Jumpstart Our Business Strength (JOBS) Act - Continued

JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STRENGTH (JOBS) ACT-CONTINUED

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I underline once again what the Senator from Connecticut has been saying about the average wage in 2001. The average wage of the jobs we lost in 2001 was $44,570, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average wage of the jobs we are gaining today is $35,000, down 21 percent. This is outside of the overtime. These are the new jobs. This is the average wage today of the new jobs being created, $35,000; $44,000 of the jobs we lost in 2001.

This is what is happening, and we are saying to these workers: Well, that is not bad enough. We are going to deny you overtime pay. We have been denying you an increase in the minimum wage for 7 years. We are going to deny you unemployment compensation-90,000 people a week. These are the facts. The average wage of jobs lost was $44,570 to but only $35,410 for the jobs gained.

As this chart shows you, American workers are working longer and harder than workers in any other industrial nation in the world. Look at this line right over here. The United States is right at the top. Americans are working longer, they are working harder, and they are falling further and further and further and further behind. And what is the answer of this administration? Cut overtime. We can do better. What is the answer of the Republican leadership? Deny us a chance to do something about it.

That is what we are faced with.

Well, it seems to me that hopefully Americans will have their answer sometime soon. If we are not able to on this bill, I know the Senators from Connecticut and Illinois share my view. I know the Senator from Iowa does. This is just the beginning. This is the opening shot. I tell our Republican friends, this issue is coming at you again and again and again. Make no mistake about it.

You don't like to vote on it? Too bad. These families are suffering out there, and we are going to keep bringing this up, again and again and again and again, until you do vote on it.

Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. KENNEDY. I am glad to yield.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Connecticut. I think what we hear in this
discussion should be described in simple terms to those following this debate. We are asking, on the floor of the Senate, for an up-or-down vote for Members to be counted on the question of whether the Bush administration will, for the first time in the history of the law, restrict overtime pay to American workers.

Since the law was created in 1938 establishing overtime, each successive administration that has changed the law-Democrat and Republican-has expanded the class of workers eligible for overtime.

But this time, this administration, which has witnessed almost 3 million jobs eliminated in America, has now suggested that we should reduce and eliminate overtime for 8 million American workers.

I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, it is part of a pattern. The Bush administration is not sensitive to the real needs of working families. They have resisted the efforts of the Senator from Massachusetts to increase the minimum wage for 7 years.

Think about how many people are working one, two, and three jobs to try to put enough money together to keep their families in a good home, to pay their basic bills. Yet they resist increases in the minimum wage.

Then, when you ask them about these jobs going overseas, the Bush administration's economic adviser says the outsourcing of jobs to India and China is a good thing. Where does he live? Where does he get his advice? This man is trapped in a textbook. He should get out on Main Street and talk to real families. The outsourcing of jobs overseas is not a good thing. It is costing us jobs in America.

When the Senators from Massachusetts and Connecticut stand up and say, well, for goodness' sake, at least take pity on unemployed Americans, help them keep their families together, pay for their health insurance now that they have lost their jobs, consistently, on the floor of the Senate, the other party-the Republican Party-votes against the extension of unemployment benefits.

In my State we have thousands of people unemployed who have no benefits coming in. How do you keep it together under those circumstances?

And the last point-an important one we are discussing-is the idea that we would eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers. I think the Senator has made such a positive and important point. Who are these workers? They are firefighters; they are policemen; they are nurses.

I do not know about the State of Massachusetts. In the State of Illinois, we have a serious shortage of nurses. Hospitals come to me and say: Can you help us bring nurses in from the Philippines and overseas? We don't have enough nurses. And this administration says we are going to eliminate overtime pay for nurses? What will that do to us? Fewer and fewer health care professionals in hospitals cannot make America healthier or safer, and that is what they are proposing.

But today I believe the Senator from Massachusetts has brought to us the icing on the cake. Now we have this administration saying, when it comes to overtime, if you happen to be a soldier in the military or an activated guardsman or reservist, and you serve your country, and are trained in service, pick up skills, when you come home, because of this Bush administration proposal, you will be disqualified from overtime pay.

It is almost incredible to say those words: That men and women leave their families with the 233rd unit of the Illinois National Guard, military police, and are gone for a year over in Iraq-who are coming home in a few weeks, thank God; their families have waited patiently-but if they made the mistake of picking up a new skill while they were activated, they could be disqualified from overtime pay when they return to their job. That is exactly what the Bush administration is proposing.

We hear so many speeches about how Members of the Senate are going to stand up for fighting soldiers, stand up for the vets. I ask the Senator from Massachusetts, when it comes to the Bush proposal to eliminate overtime for those vets who have been trained in the military, how can this possibly be a demonstration of our support and admiration for the men and women in uniform?