Date: 2004-06-02
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Spdaker. this decision to go in to work in the industrial forces of this country during World War II was not a decision that could be taken lightly. The fact of the matter is this was dangerous. hard. heavy work that these women were engaged in. in many of these professions. We are told that between Pearl Harbor and January 1 of 1944. 37.000 people were killed in these industrial factories and shipyards and airplane factories.*and over 210.000 were permanently disabled. and almost 4 million were temporarily disabled. 60 times the count on the battlefront in that.situation. So these women were making serious sacrifices in many instances and. in some cases. their lives. This weekend. as I mentioned. we will do a ribboncutting on the Visitors Center of the Rosie the Riveter World War II homefront Park in Richmond. California. and it is symbolic of so many of the activities that took place on the homefront in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere in the Nation. There are other sites around the Nation that will be added to this park where these homefront activities took place. But in the western United States prior to the war. for the decade prior to the war. we had produced no merchant ships and. all of a sudden. with the advent of the war. we produced 4.600 ships in 1.300 days. In one instance we produced a ship. the SS Robert Peary. a liberty ship. in 4 days. 15 hours. and 29 minutes from start to finish. That ship was produced and sent on its way to contribute to the war. That effort was possible because of the participation of women in the workforce. the Rosie the Riveters. and the contributions that they made to the homefront campaign to not only ready America for the war. to keep it engaged in the war. but to win that war in Europe and in the Pacific campaigns. Thousands and thousands of workers migrated across the country to come to California to work in the war industries. to work on the West Coast. in Seattle. in Puget Sound. and elsewhere in those war industries. As they did. they changed. as so many of our colleagues have already spoken to. they changed the face of the workforce. they changed the race of the workforce. they changed the makeup of the workforce. and they changed the attitudes of employers toward workers. Because at the Kaiser Shipyard they knew that they needed to keep every employee on the job all of the time. That is why we saw what is now the Kaiser health care system. The largest HMO in the country today Was started in the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond. California. It was there because they provided full health care coverage for all of their workers and their families. In my district. of those people who have health care insurance. I think roughly three out of four are enrolled in the Kaiser insurance plan. That is a legacy of the Rosie the Riveter days of the homefront effort during the war and is the model for child care in the workplace in this country. It was begun in these industries because of the necessity of making sure that these women could balance the care of their children. the good health of their children. and the need of this country to have them engage in the workforce. I am very proud that one of my aunts. Laura Kerry. was a Rosie the Riveter in the shipyards. My father worked as a labor arbitrator for the shipyards between the workforce and the employers at that time. So. again. I want to thank the gentlewoman from West Virginia for sponsoring this resolution. and the Womens Caucus and the gentlewoman from New York for her sponsorship on this side of this legislation. Mr. Speaker. I urge all of my colleagues to support this measure. Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.