Labor

As millions of middle class families struggle with college costs, Congress should stand with students and reject calls from the banks to raise interest rates on student loans. With higher gas prices, higher health costs, and higher college tuition, it’s time to give average families a break for a change. Read more...

My bill simply stops the clock and allows both sides, the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, to resume fair negotiations. It does not take a position on which side should prevail or what the terms should be. I am confident that additional negotiations will result in an agreement, but if the two sides cannot reach agreement, the matter can go before the Federal Service Impasses Panel, which has the ability to impose contract terms.

Mining, and coal mining in particular, is vital to our national and local economies, and to our national energy security. No aspect of mining is more important than protecting the health and safety of those whose hard work fuels the industry.The MINER Act, S. 2803, passed unanimously by the Senate, is the first meaningful mine safety reform in 28 years. It would improve mine safety oversight, impose stricter penalties on employers who violate MSHA policies, increase mandatory oxygen supplies, develop and employ new technologies, foster education and training programs, and open lines of communication between regulators, employers, miners, and their families.The House must join the Senate by approving this bill this week so that these crucial reforms can be put into law as soon as possible, and so that the health and safety of our nation’s miners will no longer be jeopardized.  

 

The tragic 33 coal mine deaths that have occurred so far this year have taught us lessons that Congress must not ignore, especially as the House now has the opportunity to strengthen and pass mine safety legislation already passed by the Senate. Unfortunately the Senate bill fails to address the major weaknesses in mine safety that have been highlighted by the tragedies at the Sago, Aracoma Alma, Darby and other mining disasters.

I have urged Majority Leader Boehner to allow the House to vote on 3 key amendments that would provide miners with safeguards they urgently need—and that we know could have saved lives at Sago and other mining tragedies. These key provisions would: (1) ensure miners trapped underground have at least 48 hours of air to survive, (2) ensure that the special air packs miners use for escape are routinely sampled to make sure they work properly, and (3) require communications and tracking devices for miners within 15 months. With these additions, the Senate legislation will be an important first step towards real protection for mine workers, safeguards that the family members of fallen miners have repeatedly called for. Without these additions, I cannot support the legislation.

A West Virginia joint industry-labor task force just issued recommendations that are consistent with these provisions, and demonstrates that the industry regards these requirements as feasible. Similarly, the Illinois state legislature passed a mine safety bill (with almost unanimous bipartisan support) that is more protective than the Senate legislation. We know that at the Sago mine, the 12 miners who did not die from the initial explosion were trapped underground for 40 hours. We also know that there have been questions about whether the special air packs these miners were using functioned properly. And we know that even with just one way wireless communications devices, these 12 miners could have escaped-and survived.

By adding these 3 amendments to the Senate bill, the House has the opportunity to pass legislation that members of both parties could feel proud of as a first step towards improving safety in our nation’s mines. Coal miners in every state face the same dangers, and they should have the same safety protections, whether they live in Illinois, Kentucky, Alabama, West Virginia, or any other state. These miners risk their lives every day in order to provide our country with a vital energy resource. We owe them a real solution to the problems that have claimed the lives of far too many of their fellow miners. All members of Congress should be able to look the families of victims of these tragedies in the eye and assure them that we took all responsible measures to ensure that our nation's miners will not find themselves trapped with inadequate supplies of oxygen and life support, or no wireless communications. 

This amendment to the immigration bill the Senate is considering is crucial if we want to ensure that foreign workers aren’t taking the jobs of American workers. A cap is in place to be certain Congress has the authority to increase or decrease the number of H-1B visas given out each year as needed. A cap is a cap, and an automatic 20 percent increase takes Congress out of the decision making to protect American workers.

We need to recognize that guest worker programs, if not properly implemented, may hurt American workers. We also need to recognize that our success with regard to the temporary guest worker programs we now have, such as with regard to agricultural workers, has been mixed at best. We should not err on the side of extravagance in allocating these visas until we know how the program impacts American workers.There are a variety of jobs that may be filled by guest workers, from construction to hotel service, and we shouldn’t be placing American workers in these sectors in the position of competing with an unlimited number of guest workers.

The music industry has evolved from simple business models focused around the distribution of physical items such as compact discs to a dynamic digital marketplace where new business models evolve rapidly. The laws that set out the framework for the digital licensing of musical rights in this industry are outdated, and some say beyond repair. Digital music is the future of the music industry; the laws that enable this industry to operate need to look to the future as well.

Illegal immigration threatens our national security and strains our healthcare facilities, schools and social services. President Bush made one step forward and one step backward during tonight's address. I am encouraged by his plan to increase our security by positioning National Guard troops on the border. This will provide essential - but temporary - security along our porous and vulnerable borders. The better alternative is to enact a comprehensive border security program to our immigration policies by constructing fences, bolstering our border patrols and escalating our surveillance capabilities.

I strongly disagree with the President's call for a guest worker program. A guest worker program is nothing more than amnesty wearing make-up - it's easier to look at, but just as ugly underneath. The simple truth is that if you break the law to come to this country, you will not respect it once you're here.  

 

President Bush is absolutely right that immigration reform must be three-pronged: increased enforcement, a temporary worker program, and a humane, realistic approach for dealing with the illegal immigrant population currently in the U.S.

Obviously, simply addressing the enforcement side of the issue might be more politically expedient, but you have to salute President Bush for recognizing that we can’t solve the problem without a temporary worker program and insisting that Congress include one as we debate an immigration reform bill.

At the heart of it, this is an economic debate. As long as corporations continue to push wages down in their race to the bottom, and seek out cheap and undocumented workers, no amount of troops, or border patrol agents will be able to stop the flow of immigrants to this country.True immigration reform will only come when we remove the cheap labor economic incentive from corporate America. To strengthen our immigration policies, we need to enforce basic worker's rights-fair wages, fair benefits and a safe work environment.

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