Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, because of an emergency in my district, I missed rollcall votes No. 422 and 423. If present I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment to restore overtime pay to millions of hard-working Americans, as proposed by my distinguished colleague from Wisconsin. I ask that my entire statement be printed in the Record and request permission to revise and extend my remarks.

Just 3 days ago this Nation celebrated Labor Day, honoring the millions of hard-working Americans we all depend upon to build and repair our homes, fix our cars, install neighborhood street lights, stock supermarket shelves, teach our preschoolers, care for elderly relatives, provide nursing care when we need it, prepare restaurant meals, report the local news, and patrol the streets to keep communities safe. By taking on such jobs, these workers keep America running. Yet these are they very same workers that the Bush Administration has now stripped of any right to overtime pay.

When the Department of Labor's final rule on overtime went into effect on August 23rd, some 6,000,000 American workers lost a right that had been guaranteed for more than 65 years under the Fair Labor Standards Act. That right is simple and straightforward. It guarantees that workers required to work overtime will get paid for those extra hours of work.

This simple right used to ensure that policemen and women, registered nurses, chefs, team leaders on construction sites, assistant managers in fast food restaurants, nursery school teachers, grocery clerks, car mechanics at the local dealership, and countless others were treated fairly. When their employers required them to work overtime, they were paid for that work. That is only fair and fairness used to be the American way.

But the Bush Administration and the Republican leadership in Congress have decided that fairness doesn't apply any more to these American workers. They have come up with a new scheme, which meets Webster's Dictionary definition of servitude. Under Republican management, employers can require these same employees to work as many hours over a standard 40 hour work week as they say, without paying the workers an extra dime.

What makes this Bush and Republican-backed scheme even worse is that it has no expiration date. Under seventeenth and eighteenth century indentured servitude, there was an end in sight. Once you paid off your indentureship, you were free and clear. Under the Bush Administration's final overtime regulations, if you fit the category your employer can continue to require you to work overtime without pay for as far into the future as anyone can see. This kind of exploitation is blatantly un-American.

The amendment of my colleague from Wisconsin would overturn this un- American servitude scheme by rescinding the Bush Administration's harmful changes in overtime eligibility. At the same time, this amendment would require enforcement of the one noncontroversial provision in the final rule. This minor salary adjustment would ensure immediate expansion of overtime coverage.

Again, I strongly support this amendment to restore workers' overtime rights and return us to the 21st century norms of American fairness.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to express grave concern over a clause in this bill that would seriously erode worker protections against tuberculosis, TB, and bioterrorism. This provision prohibits the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, from fully enforcing its respirator standard for workers at risk of exposure to TB and other deadly infections. At a time when the Bush administration is invoking daily, color-coded terrorist alerts, it makes absolutely no sense to weaken the only standard we have to protect health care workers against air-borne pathogens or air-borne ``weapons of mass destruction.'' By prohibiting OSHA from enforcing the annual fit test for workers' respirators or masks, that is exactly what is possible.

According to Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Vice President for Biological Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, biological agents that might be used as biological weapons include small pox, pneumonic plague, and drug-resistant TB. To undercut the only protection that front-line health care workers would have to such agents--namely, their respirators--is absolutely unconscionable.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that a letter on this critical issue from the Director of Occupational Health and Safety at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) be included in the Record at this point. I trust and hope my colleagues in the Senate will see the wisdom of opposing any such effort to weaken workers' protections against TB and bioterrorism.

An Open Letter to APIC Members

Dear APIC member:

I ran across your e-mail thread from my colleagues in the

occupational health and safety community. As I am not an APIC

member (yet), I hope that you are not offended by my taking

this liberty to communicate directly with you about a manner

of upmost importance to all of us who are concerned about

health care worker occupational health and safety.

The APIC leadership (with AHA) have been on a crusade to

undermine adequate TB and respiratory legal protections for

health care workers for some time now. They are proud of

their singular role in working with Congressman Roger Wicker

(R-MS), whose state coincidentally is surrounded by states

with some of the highest rates of TB, to kill the OSHA TB

rule late last year.

Not satisfied with that ``accomplishment'', APIC leadership

is now determined to gut the application of the OSHA

respirator standard that has been on the books for all other

chemical, biological and infectious disease agents, except TB

since 1998. The reason that the respirator standard didn't

apply to TB until now is because the separate OSHA TB

standard (that APIC had killed) would have covered

respiratory protection within the framework of a

comprehensive TB rule.

As someone trained as a microbiologist and industrial

hygienist working in the healthcare sector for the past 24

years, I must tell you that your APIC leadership is dead

wrong to oppose annual fit testing against TB and other

airborne biological hazards. I am not alone. Every labor

organization that represents health care workers also

supports annual fit testing, as does the Bush Administration,

the American Nurses Association, American Industrial Hygiene

Association and the 50,000 member American Public Health

Association.

Let's look at the facts:

(1) Last year TB rates had their smallest decline in years;

rates increased in twenty states.

(2) Without annual fit testing, respirator face seals will

erode over time, respirators will leak, and more healthcare

workers will experience TB conversions. Respirator

manufacturers recommend annual fit testing for their products

to work properly.

(3) The APIC leadership is misleading you when they say

that the Wicker amendment is supported by CDC. This is not

true. The official CDC position has never differed from

OSHA's position either verbally or in writing.

(4) The official position of the Bush Administration in

supporting annual fit testing, was articulated in the

December 30, 2003 Federal Register OSHA notice, stating that

fit testing is crucial to a proper face seal, and that over

time that 5% to 50% of all workers will lose a proper face

seal each year if annual fit testing is not performed.

(5) As far as the argument that there is ``no difference''

between a surgical mask vs. a properly fitted N95 respirator,

a study conducted by Nelson Laboratories in Salt Lake City

last year found that a surgical mask filtered out 61.9%-62.3%

of particles in the respirable 0.3 micron range vs. 97.9%-

99.7% for a properly fitted N95 respirator.

Many of you may recall the clamor of opposition against the

bloodborne pathogens standard in the late 1980s. Many

dentists claimed that if they wore gloves, that patients

wouldn't see them. Today the opposite is the case, while the

CDC reports that since the standard took effect, that

hepatitis B cases among health care workers have plummeted

from 17,000 a year to 400.

Today, as a result of the requirements under the bloodborne

pathogens standard, many infection control professionals have

more resources to do their job. The same could be the case if

we work together to protect health care workers from airborne

exposures to TB through annual fit testing; also conferring

protections against SARS, avian flue and airborne weapons of

mass destruction.

SEIU represents 1.7 million workers, with over half

employed in health care, including over 100,000 nurses and

20,000 physicians. Many of our members are APIC members who

vehemently disagree with the position of the current APIC

leadership. I know that many other APIC members believe that

their current leadership is not acting in the best interest

of their membership when they work so zealously in opposition

to these basic worker protections.

I respectfully suggest that APIC members learn the facts,

and work to support an APIC leadership that shares our joint

interests in protecting both workers and patients.

Sincerely:

Bill Borwegen, MPH,

Director, Occupational Health and Safety

Service Employees International Union.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats like tax cuts, too, but the Democratic Party's tax policies are targeted to do the most good for the majority of Americans. Working families will be the beneficiaries of the Democratic tax policy.

Republicans want tax cuts which give more to the have-mores. Tax cuts for the rich are luxury toys, but tax cuts for working families are absolute necessities.

Working families need more child care tax credits. Working families need tuition tax credits to help their children attend college and rise up the economic ladder.

Let the corporations pay more taxes if we need revenue for the war in Iraq or any other activity. Change the Federal rules for the way we charge for our assets, grazing land, mining rights or the sale and lease of the spectrum above us, which is owned by the American people.

Democrats want tax cuts, but we want tax cuts for working families.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a distinguished business executive well known to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Ester Silver-Parker.

She serves on the boards of International Women's Forum, Brenau University, North Carolina Central University, National Public Radio Foundation, The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Wyndham Hotel Women and Diversity Roundtable.

Ester Silver-Parker was named Vice President of Diversity Relations for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in December 2003. She is charged with the strategic planning and execution of Wal-Mart's diverse efforts as it relates to its supplier development program, philanthropic and community relations programs. Additionally, she is responsible for strengthening Wal-Mart's relationships with diversity leaders and leadership organizations in the communities it serves.

Prior to joining Wal-Mart, Ms. Silver-Parker served as Vice President of Corporate Affairs and President of the AT&T Foundation for AT&T. She also directed AT&T's National Constituency Relations, Issues Management and Corporate Social Responsibility Programs.

Ms. Silver-Parker directed AT&T's public relations field offices in the Northeast States, the Mid-Atlantic States and the Southeast. She established the first AT&T public relations operations in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, designed and implemented the plan to increase AT&T's presence in the U.S. domestic field operations, and developed the organizational design for AT&T's field public relations organization. She also established AT&T's first constituent relations organization. She was the recipient of the Catherine Cleary Award, the highest leadership honor AT&T gives to a female employee.

Prior to joining AT&T, Ms. Silver-Parker worked in public relations for New York Telephone, the National Urban League and as a journalist for Essence Magazine, the Review of Political Economy and New World Outlook.

Ester Silver-Parker has traveled on behalf of the Board of Global Ministries in the Congo, Burundi and Kenya to study and write about the health conditions and quality of life of women and children. She is a frequent speaker on issues pertaining to women, diversity, corporate social responsibility, and strategic philanthropy.

She received a Masters in journalism from Columbia University School of Journalism and a Bachelors of Arts in political science from North Carolina Central University. She is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University's Executive Management Program and holds an Honorary Doctor's Degree in Humane Letters from Benedict College.

Ms. Silver-Parker has received numerous awards, including the Ebony Magazine Outstanding Women in Corporate Marketing, the Congressional Black Caucus Unsung Hero Award, the DECA Award for outstanding businesswoman, the Harlem YMCA Black Achievers in Industry Award, New York City Gus D'Amato Community Service Award, the Atlanta Business League's Outstanding Corporate Person Award, the 100 Black Men of America's Corporate Excellence Award, the National AIDS Fund's Leadership Award, the Asian Pacific Islanders Women's Leadership Starfish Award.

Mr. Speaker, Ms. Silver-Parker is a genuine professional who cares deeply about her community. I am honored to recognize her as a ``Point of Light for All Americans.''

Mr. Speaker, on their policy of liquidating overtime pay as we know it, the Republican majority should end their covert sabotage and come out of the closet. The right to overtime pay is a fundamental right guaranteed for the past 66 years by the Fair Labor Standards Act. For 6 million or more American workers, however, that right will expire in exactly 1 month's time.

On August 23, a Bush administration rule will be implemented to strip hardworking Americans, including certain police officers, nurses, preschool teachers and many others, of rightfully earned overtime pay. Republicans must admit their war on overtime. Come out of the closet.

The House Republican leadership is now refusing to bring the fiscal year 2005 Labor-HHS appropriations to the floor. The Republicans fear the truth and power of a Democratic amendment to reverse this Bush rule and protect workers' rights to overtime pay. The Republicans are afraid to expose their unjust policy to the voters.

Under the Bush economic plan which favors the haves and have-mores, an increasing number of American workers have had to rely on overtime wages simply to pay their electricity bill or their monthly mortgage.

But overtime for working families is also an issue of fundamental fairness. In Iraq, 90 percent of the frontline soldiers are the children of these working families. Mandating that employees work extra hours without adequate pay is a betrayal of the trust of the families of our heroes.

Vote ``yes'' on overtime pay. Bring it to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, because of an emergency in my district, I missed rollcall votes Nos. 359, 360, 361 and 362. If present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall votes 359, 361 and 362 and ``nay'' on rollcall vote 360.

Mr. Speaker, this House must be applauded for the passage of the Resolution (H. Con. Res. 450) I introduced to honor the civil rights martyrs: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. These young men were true martyrs, nonviolent and self-sacrificing for the highest ideals. In contrast to the suicide bombers who call themselves ``martyrs'' while taking lives, these heroes placed themselves at risk in order to save lives. The fact that their passion and dedication was expressed in non-violent actions made them no less courageous and brave fighters. On this fortieth anniversary of

their lynching it is important that we hold up to our youth and to the world these examples of three ``greatest'' American men.

The Angels Cried

The day Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman died

Was a day the angels cried:

Heroes who laid down their lives,

Courage recorded for eternal archives.

Medals of honor belong to the brave

Who take no lives but struggle to save

The credo of justice for all;

Build them a three person Memorial Wall.

Suicide bombers look down and see

True martyrs who won great glory

In the war for ideals

Fought past Mississippi cotton fields;

Three sacrificed the full measure of devotion,

Murder of enemies is an obsolete notion,

Love is a weapon of overwhelming emotion.

Sound the trumpet again and again

Appreciate the sacrifice of three greatest American men.

The day Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman died

Was a day angels in heaven cried.

Mr. Speaker, because of an emergency in my district, I missed rollcall vote Nos. 276, 277, and 278. If present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote Nos. 276, 277, and 278.

Mr. Speaker, quite a number of Washington leaders have expressed great anger over the comparison of the present war in Iraq to the past war in Viet Nam. Many insist that there is no logical comparison: Viet Nam was a war waged over many years and thousands of Americans died. With great glee they point to the fact that we have not yet had

the first thousand body bags come home from Iraq. Consider, Mr. Speaker, the fact that not one soldier killed or wounded has a wife, mother and family rejoicing about the overall low casualty rate. Human life is sacred and one tragedy of Viet Nam is that our government stopped counting one soul at a time. 58,000 heroes died in the jungles of Viet Nam and every American citizen has a duty to fight to guarantee that no body count statistics close to these are tolerated ever again. While we praise the heroism of the troops in Iraq we must confess that it is now crystal clear that this army is in the wrong place fighting the wrong enemy at great financial as well as human costs.

Before the years begin to go by and the body count mounts into the thousands, an exit strategy must be implemented now. Viet Nam has taught us that inevitably there will be an end negotiated to even a very complex war. In the interest of our nation and of humanity let us begin to work backward to initiate the negotiations for peace. The shape of the table might be the same as the table shape finally agreed upon in Viet Nam. What matters most is that this administration must invite all of the nations on the U.N. Security Council and all of the members of NATO to come to the table. The sharing of the powers of decision-making must be placed on the table. French, German, Russian and Chinese troops must be contributed to the effort to guarantee law and order in Iraq. The guerilla insurgents may hold out for many years but once we are able to make the argument to the Iraqi masses that we are not in their country to re-institute colonial subjugation or to pilfer their oil revenues the popular appeal of the violent uprising will fade away. An international presence with a clearly stated set of rules and a transparent timetable will encourage the development and actions of a new leadership class among the Iraqi population. The yearling for liberty is so great in the bosom of every human being that true freedom has its own overwhelming recruiting power.

Viet Nam is still described by former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara as an unfortunate series of mistakes; however, in dishonest riddles McNamara refuses to admit that Viet Nam was one of the greatest blunders in modern history. 58,000 died needlessly. We lost Viet Nam but the dominoes did not fall against us. The free world went on to win the cold war. Victory over Al Qaeda and world terrorism cannot be won in Iraq. Let this truth guide Washington decision-makers now before another 58,000 die.

No New Vietnam

In Iraq 58,000

Have not yet died.

58,000

Mothers, daughters, wives

Have not yet cried.

58,000

Did not fall yet,

The quota to make a wall

Has not yet been met.

From VietNam

58,000

Body bags came home;

Jungle warfare was tough,

Mid-East deserts deemed easy to roam,

Combat assumed to never get rough.

58,000

Must die first;

For oil and gas American appetite

Shows an unquenchable thirst;

58,000

To stop other nations from daring

To make demands for equal sharing.

58,000

Is a goal there is time to reach;

For present low count casualties

VietNam

Has no lessons to teach.

Families waiting

Will get no happy greetings

Til Rumsfeld holds

One hundred more meetings;

Colin must make more trips,

DeLay must crack his whips,

Speeches must be recited

On the fourth of July

Photo opportunities with wives

Of husbands shipped off to die.

58,000 never again--

Where in hiding

Have power brokers been?

Command Macnamara

To tell the true story,

Washington warmongers deserve

No star spangled glory,

On the front lines

The scene is always gory.

White House power at risk

Needed an Iraq fix;

Exposed now

Is what we always knew,

Addiction for oil

Infected the Neo-Com crew.

Rumsfeld decrees

That far across the seas

There is no new VietNam;

Every high tech trick

Has not yet been tried

We have not yet met

The WMD enemy threat;

Premature victory the White House tasted

Because 58,000 lives

Have not yet been wasted.

Thank America

For names carved in stone

Pray for all children left alone

When body bags bore their fathers home;

Home of the brave

Pledge to the credo

Each life we must save,

No more monuments

But lasting peace we crave.

58,000

Have names on the wall,

These heroes stand tall,

From heaven their voices call,

Blood soaked wisdom

From truth trenches will crawl:

58,000 never again!

Rise to resist the squander

Of the lives of brave men!

58,000

Did not fall yet,

The quota to make a wall

Has not yet been met.

58,000!

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was unavoidably absent and missed rollcall votes No. 210, No. 211 and No. 212. If present I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, because of an emergency in my district, I missed rollcall vote No. 208 and No. 209. If present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote No. 208 and ``nay'' on rollcall vote No. 209.

Mr. Speaker, because of an emergency in my district, I missed rollcall votes No. 177, No. 178 and No. 179. If present I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I am here to protest, first of all, the package, the packaging process, the rules process. Lumping five bills together, four of them dealing with OSHA matters, there is an effort to trivialize, to minimize and to make invisible this particular, very serious action being taken against working families and organized labor.

Working families need the protection of the government in the workplace. They are vulnerable and they are often victimized. The overwhelming number of business people in America are fair-minded, the small business people as well as corporations, but there is a percentage, which is far too large, that is greedy, selfish and always seeking to get more profits by exploiting workers.

The highest cost of most of these businesses is the labor costs. To drive down the labor costs they will do almost anything. It is not enlightened self-interest, because they are really making profits, but they want more and more.

This package that is being presented on OSHA I call the ``more injuries and more deaths package'' because the end product of chipping away at OSHA provisions is to create a situation where more workers out there are left vulnerable to injuries and to death.

This majority party started its offensive against the working class or working families with a very brutal and obvious attack. The first big action of this majority party when the administration was changed in the White House was to repeal the ergonomics standards that it had taken 10 years to put in place. Ergonomics standards in OSHA dealt with injuries suffered by large numbers of workers in a new environment, a high-tech environment, with different kinds of injuries being generated, but they wiped that out overnight. That was an obvious, brutal, in-your-face attack on working families and organized labor.

Since then, they have sought to chip away, in every way possible, in a long history from 1995, when the change in the majority took place, a steady history of trying to pass bills to cripple OSHA; and they have become less and less strident as time goes on. We have beat back a number of them, but they have come back in other forms, and what we have in this package is the elephant which has been knocked to his knees.

The repeal of the ergonomics standards knocked OSHA to its knees. That elephant is now being fed spoonfuls of poison. These are spoonfuls of poison. They seem common-sensical, they seem trivial, but it is just one way to poison the animal. It will die just the same.

OSHA is made weaker and weaker. The budget has gotten smaller. The number of inspectors, which always was inadequate has been cut. We never intended to cover inspections adequately, but we did do a better job before this present majority took over.

So the cornerstone of the majority Republican Party policy is being enumerated here in terms of workers--we really want them to be more vulnerable; we really want them to have lower costs. We are not going to talk about minimum wage. We are not going to deal with these things which benefit workers. We are going to continue to encourage outsourcing so that more and more jobs are going overseas, and employers can threaten the workers with outsourcing if they act up.

We are going to continue to foster policies which make corporations more and more profitable despite this recession ending, which shows that profits

are going up. Corporations, while there is unemployment, remain the same. Wages are not going up. We are making a clear statement, we want more of the same and we are going to reduce the labor force even further to peasants and serfs who are unable to take care of themselves in the workplace.

The greatest increase in jobs inside this economy, inside America, is going to take place and is taking place in the construction industry; and what they are doing is having large companies subcontract to smaller companies, and the smaller companies become the protectorate of the set of bills that we have here. They have less than 100 employees. They can then proceed to get away with the kinds of violations that we would never allow a larger company because it has different responsibilities.

So this effort, in the name of small businesses, is also an effort which goes after the most vulnerable workers. Construction, the dirtiest work, the most dangerous work, has taken place with immigrant workers and with people who are at the very lowest levels, unable to get any kind of job anywhere else. The number of deaths and injuries that have taken place in the last few years has increased dramatically in this area while the overall number might have gone down a little.

This area is an area where we have had a series of articles appearing in the New York Times which highlight the fact that the OSHA regulations, at present, are minimal. They do not deal with the serious situation that the workplace has in terms of safety and even in terms of death.

We had a hearing just last Wednesday, and I am going to later on read some testimony from those people, but I want to conclude by saying we have a Democratic package for working families in this Nation which includes ending the current tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas, enacting a robust highway bill that would create over 1.8 million good- paying jobs, providing a tax credit for small businesses so small businesses can lower their health care costs, extending Federal unemployment benefits for 2.5 million out-of-work Americans, raising the minimum wage, ensuring that individuals develop the skills that the employers need by increasing job training.

That, in contrast, to a package which is seeking to drive down the working conditions and place the workers in a more vulnerable position so that profits for unscrupulous small businesses can be greatly increased. This package does that. We ought to pay a lot of attention to it and not rush it through this process today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, for an opening statement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the amount of time left?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this particular bill, H.R. 2728, and the other three bills to be considered in succession, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730 and H.R. 2731. As I said earlier in the debate on the rule, this package I would label as a ``more injuries and more deaths package.'' This package I would label as ``a spoon feeding of poison'' to OSHA.

If we compare OSHA to a giant elephant, as has just been boasted by a couple of Members, they knock the elephant to its knees immediately by repealing the ergonomic standards, and now they want to slowly kill the elephant with spoonsful of poison.

Deliberately, it is made to appear these are trivial bills, common- sense bills, they have no real value; but why are they on the floor? I think they are significant only if we take this within the context of what the majority party has been trying to do with OSHA since it took control of the House, if we take it in the context of how the protection of owners and businessmen is the obsession of the majority party. We never get any bills from them which seek to protect workers.

There are quite a number, 14, of significant bills that have been offered since the 104th Congress, starting with the gentleman that just spoke before. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) has offered more than anyone else, and each one of those bills seeks to, in some way, weaken OSHA and to favor law-breaking employers.

These bills will do nothing to strengthen the occupational safety and health standards for American workers. Rather, they will do quite the reverse, by undermining, sometimes suddenly and other times blatantly, the overall effectiveness of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

I would like to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970 to assure ``every working man and woman in the United States safe and healthful work conditions.'' I believe that bears repeating.

OSHA's founding and fundamental purpose, as spelled out in the statute, is to ensure that each and every individual working in the United States carries out his or her work in safe and healthy circumstances.

The bill was not written to overburden business. It has never overburdened business. Every attempt has been made to bend over backwards to limit the burden on business and no attempt is made to protect workers.

This is the yardstick by which we must measure the likely outcomes of each of the bills before us today. Let us briefly review such outcomes.

H.R. 2728: By extending the customary 15-day period for an employer to appeal an OSHA citation, this bill would encourage litigation, and litigation is on the side of the employer not the employee. It would delay the correction or the abatement of whatever hazards have occurred in the workplace related to that citation. As such, it can only place workers at greater risk of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, which runs expressly counter to the purpose of the OSHA Act originally.

H.R. 2729, and I want to talk about all these bills in context first before I deal specifically with each one: By expanding the size of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission from three to five members, this bill simply creates a bigger bureaucracy in search of a mission. Moreover, the bill adds legal training as a qualification for appointment to the commission. It makes OSHA less effective, not more effective.

It diminishes the chances that candidates considered for selection will have the requisite expertise in occupational safety and health. They have got to have legal expertise but they do not have to have expertise and experience directly in relation to occupational safety and health. That expertise is critical to further the assurance of safe conditions for America's working men and women.

H.R. 2730: By extending deference to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission over the Secretary of Labor, this bill contorts and confuses enforcement responsibilities of both the Secretary and the Review Commission. Such confusion will only hinder efforts to fulfill the statutory guarantee of safe and healthy conditions for all workers in this country.

It seems like a small matter, but it is another spoonful of poison which, in the end, can be very effective in killing the elephant.

H.R. 2731: By requiring OSHA to pay attorney fees for any employer with 100 or fewer workers and a net worth of under $7 million, that prevails, even partially, upon appeal, this bill would have a chilling effect on OSHA enforcement efforts. It would almost freeze those efforts. Given that worker death rates are much higher in such firms in comparison to those with more than 100 workers, this bill would encourage litigation and seriously jeopardize progress towards improving the safety and health conditions of American workers.

Moreover, the bill would freeze safety enforcement efforts in the lion's share of private companies in light of the fact that more than 97 percent of all private employers have fewer than 100 employees on the payroll.

I might add that the practice now is for larger employers who are subject to other kinds of regulations and other OSHA standards often to subcontract to small employers and avoid being regulated in the proper way for health and safety.

These bills run counter to the real interests of working Americans, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it. As the senior Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I have heard firsthand from workers around the country about very real and pressing safety and health concerns many face on the job on a daily basis. If neglected or unaddressed, these risks can have severe, and even fatal, consequences.

H.R. 2731: Requiring OSHA to pay attorney fees for any employer with 100 or fewer workers is one of those bills that certainly would create a situation where the likelihood is that less regulation would take place and more workers would be at risk.

In a May 12th forum, which we entitled ``A Job to Die For: Inadequate Enforcement of U.S. Safety Standards,'' I heard from witnesses on the front lines of an epidemic with fatal consequences. Worldwide, this epidemic is deadlier than war. From Brazil to Bangladesh, it claims 6,000 lives a day, which means four lives a minute. In this country, it claims 6,000 lives a year, which computes to one life every 90 minutes.

This epidemic takes a devastating toll on American families and communities. I think my colleagues can see from the arithmetic, we lose more workers per day from deaths in the workplace than we are losing in Iraq. I think that later on we are going to talk about how this phenomenon must be brought to the attention of the American people, starting with the Members of this body in both parties.

This is not a trivial discussion today. This is not a discussion to be quickly passed over. It is at the core of an effort to make the workplace safe and to create better conditions for working, and better respect for working families.

Working families are expected to produce the soldiers that go off to fight our wars. Ninety percent of those in Iraq are from working families, but yet we have an attempt to oppress working families with many measures. We will not even consider a minimum wage increase. We are constantly trying to change workplace safety conditions through these various measures for those members of our society who also shoulder the burden when it is time to go off and fight for the country and defend the country.

I am referring to wrongful deaths in the workplace when I talk about the

6,000 lives lost in this country per year. Individual worker deaths are not random, isolated events. Rather, they are often tragic certainties that are almost always preventable. Unlike a disease that is triggered by a mysterious or elusive virus, this outbreak is caused by the willful and reckless safety violations of certain employers. Let me repeat, the willful and reckless safety violations of certain employers.

Much has been said about the fact that most employers care about their employees. And that may be true, but there is a large, large percentage that care only about the profits, and they are constantly squeezing the workers and jeopardizing the safety and health of workers in an attempt to increase their profits. Such business owners pursue profits and their own economic interests at the expense of basic safety practices, and all too often this comes at the actual expense of workers' lives.

We have learned that for Latino workers the risk of workplace fatalities keeps rising. They right now happen to be the most vulnerable. Recent immigrants are forced to take the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. As highlighted in the recent investigative series by the Associated Press, immigrant workers born in Mexico are now 80 percent more likely to be killed on the job than their U.S.-born peers. This is almost three times greater than the disproportionate risk of workplace fatalities for the rest of the population. Even by conservative estimates, a Mexican worker is killed on the job every day in this country.

The Federal Government is astonishingly ineffectual at combating this epidemic of wrongful deaths, both with respect to immigrant workers born in Mexico and all other workers. The current administration is replacing standard OSHA inspections with voluntary compliance programs that ignore the work sites where deaths are most likely to occur.

And much is being made by the majority party of volunteering and trusting employers. The OSHA was developed by legislation because it was clear that employers could not be trusted to safeguard the health and safety of workers. The current administration is replacing standard OSHA inspections with voluntary compliance that ignores the work sites where deaths are most likely to occur. You can find that the majority of American employers do care about their employees and safety, but that minority is the problem; and they are not being properly scrutinized.

Moreover, OSHA has increased the percentage of its budget dedicated to voluntary efforts by 8 percent. These discussions and negotiations of voluntary efforts have run off with the slight increases that have been made in the OSHA budget while they have reduced the funds devoted to safety enforcement by 6 percent.

At the same time, the U.S. continues to lag behind other Western nations in preventing workplace deaths. A construction worker in the U.S. is four times more likely to be killed on the job than a worker in Belgium. In comparison with their British counterparts, American construction workers are twice as likely to be killed on the work site.

These are critical health and safety issues we should be addressing today as opposed to the four bills that would further undermine OSHA's effectiveness in protecting American workers. We have the most productive workers in the world. We ought to appreciate that and try to protect those workers, not squeeze them more, not make them sweat more, and not endanger their lives more.

I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 2728, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730 and H.R. 2731.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I take issue with the last statement. We are on the first quarter of a four-bill marathon. They have been put together by the majority. We choose to discuss them as we see fit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. PAYNE) to close out this first quarter of this four-bill marathon.

(Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.