Providing for Consideraton of H.R. 739, H.R. 740, H.R. 741, H.R. 742
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 739, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH SMALL BUSINESS DAY IN COURT ACT OF 2005; H.R. 740, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH REVIEW COMMISSION EFFICIENCY ACT OF 2005; H.R. 741, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF OSHA CITATIONS ACT OF 2005; H.R. 742, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH SMALL EMPLOYER ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - July 12, 2005)
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Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote down H.R. 739, 740, 741 and 742 in order to ensure the continued health and safety of America's workers.
We are here today to talk about improving the lives of America's workers, but the quartet of bills before us would only serve to further endanger them. Together these bills represent a one-sided rollback of the workplace health and safety standards established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and would lead to increases in workplace injury, illness and quite possibly death.
For our nation's workers, this is a matter of life and death--by the end of today, 15 workers will have died and 12,000 will have sustained an injury or illness because of workplace incidents. Congress should be making law to improve workplace safety. And while this seems to be the view of the vast majority of the country, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have put forth legislation today that does exactly the opposite.
This legislation will undercut the ability of OSHA to enforce its own rules and actually creates a legal loophole, which will allow businesses to stall and avoid addressing a safety violation. Adding insult to injury, the legislation allows President Bush to stack the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the body responsible for OSHA appeals, with Republican appointees subservient to business interests. Inexplicably, one measure actually punishes OSHA for attempting to enforce its own workplace safety standards.
While the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the bill, it is unable to estimate the cost to America's workers ..... the lives lost or the injuries sustained as a result of this misguided legislation. Republicans argue that this legislation will help all businesses. The small businesses that I know would benefit far more from having safe and healthy workers than from having a law that encourages more dangerous work environments. In fact, Liberty Mutual, the largest workers' compensation insurance company, estimates that the direct cost of occupational injuries and illnesses is $1 billion a week. Considering these massive costs, we should be strengthening workplace safety standards, not undercutting them.
But Congress has a choice today. We actually have the opportunity to do something that would benefit workers. My distinguished colleague, GEORGE MILLER, the Ranking Member of the Education and Workforce Committee, has offered a bill that rather than attacking OSHA, would instead raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour. This would allow workers to better meet the basic challenges they face everyday like paying rent, putting food on the table and getting access to health care.
It is truly a statement of this nation's priorities that an individual who is working at a minimum wage job, lives below the poverty line. Barbara Ehrenreich, a New York Times reporter, tried to do so--moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. What she learned and shared in her book, appropriately titled, ``Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America,'' was that one job is not enough, especially if you want to live inside.
This is the real challenge that Americans are facing and Congress should be seeking to address, but the bills we are considering merely serve to undercut the government's ability to enforce workplace safety guidelines. It is shameful that in the same breath the Republican leadership advocates reducing worker safety and refuses to even permit a vote on raising the minimum wage.
We truly have a choice today--an opportunity to actually improve the lives of America's workers, those who propel our economy forward--we should not overlook this. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the previous question to support real help for America's workers.
The amendment previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:
Previous Question on H. Res. 351, the Rule Providing for Consideration of Four OSHA Bills H.R. 739, H.R. 740, H.R. 741, H.R. 742
At the end of the resolution add the following new section:
``SEC. __. Immediately upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order without intervention of any point of order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 2429) to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage. The bill shall be considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) 60 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without instructions.''
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