Providing for Consideration of H.R. 27, Job Training Improvement Act of 2005

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 27, JOB TRAINING IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - March 02, 2005)

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

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. The 109th Congress convened 2 months ago. The Committee on Rules has reported eight rules, including the one we are considering today. None of these rules, not a single one, has been open. The Republican majority is zero for eight on open rules. It is an abysmal record and just continues to prove how out of touch with America, and with the democratic process, this leadership really is.

I oppose this rule and I oppose this bill. The Republican leadership seems to think that the job picture in this country is rosy, but they could not be more wrong. They seem to think jobs are popping out of the woodwork, but it is clear our workers need job training assistance in order to compete in the 21st century workplace.

When we think that the Republican leadership cannot be any more out of touch with the challenges facing working Americans, they bring the Job Training Improvement Act of 2005 to the floor today.

Let us look at the facts. Every day over 85,000 people in this country lose their jobs. Under this administration's watch, the Nation has lost 2.8 million jobs, and 4.3 million formerly middle class Americans have been pushed into poverty. President Bush's failed economic policies have produced a 5.2 percent unemployment rate.

Let us be clear. This slightly lower unemployment rate does not signal a rebounding labor market. In addition to the 8 million Americans who are currently unemployed, there are 5 million unemployed workers who want to work but have given up looking for jobs simply because there are no jobs out there for them. Beyond that, there are 4.5 million people who have accepted low-wage, part-time work simply because they cannot find full-time employment in this weak economy. The real unemployment rate would skyrocket to 9.3 percent by merely including these workers.

And not only are millions of American workers looking for jobs, but the long-term unemployment rate, workers who have been jobless for 6 months or more, is the highest in more than 20 years. Despite these startling statistics, this administration has continued to resist efforts to extend unemployment benefits for the 3.5 million workers who have exhausted their coverage.

The Republicans have mismanaged this economy, and American workers are paying the price through lower pay, reduced benefits, and in too many cases job loss. As if this were not enough, the Republican leadership is trying to enact broad, sweeping changes to the Workforce Investment Act. This bill will do nothing to create new jobs, reduce the number of unemployed people in this country, or sufficiently training workers for jobs. Frankly, this bill is a slap in the face to American workers. Contrary to what we will hear from the Republican leadership, the Job Training Improvement Act will actually make it harder for the unemployed to obtain employment and reemployment training.

Specifically, H.R. 27 would eliminate the employment services system, a program which provides critical job assistance to those unemployed workers hardest hit with the job loss of recent years. In my home State of Massachusetts, this program provides services to nearly 165,000 jobseekers each year, and it has successfully helped 75 percent of them retain employment in less than 6 months.
In addition, this bill block grants adult and dislocated worker funding streams. It allows States to use funds from the Disability and Veteran Employment and Adult Learning Programs to fund expenses at the Workforce Investment Act's centers. The result of this provision will be more bureaucracy and less training for the disabled and veterans.

Given all of the rhetoric that we hear about supporting our troops and providing for our veterans, we should find this provision particularly disturbing. We should be doing everything we can to help veterans find employment instead of slashing the disability and veteran employment and adult learning programs.

Additionally, the bill eliminates existing protections and safeguards against low quality and potentially fraudulent job training providers and permits States to allow these providers to receive Federal funding. It caps at 30 percent the use of funds for services targeting low-income youth, those considered most likely to drop out of school.

If that were not bad enough, this bill also abandons a core principle of our Constitution by repealing civil rights protections written into current law.

Twenty-one years ago, then-Senator Dan Quayle sponsored legislation that provided civil rights protections against religious-based employment discrimination in programs that receive Federal funding. These protections were extended to secular as well as religious organizations. President Reagan signed that bill into law. It is not every day that I praise Dan Quayle, but the nondiscrimination provision he offered is good policy which has served us well. This provision received strong bipartisan support when the Workforce Reinvestment Act was reauthorized in 1998.

However, the Job Training Investment Act shreds these protections by allowing religious organizations to receive Federal funding for job-training activities and social services while also employing religious-based discriminatory practices. In other words, this bill would allow a religious organization that discriminates based on religion, like a Bob Jones University, to get taxpayer money and use that Federal funding to legally discriminate on religious grounds when hiring staff to carry out the job training programs and services in this bill.

But let me be clear, the right of churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious organizations to remain free from government intervention has long been protected under the law, and I am sure my colleagues join me in support of this protection. Congress has always exempted faith-based organizations from antidiscrimination provisions in programs funded by their own money, and we are not proposing that a church or synagogue or mosque be forbidden from using religious criteria in deciding who to hire as a minister or rabbi or imam.

However, that same church, synagogue or mosque should not be permitted to apply for and receive Federal funding for job training and then, as written in this bill, be exempted from Federal civil rights protections. Faith-based institutions should be required, like all other recipients of Federal funds, to adhere to basic civil rights laws, and I cannot even begin to count the number of institutions that have contacted my office in the last few days asking to be held to those same standards.

Last night in the Committee on Rules, I heard my colleagues, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) talk about a return to discrimination practices that forced these men and millions of other African Americans to drink from separate drinking fountains and eat at separate lunch counters from white Americans.

How can anyone justify abandoning one of our Nation's most fundamental principles? How can Members believe this is the right position for Congress to advocate? How can Members believe this provision is moral? I certainly cannot find it in myself to do so. This provision is offensive, it is ugly, it is wrong, it is unacceptable. But beyond that, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is unconstitutional and unAmerican.

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) will offer an amendment to strike this offensive provision from the bill. I hope that my colleagues will join me in voting for the Scott amendment. It is important that we oppose discrimination at every turn, and this is an important vote.

Mr. Speaker, many Democrats offered several high-quality amendments in the Committee on Rules yesterday. Unfortunately, the majority has continued to stifle the democratic process by denying common sense amendments to this bill.
Just because the Republican leadership allowed the Scott amendment to be considered on the floor today does not make this a good rule. Once again, let me remind my colleagues and the American people watching at home that the Republicans have not reported one single open rule this year.

Mr. Speaker, this is an unfair rule, poor policy-making and a bad bill. It is truly a tragedy when a Nation that prides itself on democracy and equality considers and will most likely pass a bill that would permit employment discrimination in federally-funded programs. It is a slippery slope from here on out, and I fear this may just be the beginning. I urge this House to defeat the rule and vote against the bill.

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

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would just reiterate that what we believe is that taxpayer money should not be used by faith-based organizations to discriminate against people based on religion. What we feel is that this provision in this bill is offensive and it turns the clock backwards on civil rights.

Mr. Speaker, I include for printing in the RECORD a letter opposing this bill signed by 67 religious organizations and civil rights organizations that have great concerns not only with the provision on religious-based employment discrimination but on a whole series of other provisions.

February 28, 2005.

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE: The undersigned organizations are writing to urge you to vote against H.R. 27, the Job Training Improvement Act, unless it is modified to address the concerns outlined in this letter; and to oppose any effort to expand the block grant authority in the bill along the lines of the Administration's ``WIA Plus'' proposal.

H.R. 27 fails to make meaningful improvements to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) that would enhance the training and career opportunities of unemployed workers. Instead, the legislation would eliminate the dislocated worker training program, undermine state rapid response systems, end the federal-state labor exchange system, roll back protections against religious discrimination in hiring by job training providers, and potentially undermine the stability of other important programs.

In particular, we are concerned about the following provisions in H.R. 27:

NEW BLOCK GRANT

H.R. 27 consolidates into a single block grant the WIA adult and dislocated worker programs with the Wagner-Peyser employment service program and reemployment services for unemployment insurance recipients. In doing so, it will eliminate job training assistance specifically targeted to workers dislocated by off shoring and other economic changes, pit different types of workers against each other, and lead to future funding reductions. The block grant also eliminates the statewide job service, which provides a uniform statewide system for matching employers and jobseekers, replacing it with a multiplicity of localized programs that would have no incentive or ability to cooperate and function as a comprehensive labor exchange system. Eliminating the employment service, which is financed with revenue from the unemployment insurance (UI) trust fund, breaks the connection between the unemployment insurance program and undermines the UI ``work test,'' which ensures that UI recipients return to work as quickly as possible.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND CORE SERVICES FUNDING

A principal criticism of WIA has been the substantial decline in actual training compared to its predecessor, the Job Training Partnership Act. While there are various reasons for the reduction in training, including the sequence of services requirement in current law, the use of WIA resources by local boards and operators to build new one-stop facilities and bureaucracies, without any limitation, has contributed substantially to the decline in training. This is despite the fact that many WIA partner programs also contribute operating funds to one-stop operations.

H.R. 27 gives governors even broader discretion to transfer additional resources from the WIA partner programs to pay for WIA infrastructure and core services costs--without any assurance that more training would result. These programs include the vocational rehabilitation program, veterans employment programs, adult education, the Perkins post secondary career and technical education programs, unemployment insurance, trade adjustment assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and, if they are partners, employment and training programs under the food stamp and housing programs, programs for individuals with disabilities carried out by state agencies, including state Medicaid agencies, and even child support enforcement. By relying on funding transfers from these programs to guarantee resources for WIA infrastructure and core services, H.R. 27 will disrupt and weaken services provided by these non-WIA programs, which also will face substantial pressures for funding reductions in the next few years.

The infrastructure and related provisions start the commingling of funds from these non-WIA programs. In doing so, they transform the original one-stop idea of a better-coordinated workforce system into a mechanism for reducing resources for and block granting these programs in the future. A more effective and simple solution to ensuring adequate training services would be to require that a certain percentage of WIA funds be used for training as provided in previous job training programs and to create a separate WIA funding stream for one-stop operations, if necessary.

PERSONAL REEMPLOYMENT ACCOUNTS

H.R. 27 includes permanent and unlimited authority for the Secretary to conduct ``personal reemployment account'' (PRA) demonstratious even though the Department of Labor recently initiated a PRA demonstration without strong interest among the states. Although nine states could have participated, only seven are doing so.

Since this demonstration already is in process, we see no justification for this provision and can only surmise that it is an attempt to implement PRAs more broadly, despite a lack of Congressional support for a full-scale program in the past.

Unlike current WIA training programs, the PRAs would limit the cost of training that an unemployment insurance recipient can receive and would bar that individual from WIA training services for a year after the PRA account is established. This is the wrong way to go. With long-term unemployment at historically high levels, there is a much greater need for continued unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed who have found it so difficult to become reemployed.

RELIGIOUS-BASED EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION

H.R. 27 repeals longstanding civil rights protections that prohibit religious-based employment discrimination by job training providers. These protections have been included in job training programs, which received bipartisan support, since 1982. At no time have the civil rights provisions prohibited religious organizations from effective participation in federal job training programs. This rollback of civil rights protections is especially incongruous in a program designed to provide employment and career opportunities in an evenhanded manner and should be rejected.

WIA PLUS PROPOSAL

The Administration has proposed giving Governors authority to merge five additional programs into the WIA block grant. The proposal would eliminate specialized assistance to unemployed, disabled and homeless veterans, critical job training services for workers under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act whose jobs have been outsourced or lost to foreign competition, and specialized counseling and customized help for people with disabilities through state vocational rehabilitation agencies. These individuals would have to compete with each other for a declining share of resources without the protections and requirements under current law. Furthermore, the proposal abrogates accountability for the expenditure of federal taxpayer dollars by eliminating program reporting requirements. We strongly urge you to oppose any effort to adopt this misguided plan.

In summary, H.R. 27 strays far from the appropriate mission for federal job training programs of enhancing training opportunities for workers and providing skilled workers for employers. We strongly urge you to oppose this legislation unless amendments are adopted to delete the block grant, PRA demonstration and religious-based discrimination provisions and to modify the infrastructure provisions as recommended.

American Association of People with Disabilities.
American Civil Liberties Union.
American Counseling Association.
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
American Humanist Association.
American Jewish Congress.
American Psychological Association.
American RehabACTion Network.
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA).
Americans for Religious Liberty.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU).
Association for Career and Technical Education.
Baptist Joint Committee.
Brain Injury Association of America.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Training.
Campaign for America's Future.
Center for Community Change.
Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Council of State Administrators for Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR).
Easter Seals.
Equal Partners in Faith.
Goodwill Industries.
Institute for America's Future.
Interfaith Alliance.
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
National Alliance For Partnerships in Equity.
National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium.
National Association of State Head Injury Administrators.
National Council of Jewish Women.
National Education Association.
National Employment Law Project.
National Head Start Association.
National Immigration Law Center.
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.
National League of Cities.
National Organization for Women.
National Rehabilitation Association (NRA).
National WIC Association.
National Women's Law Center.
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.
OMB Watch.
Paralyzed Veterans of America.
Patient Alliance for Neuroendocrineimmune Disorders; Organization for Research and Advocacy.
Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union.
Professional Employees Department, AFL-CIO.
Protestants for the Common Good.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The Arc of the U.S..
United Cerebral Palsy.
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.
United Auto Workers (UAW).
United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries.
United Mineworkers of America.
United Steelworkers of America.
USAction.
Welfare Law Center.
Wider Opportunities for Women.
Women Employed.
Women Work! The National Network for Women's Employment.
YWCA USA.
9 to 5, National Association of Working Women.

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

I would just say to the gentleman who just spoke that we believe that there are many religious organizations, many faith-based organizations that do incredible work, and they will still be able to do incredible work. What we object to, quite frankly, is the use of taxpayers' money to basically subsidize discrimination. It is not just a concern that those of us who are speaking here have; I submitted a list of close to 70 civil rights and religious organizations that have objections to this provision, including the African American Ministers in Action; American Jewish Committee; the American Jewish Congress; Americans for Religious Liberty; the Anti-Defamation League; the Baptist Joint Committee; Central Conference of American Rabbis; Episcopal Church, USA; the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church; the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; National Council of Jewish Women; NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby; Presbyterian Church USA; Protestants For the Common Good; Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Texas Faith Network; the Interfaith Alliance; Union for Reform Judaism; United Universalist Association of Congregations; United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries. They go on and on and on. This is a concern that many of the faith-based organizations all across this country share with us.

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