Date: 2001-03-07
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. the matter before the House tonight is nothing more than a frontal assault on the rights of millions of workers. millions of workers who get up and go to work every day and work hard on behalf of their employer and on behalf of their family so they can provide for their family. so they can provide a standard of living that they desire for their -children. In the process of working every day. many of these workers suffer injuries to their hands. wrists. to their back and neck because they have repetitive motion in their jobs. Whether they are keypunch operators. whether they work in a warehouse. whether they work as a baggage handler or waitress or waiter in a restaurant. whether they work in a lumber mill or hospital. these workers suffer these injuries. some 600.000 of them every year. As a result of these injuries. these workers lose wages. they lose hours of work. they lose the ability to provide for their family. Some of them lose the ability to even ever go back to work. they are so badly damaged. But one of the things we know is that most of these injuries are preventable. The workplace can be adjusted. We see it all of the time. in the supermarket. in the offices. in the hospitals. We have made adjustments to try to protect these workers. But what this legislation does today. it says you cannot have this standard as a matter of national right. So if you do not have protection in that workplace. if you do not have protection in that State that is adequate. you do not get it now. because if we vote to repeal the standard that is now on the books to protect workers. we do not get to come back. I appreciate what the Secretary of Labor has said. But the law as written says you do not get to come back and write an equivalent standard. a standard that is similar to this. because then someone will take you to court and you will be violating the law. This is about the repeal of the protections of 6 million workers who go to work every day. I do not know if my colleagues recognize them when the Fed Ex driver comes to their door. I do not know if they recognize these workers as the flight attendants who are wearing braces on their wrists. I do not know if they recognize them at WalMart and Home Depot as they are wearing belts around their back. as they are wearing braces on their wrist because of those activities. but those are the people that make America go. The least they ought to have is protection against those damaging kinds of injuries. The least they ought to have is compensation to take care of them. And they ought to understand that we ought to be trying tO improve these workplaces. When we do it. we save employers millions of dollars. When we do it. we keep workers from getting injured. But this now says that we are not going to have that as a matter of standard. This now says that we are going to take 10 years of medical evidence. 10 years of scientific evidence. 10 years of testimony by workers. men and women all across this country. about the damage that they have suffered and the manner in which it can be prevented. And in 1 hour of debate tonight. we are going to throw that argument out. We are going to throw these standards out. We are going to take this protection away from Americas working men and women. It is not fair to them. It is not fair to their families. It is not fair to the standard of living that they are trying to maintain. I would urge that we vote against this resolution.