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Legislation Department
November 17, 2000

December Lame-Duck Session on Deck for Congress

Congress plans to reconvene one more time this year in a rare lame-duck session in December. They still must wrap up action on the remaining spending bills and may take action on other miscellaneous legislative items, including a possible tax cut measure, an increase in the minimum wage, Medicare improvements and several other matters. The session held earlier this week resulted in the passage of only one of the five remaining spending bills as Congress approved the Fiscal Year 2001 spending bill for the District of Columbia. Uncertainty over the presidential election ultimately proved to be too big of a distraction and Congress again called it quits as they temporarily halted action until the first week of December.

Amid small membership gains for House and Senate Democrats, the new 107th Congress has wasted no time beginning its preliminary steps to get organized. New members of the House from both sides of the aisle who will not be sworn in until January have already been to town for orientations, and elections for most House leadership races have already taken place with little changes. House Republicans reelected the full slate of existing leaders, including Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL), Majority Leader Dick Armey (TX), and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (TX), while House Democrats also retained Dick Gephardt (MO) as Minority Leader and David Bonior (MI) as Minority Whip. Senate organizing activities and elections are scheduled for December.

The House and Senate approved and sent to the President for his expected signature a bill to fund the D.C. government for FY 2001. The compromise bill was allowed to move forward in the face of a last minute plea from Mayor Anthony Williams who said that without its adoption dire emergencies would be experienced by the city. In addition to language allowing restructuring and layoffs at D.C. General Hospital, it also allows the District government to disregard overtime pay provisions found in existing collective bargaining agreements which AFSCME has strongly opposed.

On Monday, November 13, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a final rule aimed at protecting workers from job-related ergonomic injuries. However, angry reactions from Republicans in Congress and from the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers signal that a legislative battle over the implementation of the standard may be ahead.

The rule was issued after an exhaustive 10-year rulemaking process, during which the GOP-led Congress repeatedly prevented OSHA from issuing the standard. Just prior to the election, opposition to the ergonomics standard caused Republican leaders to blow up an agreement that had been reached with the White House and congressional Democrats over the large appropriations bill funding programs operated by Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments.

Ergonomic hazards are the number one workplace safety and health problem. Each year, there are over 600,000 job-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and repetitive motion injuries that are serious enough to cause workers to lose time away from work. Despite evidence that ergonomic programs reduce injuries to workers, reduce workers' compensation costs, improve productivity and result in overall cost savings for employers, certain segments of the business community continue to wage a campaign to block the standard.

On Monday, November 6, President Clinton signed into law the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act of 2000 (H.R. 5178/S. 3067). The legislation codifies and improves the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations that require employers to use safety-designed needles and sharps. The new law will take effect July 2001. Passage of the needlestick legislation had been a top legislative priority for AFSCME.

Each year an estimated 1,000 health care workers become infected with a serious bloodborne disease, including hepatitis and HIV, as the result of pricks and punctures from contaminated devices. Prompted by the large number of injuries as well as the technological advances in the engineering of medical devices, OSHA, last year, began to enforce a requirement that employers use safety-designed devices. While the new law does not take effect for nine months, employers covered by OSHA already have a legal obligation to use safer needles and sharps. Local unions do not need to wait for the effective date of the law before demanding that employers use safer devices. They can make those demands now.

Like any federal OSHA rule, this one does not cover public sector workers in states where state and local government employees are not covered by the federal OSHA law. Currently 27 states and the District of Columbia have not passed laws to extend OSHA protections to public workers. AFSCME is working during the final days of this Congress to add a needlestick requirement for public hospitals in non-covered OSHA states to a Medicare bill moving through the House and Senate. This provision would require public hospitals, not otherwise covered by OSHA rules, to abide by the needlestick requirement as a condition of receiving Medicare funds. This provision has the support of the Clinton Administration and bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. However, there is opposition to the provision from Senate Republicans who oppose it as an infringement upon states' rights.

An apparent casualty during the waning days of the current Congress, the comprehensive unemployment insurance reform package may be a good prospect for legislative action next year if the new Administration and the Congress decide to seek opportunities to work on a compromise basis. While it is still too soon to anticipate the congressional agenda for next year with any degree of certainty, key Democratic and Republican members of Congress remain very interested in moving forward with the proposal.

• AFSCME Weekly Report Archive