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Mr. Chairman, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protection, I had firsthand knowledge of the

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   In case my colleagues do not know, business decisions are made on the basis of cost, as the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. NORTHUP) said. Injured employees cannot work. So it is up to the companies' interest, it is in their interest to protect their physical health.

   The law says one must have workman's compensation. It is expensive. It is not free. So employers work to protect their employees, they buy forklifts, they build conveyors, all without any government mandates.

   OSHA says that the ergonomic standard will only cost $4 billion. That is a wild guess. Business says it could cost $80 billion to $90 billion for a single industry. Industry has two choices: automate the jobs out of existence or move the business out of the country. We need some more accurate ideas as to what it will cost.

   In October of 1998, Congress appropriated almost $1 million for a nonpartisan study by the National Academy of Science, NAS, to focus on the relationship between repetitive task and repetitive stress injuries and the validity of ergonomics as a science.

   On August 3 of last year, the House passed the Workplace and Preservation Act to prohibit OSHA from issuing a prepared or final rule on workplace ergonomics until after the NAS study is completed in the year 2001.

   As we have seen, OSHA believes that it does not have to adhere to the will of Congress or the medical community in seeking to finalize the proposed rule by this fall. They have got a study going, but it is run by NIOSH, which is a division of OSHA. Nothing like examining oneself.

   In conclusion, as currently written, the proposed ergonomics rule jeopardizes the jobs and welfare of both employers and employees. Pushing this inaccurate, unscientific proposal in such a short time period is both arrogant and reckless.

   I urge my colleagues to reject the Traficant amendment and support the prohibitive language in this bill to stop OSHA from moving forward on an ergonomic standard.

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

   Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I also want to oppose the overall bill. It is an anti-family bill overall. This amendment, if passed, would make it a little better but not good enough. This is an anti-working family's bill which takes away very vital parts that are necessary to keep working families afloat.

   The job-training section has been gutted. The school construction section, a mere $1.3 billion from school construction has been removed at a time when the public schools, only schools that working families can afford to attend, are being abandoned and in great need of repair.

   The National Education Association survey has recently shown that one needs $254 billion just to maintain the infrastructure of public schools across the country at the level to serve the present enrollment, let alone to prepare for future enrollments. Yet we have cut out $1.3 billion of a very modest proposal made by the President in this legislation. So if this amendment does pass, it will be slightly better; but we should still vote against the entire bill because it is against working families.

   This is against working families. It is against women in particular, because the philosophy here in opposing ergonomics is that, if an injury does not show blood, if there is no blood and there is no crushed bones, there is no pain. There is no injury. It is a Neanderthal approach to looking at the kinds of things that happen in the workplace.

   One does not have to go very far. One does not have to go to a town meeting to find people who are suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. This place is full of them. We have lots of secretaries, lots of people who do the kind of work that results in carpal tunnel syndrome. Just look around. Do an honest survey. Republicans and Democrats should look around and do an honest survey.

   I have one person on my staff right now who has a problem with carpal tunnel syndrome. I had a person 12 years ago who worked on my staff and her hands gave out. She could not type. She had done a lot of typing before electric typewriters came on, before computers. She was ashamed to even complain and thought something was wrong with her. I did not know at that time what the problem was. I clearly identify it right now. It is a very real injury; 600,000 workers a year at minimum suffer from musculoskeletal disorders.

   There is a lot of talk about NAS doing another study. I want to emphasize the fact that it is a second study. They are calling for a second study by the National Academy of Sciences. They have done one already. They want it reversed. They want to hold out for it.

   The truth of it is the people who have called for this additional study are now showing their true colors in this particular legislation. The opponents had argued before that OSHA should wait for another National Academy of Sciences report before moving forward with the rule. They hope the National Academy of Sciences would change its earlier findings that support the ergonomics rule.

   Now they are not willing to wait for the NAS study. They are now saying that the rule should be stopped regardless of a conclusion of a new NAS study. There is kind of a blind ideological opposition to ergonomics. They have changed their tune either because they no longer hope NAS would change its findings or because they never really cared about a respected science in the first place. Backers of this rider are willing to ignore commitments and promises and sound science too.

   In 1997, NIOSH completed the most comprehensive review ever conducted of musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace. NIOSH reviewed over 600 epidemiologic studies and concluded there is strong evidence of an association between musculoskeletal disorders and work related disorders to high levels of repetition, forceful exertions, and awkward exposures.

   The study was peer reviewed by 27 experts from throughout the country. NAS, as I said before, came to the same conclusion after they conducted their own review.

   What we have here is a blind ideological refusal to accept the fact that, in this modern society, there are new kinds of disorders that can be very real and very painful and can rob a person of their ability to earn a living.

   I have seen many examples of women who have lost their ability to use their hands. They can no longer type, they can no longer make a living, the only way they knew how to make a living. It is very real. This anti-family bill is particularly harsh for women for that reason.

   Construction industries and many of the other standards that have been set by OSHA over the years relate to obvious kinds of injuries. When a person bleeds, when a bone is broken, nobody can quarrel about the fact that that is a real injury. But ergonomics produces very real injuries, also.

[Time: 19:30]

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

   Mr. Chairman, this issue of repetitive stress injury and repetitive motion injury is really a serious matter, and it is a very complex problem, and that is one of the reasons I think it has created as much debate as it has. It does have and can have a dramatic impact on the life of workers. But the problem is that it is extraordinarily difficult to separate these injuries that arise at the workplace from normal circumstances that just occur as a consequence of the wear and tear of the aging process. It is also complicated by the fact that workplaces are very complex places; and they are also very dynamic places, with circumstances and conditions changing all the time.

   The Labor Department's approach to this problem has been a complicated

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   What concerns many of us is that OSHA's approach to workplace safety has not worked. And it is generally not going to work, because if we take a one-size-fits-all set of safety rules and regulations and we try to apply it to these changing and complex workplaces, it does not produce the results that people expect. What these ergonomics rules do is they take what is a failed concept and they take it to its zenith. It will add dramatically to the cost of the operation of every small business in America, and it is going to fail to deliver on the promise of a safer workplace.

   There is a better way to do this, and the better way to do this is to focus on outcomes, setting goals, working with employer groups to reduce these kinds of injuries, providing employers with the flexibility that they need to be able to address their specific workplace with solutions to the problem.

   Now, how do we know that that is going to work? Because it is working. The safety rates in this country have increased dramatically in instances where employers and workers are given the flexibility to address workplace safety problems cooperatively. Injury rates of this kind are dropping. And that is because employers care about their employees. They are very concerned about their employees and they value them.

   Government cannot create a safe workplace, Mr. Chairman. Employers working with employees in a flexible setting addressing the specific problems in that business and that workplace do. I would oppose this amendment. Suspending this rule is a good idea. We need better science, we need better solutions.

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

   My colleagues, I would like to respond briefly to the gentleman from Montana. We deal with many complex issues in this body, and I would daresay if complexity is the excuse for nonaction, then we really would not be debating anything around here.

   And I would also like to respond to a second comment when the gentleman was talking about government cannot make our workplaces safer. Having served on this committee, and I am privileged to serve on the committee, government cannot make it better, most employees, most employers make the workplace better, but the government can encourage those employers, who may not make the workplace as safe as they can, to make it safer.

   I can remember very well the fire in the chicken factory when the employers locked the doors and 29 people died. So some employers, not most, may need an encouragement.

   I just want to comment on this particular amendment, because I do feel, my colleagues, enough is enough. The science exists, we have heard of it over and over again, the evidence has been gathered, the public comment has been heard and, frankly, our experience in our own offices confirm it. Each year more than 650,000 Americans suffer disorders caused by repetitive motion, heavy lifting or awkward postures that occur in the workplace. These disorders account for more than a third of all workplace injuries.

   We have to try our best to prevent these injuries using simple collaborative steps where we can work together. These are serious health problems and OSHA should be able to go forward within its authority to work with employers and employees to prevent and relieve them. Let us prevent and relieve these injuries and save billions of dollars in health care and productivity costs. Let us live up to our obligation doing what we can to protect American workers.

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Mrs. LOWEY. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

   Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.

   I simply want to announce to the House that I am going to insert for the RECORD a letter from the American Federation of Labor, the AFL-CIO, in a letter dated June 8 to me. The letter says as follows:

   The Traficant amendment is being offered against the wishes of the AFL-CIO. It is being done in a way that does not provide an appropriate opportunity to work on behalf of its passage. Further, it appears to be an effort on the part of some to provide cover and encourage Members to support legislation that is blatant anti working family. We do not view this amendment as helpful to the effort to achieve final promulgation of an effective ergonomic standard. With or without this amendment, this legislation seriously harms the interests of American workers and we will continue to strongly oppose the passage of H.R. 4577.

   I simply note that so that Members understand that even if they vote for this amendment that is not going to fool anyone who represents American workers into thinking that that has made this bill acceptable to the interests of working families because it clearly is not and will not be so.

   Mr. Chairman, the letter I referred to above follows:

   AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS,

    WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 8, 2000.
Hon. DAVID OBEY,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

   DEAR CONGRESSMAN OBEY: The Traficant amendment is being offered against the wishes of the AFL-CIO. It is being done in a way that does not provide an appropriate opportunity to work in behalf of its passage. Further, it appears to be an effort on the part of some to provide cover and encourage members to support legislation that is blatantly anti working family.

   We do not view this amendment as helpful to the effort to achieve final promulgation of an effective ergonomic standard.

   With or without this amendment, this legislation seriously harms the interests of American workers and we will continue to strongly oppose the passage of H.R. 4577.

   Sincerely,

   Peggy Taylor,
Director, Department of Legislation.

   Mrs. LOWEY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say, in conclusion, we as representatives of our community cannot solve all the problems, we cannot solve all the problems in the workplace, but we have a responsibility to do what we can, based on the science, to pass legislation that can make life a little better for workers who are working in many situations at a disadvantage to their health.

   Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Traficant amendment. First of all, let me put in the RECORD that I am very proud that Elizabeth Dole initiated this national debate and that our former colleague, Lynn Martin, when she was Secretary of Labor, moved it forward. And I daresay that if either of them were Secretary of Labor now we would not be here tonight.

   We are here because the proposed regulations issued by the Department of Labor are so unfair to workers. It is unfair to workers to have the Federal Government mandate a 90 percent compensation because an individual is injured as the result of ergonomics and a lower level of compensation if injured some other way. Do my colleagues realize what that is going to do in the long run to the sense of equity and fairness in labor law for working Americans?

   We are here tonight because this sets up a really unfair system of compensation, for the first time ever people getting compensated differently depending on the origin of their injury. It also will interfere with the very mechanisms that in my district have been put in place. And, believe me, I have been in factory after factory over the last year. And if my colleagues have not been there and looked at how their factories are improving their safety records, then they cannot really understand how these regulations will prevent the very mechanisms that are creating an absolutely astounding reduction in workplace injuries.

   Do my colleagues realize that occupational injury and illness rates are at their lowest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording this information in the 1970s? And, in fact, since 1992, injuries resulting in the loss of workdays have dropped 20 percent. In my district I can tell my colleagues why that is happening. It is because people are very serious about keeping their employees healthy.

   In the factories in my district, teams of workers are out there looking at

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   I have seen that in plant after plant after plant, and I have had workers stand there and ask me how we can tell them they are doing it wrong when they are doing so well. I was in one of the plants in my district that was used by OSHA to do its research to develop these regulations. And what appalled them was that together they did identify some things that were problems, for which none of them could think up any solutions. But under these regulations one incident, not a pattern of problems, not a pattern of injuries, not a pattern of even symptoms, but one injury would trigger the whole 1200 pages of Federal regulations coming down on their head, even though OSHA themselves could find no solution to the problem that jointly the workers, management, and OSHA had identified.

   So this regulation that OSHA has come out with is so wildly inappropriately related to the problem of getting working people and helping working people and giving them the resources to identify the problems and find solutions, when employers are clearly highly motivated to invest in safety. It is so wrong headed it cannot be fixed and it must be stopped.

   Lastly, the idea of providing a separate, different, higher compensation for people because they are injured as a result of one cause versus another is simply going to create a system of such gross inequity that we should not here tonight let that go forward. I want a good ergonomics regulation. This Secretary has not produced it. And these regulations must be stopped.

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