of thousands of 
nurses and other workers to stand up and fight together for 
accountability from the Bush's labor board. Together, we can make sure 
these hard-working Americans can have the union representation they 
deserve and are entitled to.
  Mr. Speaker, I think a lot of people forget what the unions have done 
for this Nation. I think a lot of people forget that it was the unions 
that basically brought protections. When you think about our coal 
miners that have been killed in the past year, union representation 
could have protected them. We in Congress should have been doing that. 
We have OSHA to protect our workers where hundreds of thousands of 
people are injured every single year, and yet we see a total eroding of 
the middle-income families.
  Let me tell you what I fear the most: that we are going to have a 
two-tiered system, the very wealthy and the poorest of the poor. We as 
Americans can do better.

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