Date: 2003-05-21
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. the real "shock and awe" is whats happening to American workers. The House of Representatives passed an extension of unemployment Insurance benefits? on January 27th for almost 3 million unemployed American workers. At that time I stated that the legislation is. albeit a small one. step in the right direction. However. I was supportive of a much stronger unemployment compensation extension. one that would have provided benefits to an additional 1 million American workers whose benefits have expired. Specifically. on December 28th. 800.000 Americans lost their extended unemployment benefits. The Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation (TEUC) program ended on December 28th because the President and House Republicans rejected Democratic pleas to extend the TEUC program with a compromise bill that the Senate had passed unanimously. I was in full support of the House Democrats comprehensive unemployment benefits bill introduced by Representative RANGEL. This bill would have reestablished and expanded the Federal extended unemployment benefits program. Most importantly. it would have guaranteed all jobless workers at least 26 weeks of extended benefits. Unfortunately. the House GOP leadership refused to allow a vote on this Democratic bill. Instead. they only allowed members to vote on their bill. which provides an extension of only 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits. with no extension to workers whose benefits have already expired. Mr. Speaker. the DallasFor Worths 100 biggest employers shave eliminated about 41.000 jobs in the last two years. according to the Dallas Morning News Annual Top 100 Employers ranking. The big employers have been hit especially hard because they Include a high proportion of technology and telecom companies. More than a third of the regions total job losses at employers of all sizes were in technology. according to one estimate. And the longsuffering industry has shown no signs of rebounding. To make matters worse. my Districts biggest local employer. AMR Corp.. parent company of American Airlines Inc.. expects to shed thousands more jobs in coming months in an effort to keep the company solvent. The airline cut 3.000 jobs in the last year and this month began notifying 7.100 unionized workers that their jobs would be cut underJhe new concessionary contracts approved by the unions. Dallasbased Greyhound Lines Inc.. the nations largest operator of passenger buses and number 78 on this years list. lost about 200 employees. And the cuts may not be over. In the last three years alone. of the 105.000 jobs lost In the Dallas area. 30.000 to 40.000 were probably In Information technology. And its taking longer than ever for those unemployed workers to find new jobs. Such figures stand in sharp contrast.to Febrary 2001. when unemployment In Dallas was 4.2 percent. In unemployment figures released recently. the nations jobless rate had reached 6 percent. matching Decembers eightyear high. More than 500.000 Americans have lost their jobs In the last three months alone. Mr. Speaker. we will need to provide meanIngful assistance to workers by passing health care relief for those who have lost their coverage along with their jobs. This Congress should stay here. extend unemployment bene=rfits for at least an additional 13 weeks. and tackle the serious problem of how we are going to put America back to work. These are the kinds of real benefits that we owe AmerIcan famljles.