Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 09, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 754 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 5006.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Obey-Miller amendment. For 70 years, overtime pay has meant time and a half in this country. It has allowed the employee some flexibility to make some extra cash to put a roof over their family's heads, to buy groceries, to pay their medical bills. And without overtime, countless Americans, including some police officers, firefighters, nurses, EMTs, would be forced to take a second job to make up for the lost earnings, meaning more time away from their families and higher child care costs.

Absent this amendment, 6 million workers, some earning as little as $23,660, will lose their right to overtime pay. I might just add at this moment this is pretty much in keeping with what this administration is about when they have denied the child tax credit to those families that make from $10,500 to $26,500. So they are in keeping with trying to continually put people who are making these wages in a very difficult economic position. The rule changes that we are talking about here that went into effect in August are designed to give companies the authority to withhold rightfully earned pay by their employees by weakening the 1938 Fair Standards Labor Act, protections that safeguard our workers' rights today and make mandatory overtime a less attractive option for the employer.

This paves the way for mandatory overtime, this at a time when we have more than 8 million Americans out of work, when income is declining, poverty is increasing, and 45 million Americans are without health insurance. This is an administration who says, with 8 million people out of work that they will not extend unemployment benefits. Historically, on a bipartisan basis when we have experienced significant unemployment in the United States, we have extended those benefits. But in talking some to folks at the Department of Labor, they have said that the reason why they will not extend those benefits is because if we do it, these workers will not go out and look for a job. It gives us some idea of what kind of an opinion and view that this administration has for those who work for a living. Would that they would walk in the shoes of working men and women in this great country of ours.

To those who would argue that these rules expand overtime protections, I point them to a report by three of the highest-ranking career Department of Labor officials in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, which found that all but one of these changes to the overtime rules take away workers' overtime rights.

Mr. Chairman, this is a matter of values, of our country's longstanding contract with working people that says hard work deserves to be rewarded. That is bedrock, that is what this Nation is built on, and yet this is an administration that will reward wealth but not work. That is what the Bush economy is all about. And these hard workers need to be rewarded especially when that work is above and beyond the call of duty after normal working hours.

That contract must be honored, and I urge my colleagues to support the Obey-Miller amendment.

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