Date: 2004-09-09
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman. we have just seen the last desperate attempt by the Department of Labor to hold on to its outrageous regulations to take away overtime from 6 million hardworking Americans. 6 million Americans that use overtime to maintain thdir status in the middle class. 6 million Americans that use overtime to pay for their childrens education. to qualify for their home. to make their car payments. 6 million Americans that hate overtime on Thursday and Friday night and over the weekend. but they love it at the end of the year when it is in their W2 form. It makes up a considerable amount of their yearly income. For those who receive overtime. it is as high as 20 to 25 percent of their income throughout the year. This is how they maintain their standard of living. by working overtime. And what is overtime? It is the premium time you get paid because you were asked to work beyond your 40 hours. You get a premium because you have to go out and rearrange your child care arrangements. you have to change your doctor appointments. you have to limit your ability to see your children and participate in their school events or sporting activities. Because it imposes a burden on the worker and it gives a benefit to the employer. that is why it is premium time. What does the Department of Labor do. what does the Bush administration do. and what is this Republican Congress trying to do? They are saying to the American worker. you are going to work the hours. you are just not going to get the pay. This is the largest governmentimposed pay cut in the history of this country. the largest governmentim posed pay cut in the history of this country. when American workers are threatened by the outsourcing of their jobs. instability in the workplace. a struggling economy. their pensions are under assault. their companies are threatening to go to bankruptcy court to get rid of their health care. to get rid of their pensions. to undermine their wages. to take away their union contract. if they have one. And what is the Bush administrations response to this? To cut their overtime. What is it that the middle class in America did that so enraged the Bush administration that they have an allout attack on middleclass families. hardworking families in this country? What is it that the middle class did to anger them that they Would undermine their pensions? What is it that the middle class did to anger them that they would try to take away their ability to control their workplace and the hours they work. to take away their overtime pay. to try to get rid of their ability to organize? D 1345 It is the middle class that built this country. They built the great institutions of this country. They built the great structures of this country. They built our cities. They built our colleges. They built our universities. It is the middle class that we hold up to the rest of the world and say. if you have a large middle class. you can have a great democracy. if people truly believe that they are getting the chance to participate and to better the future of their children and to better their lot in life. Now. all of a sudden. along comes the Bush administration. and they think the middle class is the enemy. They have been waging a campaign for 4 years against the middle class Americans and their standard of living. They have dramatically increased the debt that they are going to have to pay back to the government. They have dramatically underfunded the capabilities of Medicare and Social Security that the middle class is going to rely on for health care and for retirement. But I guess maybe the Bush administration. with their trust funds and their money and their oil companies. they do not understand that. They have never shared those burdens of the middle class. So what we just saw here was the last attempt by the Solicitor in the Department of Labor. who has had to rewrite these regulations several times because they have never been able to get them right. because they have uncovered so many people they said were not uncovered. and they did not cover people they said were covered. but now that same Solicitor comes out and tries to tell us that if the Congress tampers with this. somehow it will undermine the rights of working peop.e to get overtime. Well. that is a Republican Solicitor working for the Republican Department of Labor. who is working for the Republican Secretary of Labor. who is working for the Republican ]?resident. But if you go to CRS. which is nonpartisan. they simply say. we all understand this. we have seen these riders before. This tells you to go back to the regulations and reimplement the regulations that were in effect on July 14. 2004. That is the plain readi:ag of this act. and Congress has done this many times. So if you vote for this. what you will be doing is saving millions of people their right to overtime for the work that they provide. Millions of people who. if you do not vote for this. working foremen. working supervisors. assistant managers. team leaders. registered nurses. workers who perform a relatively small amount of supervisory amount of administrative work. they are going to take away your overtime if you tell somebody to stand over there or move or there.