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We have many American workers, and I know what the complaints are, that some of these workers are taking advantage in the workplace of some of these musculoskeletal problems where, through repetitive work in industry, they develop these musculoskeletal problems and muscular problems that prevent them from working.

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   By striking the language, very simply, we would affect, in my opinion, 650,000 workers in the positive. We have an opportunity to pass a very straightforward amendment. Some employers have had experience with these programs in meat packing, foot wear facilities that have seen significant reductions in these disorders, and I think today we should guarantee that other industries and employers see the same reduction in injuries and see fewer missed days of work.

   It does not seem like a tough job being a cashier, or nurses in nursing homes, or court reporters who sit with their fingers constantly moving and their hands subject to, over a period of years, much wear and tear, and that is not even getting to the point of those workers in manufacturing and assembly plants who, on a very repetitive motion, are bringing about certain heavy industrial tools and machinery.

   So without a doubt, I think in the best interest, certainly to serve the working community, and I think in the best interest of Congress, I think we should strike section 103. I think it is the right thing to do. By doing so, I think we would help many American workers.

   Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

   Mr. Chairman, I recognize and agree with the concerns of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. TRAFICANT) who is offering this amendment. I believe that we are all worried about healthy workers, about workers who are important to this economy, they are important to their families, their income is important to their community and their family. This is an issue that is very important.

   The problem is that the Department of Labor has been absolutely tone deaf in developing this rule. They have had all of these years they have been talking about to develop a rule. There are many people that wish to come to the table and work on this issue. The fact is, in workplaces all across America we have employers, we have cities, we have States, we have hospitals, nursing homes, teachers, every single place across this country, people are looking for workers. It is in all of our best interests to keep our workers healthy and on the job.

   But the fact is that the Department of Labor has written a rule that is absolutely unacceptable. It does not at all bring all of the people concerned about this to the table and help work out a reasonable rule. It has put all of the costs on the employer, and it is not just businesses that are terribly concerned about this, it is schools; the school districts are talking about being absolutely unable to comply because of the cost. Nursing homes, hospitals, States, cities, the League of Cities. We all know that is not some conservative organization. They are saying that this rule is written in a way that they simply could not, could not comply with this.

   Mr. Chairman, it threatens the solvency of our workers' compensation program because it overrides current workers compensation programs that have worked so well in our States; and instead it provides an extraordinary level of reimbursement for our workers who would need time off because of repetitive motion injuries.

   The problem here is one of fairness. It is simply not fair to have two workers that work side by side, one that is truly injured, completely and totally on the job, to get one level of reimbursement and a worker who is off because of a repetitive motion that may be partly his job, partly what he does outside of his job, partly what happened before he came to this workplace, getting an extraordinary level of benefits. It places all of the responsibility on the employer. It has no regard to preexisting condition or what is done outside.

   The fact is, Mr. Chairman, we need to work on ergonomics rules in total. What ergonomics are, are people that start to have injuries. Those of us over 50 probably do not have a friend that does not have an elbow, a shoulder, a neck, a backache, something that is a repetitive motion problem. Is it exacerbated in the workplace? Sometimes it is. So that is a component of it. But it also may be aggravated by what happens outside of the workplace.

   So what this rule does not do is recognize the outside of the workplace being part of the cause and what has to be addressed.

   In truth, what this bill does is chase our best jobs out of this country. It begins to make Mexico and Canada look like great places to put one's next plant or any expansion that one does, so that one can have a reasonable workplace where one can work with one's workers, work to address their concerns, and not absorb enormous costs that are open-ended. It discriminates against older workers, because I hate to say, it does not take long for somebody to figure out that somebody like me in my 50s is more likely to have a joint or a backache or a carpal tunnel problem than it is for a 24-year-old.

   So if one is an employer and one knows that they have to keep spending money until this person's problem goes away, one can figure out that it is better to hire 23-year-olds than it is 53-year-olds.

   The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. TRAFICANT) is exactly right. Companies are spending millions of dollars right now. They are doing everything they possibly can to reengineer the workplace, to trade and rotate jobs, to address their employees' needs. But it makes no sense to enact a rule or to let the Department of Labor go on with a rule that is so one-sided and does not really bring us solutions.

   In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that there is one workplace that the OSHA rule would not apply, and that is the one workplace that the Federal Government has total control over. Federal employees would not be covered by this rule. It is not enforceable in Federal workplaces, and so they would be the one group that would be exempted.

   Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

   Mr. Chairman, I rise to join with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. TRAFICANT), my friend and colleague, in offering this amendment and rise to express my concerns about the status of some of America's workers. I agree with the gentlewoman that we should have a great deal of concern about jobs going away from America. In fact, that is why I opposed NAFTA. I think if we look at the results of the implications of NAFTA, we would find that many of America's manufacturing jobs have, in fact, gone to Mexico and Canada and have left the U.S.

   But I want to talk about this issue in particular, and I do not rise in a vacuum. Mr. Chairman, before coming to Congress, I was an educator, and one of the assignments that I had as an educator was to run the corporate training department for a very large insurance company, the Insurance Company of North America, which later became known as the Cigna Corporation. My job at that corporation was to train their workers' comp specialists, and we had some 700 of them that worked with companies across the country.

   Mr. Chairman, during that experience, what I saw time and time again among our insureds were examples of workers suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome and suffering from problems associated with workplaces that were not properly considering the atmosphere of the worker, the conditions of the worker, the ergonomics of the workplace environment.

   Now, the rightful response by industry should have been, and in some cases has been, an effort to redesign the workplace, to make the job more conducive to the human body. Unfortunately, that has not always occurred.

   What OSHA has proposed to do is to set up some standards that, in fact, would allow that to happen. We can argue for and against the fairness, but I think the bottom line in my opinion is we have to very strongly say as a Congress that this issue of ergonomics must be addressed, and I think it is appropriate that it be addressed and supported by Members of both sides of the aisle.

[Time: 18:45]

   If we look at the history of this issue in both the House and Senate, there have been a number of hearings on ergonomics and on the issues associated with it.

   In fact, it is interesting to me, Mr. Chairman, that in the fiscal year 1998 Labor-HHS appropriations bill, OSHA

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   So here we had in the 1998 bill language that basically said we would not move to restrict these kinds of guidelines in the future. There is a feeling there have been enough studies on the subject, Mr. Chairman, including a 1998 study by the Academy of Sciences, a critical review by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and over 2,000 scientific articles on ergonomics. It is a major problem and is causing severe problems for our constituents across the country.

   In fact, Mr. Chairman, in August of 1999, the full House passed H.R. 987, which would deny funding for the ergonomics rule until the National Academy of Sciences completed its study on the proposal. This bill basically precludes the need to take the action that is included in this appropriation measure.

   In fact, the most interesting part of this whole debate, Mr. Chairman, is where this idea first originated for an ergonomics standard. It did not originate under Bill Clinton. An ergonomics standard within OSHA was first proposed by Labor Secretary Libby Dole under the Bush administration. Granted, it may not be the standard we are looking at today, but the idea of moving toward an ergonomic standard is one based in the tradition of both parties.

   For these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I stand in favor of this amendment. I ask my colleagues to look at it and support it in an effort to find support on this legislation, to show the workers of America that we are going to do more than give lip service to the concerns related to carpal tunnel syndrome and other similar workplace problems associated with the problem of ergonomics.

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   Mr. Chairman, I do not question the sincerity of any Member of this House, but it is well known that all day the majority party leadership has been looking for a sponsor for this amendment. I doubt that it is because they have experienced a recent Damascus conversion which now suddenly makes them passionate defenders of worker health and safety issues.

   I think it might be legitimate to ask the question whether or not there are a number of Republican moderates in the House who are worried about having to cast a vote for this bill in the end because it cuts education from the President's request by $3 billion, it cuts the President's request on health care by well over $1 billion, and it cuts support for worker protection and worker training programs by almost $2 billion.

   So I think it is fair to ask whether some of those moderates would not feel more comfortable if they had a little political cover by being able to vote for an amendment like this. Perhaps it might make it easier for some folks to vote against the interests of workers by voting for this bill on final passage with the deep cuts that it provides in programs that help workers.

   I also find it interesting that this vote occurs just 2 weeks after the China trade vote. I would ask myself the question whether or not we do not also have some Members who might be interested in trying to climb back into the good graces of labor by having an opportunity to vote on this amendment after they voted for the China trade bill a few weeks ago. I do not know, but I think a reasonable observer might come into the House and ask that question.

   Having said that, let me say, of course this amendment should pass. OSHA has been trying to develop a rule to protect workers from repetitive motion injury for over 10 years. For 5 of those years they have been blocked by the Congress of the United States. In my view, that has been a sometimes scurrilous action taken by this body.

   I would note that at my insistence the committee 2 years ago contained the following language in its report: ``The committee will refrain from any further restriction with regard to the development, promulgation, or issuance of an ergonomics standard following fiscal year 1998.''

   Despite the committee's declaration in writing, this committee chose to insert the language of the Northup amendment, which abrogated the agreement that the committee had announced to the country and the House.

   So of course this amendment should pass. But I do not believe American workers are going to be fooled. I do not believe that a vote for this amendment, followed by a vote for this bill, will be seen by American workers as doing them any favors. I think it will be seen for exactly what it is.

   Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a defining moment and offers the opportunity for all of us in this body to actually show the American people whose side we are on.

   There are many of us who came to this body to fight for what we believe is the driving engine of America's economy, the small business out there, providing 80 to 85 percent of all jobs in America; people who work hard, people who are fighting for raises, for better benefits, for higher-paying jobs in their community, expanding the opportunity for jobs for people across the country.

   I believe that is what we should be doing here every day we come to work, because America has risen to great heights historically because of private sector growth.

   On the other side, we have OSHA bureaucrats and power-hungry union leaders who are trying desperately to implement an ergonomics rule that would put a noose around the neck of many employers in this country.

   This is an issue quite frankly that many Members have been struggling with for many years. I would ask rhetorically for Members of both sides of the aisle, when is the last time they had a town meeting and they had people stand up and say, my goodness, Congressman, we really need that OSHA ergonomics rule to be implemented as quickly as possible?

   I happen to represent an area that is very independent-minded, not necessarily a Republican or Democrat district, and I have not had one piece of mail, not one phone call, not one question at a town meeting where someone said, please, we need this regulation at our workplace.

   This is strictly driven by bureaucracy, bureaucrats at OSHA, and driven by power-hungry union leaders who are desperate to get a greater grip on the private sector of this country.

   On the side we are fighting for, we do have the small business community. We have small manufacturers, we have farmers, we have ranchers, we have hospitals, we have all of the folks out there who are working hard every day to make a living. It is mind-boggling to me that anyone could find even any gray on this issue at all.

   There is no science, there is no medical research that has conclusively shown that this regulation is necessary. In spite of what a lot of people up here who love big government like to say, believe it or not, the private sector is doing a lot to improve the work environment when it comes to dealing with repetitive stress injuries in the workplace.

   Grocery store chains, insurance companies, computer manufacturers, all of those that are creating this tremendous economic growth have dealt with this issue in the workplace privately, and it is working. Let us all review the statistics that OSHA has even been presenting over the last few years: Workplace injuries are down consistently over the last decade. There is a lot being done out there to improve the work environment for workers.

   Again, this is something that is going to have a high price tag, as well. Those who are trying to rush this rule into place have not acknowledged, for example, that for each particular industry, for whatever it may be, the cost of implementing it could run into the billions of dollars. In some industries the cost will be upwards of $20 billion.

   The Post Office is even against this. So if Members cannot find that they can identify with small business in America, if they cannot identify with the farmers and ranchers and the doctors and the hospitals, maybe they can identify with the Post Office, because they are against it, as well. Or maybe they can identify it with the former OSHA director, who is also against this regulation.

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   I asked a question recently in a hearing about this issue to the director of OSHA, the head of OSHA, of how, because of the vagueness of the way the rule is written, how would an employer even know they are in compliance, because there is tremendous vagueness in the rule? That is the problem with one-size-fits-all rules. They are written for dance studios, bakeries, restaurants, and farms and ranches. We cannot possibly apply a single rule like that, where everyone can fit in a particular category and say, yes, we are in compliance.

   The director of OSHA said, do not worry, we will let the employers know when they are in compliance, which means that this will give the Federal bureaucracy at OSHA a tremendous latitude in determining when employers are in compliance.

   This has the ability, Mr. Chairman, all across the board in America, again, whether it is an auto parts store, a customs broker office, a doctors office, a restaurant, a small manufacturing company, the cost of mailing a letter, all of this is going to increase, could increase greatly in cost for consumers out there if this rule is implemented the way it has been written.

   I would just strongly encourage all of my colleagues to look at whose side they are on on this issue. There is no gray. They are either on the side of the salt of the Earth economic engine that drives this country, the small business sector, or they are on the side of the power hungry union leaders who are trying to implement this.

   Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that on this amendment, debate be limited to 30 additional minutes, to be divided 7 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. TRAFICANT), 7 1/2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. NORTHUP), 7 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY), and 7 1/2 to myself.

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