Date: 2010-07-30
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House. I hope that all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support this Whistleblower Protection Act. I hope that they understand that many. many thousands. millions of American workers work in work sites where every day they pose an inherent danger to those workers. The question of whether or not those workers will be safe or not very often is decided by the employer. who decides how they will structure the work site. what the work rules will be. and how the work and the process will proceed. But very often those employers sometimes shortchange safety. They choose to pick production over the safety of their workers. They choose to pick cost cutting over safety of their workers. They choose to pick hurrying up the job over the safety of their workers. They choose to pick getting certain parts of the job done and get them offsite over the safety of their workers. In todays economy. and in every economy. for many of these workers. its a terrible choice to think about if I raise my hand on behalf of safety. will I lose my job? If I raise a question about the process that we are about to engage in here and how dangerous it is. will I lose my job? I represent a district where people work in these industries. in the chemical industry and the refining industry. You know what? We lose workers in those jobs all too often. and all too often we find out the mistakes that were made and we wonder. And even those workers. who are covered by whistleblower protection. know the tradeoff. Because. dont forget. all whistleblower protection does is give you a right to try to proceed to get your job back. Many times thats delayed and workers go months and months without pay because they had the courage to invoke their rights. This Whistleblower Protection Act is consistent with the other Federal protections for workers throughout this country. but these workers today on the Outer Continental Shelf have no protection at all with respect to their personal safety. and we are simply filling that gap and making sure that they will have that right. Now. many companiesand I have talked to the CEOs of some of these companiessay. you know. we give you the right at any time to pull the switch. to shut down the job. to stop it. if you think its unsafe. One company gives out a card. You get a card and you put the card down. Its sort of like in the World Cupyou get a timeout. Do you know what the supervisors tell the employees that card is? A getfired card. Play that card. get fired. So the company says play this card any time you want. but the supervisors make it clear what the pressure is. Thats why we need this whistleblower protection for the workers on the Outer Continental Shelf. I have to believe. given the concerns that are documented in the hearings of this Congress. that had these workers had that kind of protection. there would have been a far greater chance that they would have said. wait a minute. because they had concerns about the procedure as they started to withdraw from this drill site. They had concerns about the condition of the rig. They had concerns about the overriding of safety alarms. Yet we saw the explosion and the tragedy and the loss of life of these workers. Lets do something in their memory that will protect their colleagues on the Outer Continental Shelf. Lets pass this bill with large bipartisan support. In the name of these workers. these workers who fell into a gap in the protection laws of this Nation. lets fill that gap. Lets provide them the protection. and lets make their death not be in vain with respect to their coworkers. I ask for support of this legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.