Date: 2000-06-08
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I rise in very strong support of this amendment. They have dragged out every phrase that is designed to scare the American people that the big Federal Government is rushing into promulgating this rule. Only to the Republicans would 10 years be a rush. Only to the Republicans would it be irresponsible to try to cover people who every day are getting crippled and losing job opportunities and losing compensation ability to support their families by a well thoughtout rule. Only the Republicans would think that it is new science to have a report that reviews the existing science. There is no new science in this report. This is a review of literature as mandated by this Congress. But year after year. they have tried to delay this rule. and they have been successful in doing SO. For those who say. well. we want our States to do it. what happens if one lives in a State that does not want to do it? I must say there is a lot of room for ones .States to do whatever they want to do and a lot of room for ones employers to do whatever they want to do. because only 30 percent of the people working in general industry have any kind of effective program at all. Our committee in the Subcommittee on Labor. Health and Human Services and Education. they were suggesting they really did not see this. This was not a real injury. This was a fiction. I guess they do not go to the supermarket and they do not see the dheckers who are wearing arm braces and wrist braces. They do not see the flight attendants who are wearing wrist braces. Maybe they do not go to Home Depot. an employer that has an ergonomics program and people are wearing back braces. They think that is dressing up. That is not 9 cumberbund. that is a back brace. Why? Because they are insurers and they work together. and they made a determination that they could reduce back injuries. Maybe the Republicans would recognize ergonomics injuries if we applied it to tennis and golf. Because certainly my colleagues have friends who are wearing arm braces on their left hand as they come through the ball and they have an ergonomics injury or from their forearm smash. Maybe then my colleagues would recognize that as ergonomics. But those people my colleagues see in the supermarket and the working place. on the construction site and the manufacturing areas. in the steel mills and the auto plants that are wearing those braces that is not for that reason. That is for the reason of repetitive motion. It is not to be laughed at. It is not to be made fun of. It is not to put people in the place of if they will have a responsible employer. they have protection. if they have an irresponsible employer. they will not have protection. The fact of the matter is that this rule is very well thought out. This rule is not one size fits all that is supposed to scare one away. It is not one size fits all. It is targeted where 60 percent of the injuries occur. of this kind of injury occur. It has been vetted. Thousands and thousands of people have commented on it. Seven thousand people I guess have had written comments. A thousand witnesses testified on this. OSHA went beyond the minimum requirements in terms of taking public testimony. and hearing witnesses went far beyond that. Yet. the gentlewoman from the other side would suggest to us that this is a rush. this is a. hurry up. There is no such thing. This is a carefully thoughtout rule designed to protect workers in the American workplace. It is a rule designed to save employers billions of dollars in worker compensation costs. It is designed to save employees millions of hours of lost time so they do not lose the wages that they use to support their families and provide for their families. That is what this rule is about. But every year. the Republicans have been able to stop it. Every year. the Republicans have been able to keep it from going into effect. Many of our colleagues refer to the fact that it was Elizabeth Dole. George Bushs Secretary of Labor. that brought this issue to the forefront and started this process. But that was 10 years ago. In that 10 years time. hundreds of thousands of Americans have suffered this injury and suffered the loss of work. the loss of opportunity. and the loss of the ability to provide for their families. That is what is at stake here tonight. That is all that is at stake here tonight is whether or not people will go and they will go into a safer and safer workplace or whether they will be put at the whims of the chicken factories and irresponsible businesses that Use people up and then throw them away. people so badly crippled in their hands they cannot take another job if they can no longer do that job. We have seen that. It is time to get rid of it. That is what this rule does. and we should support the Traficant amendment.