Working Family Issues Suffer in Congress as Leadership Dawdles

Congressional leaders found time to rename 50 post offices this year, but couldn't find the time to approve a real and meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights. They found time to promote explorer William Clark—of Lewis and Clark fame—posthumously to the rank of captain, but couldn't find time to promote the health of America's seniors by passing a Medicare prescription drug plan.

And now with the election near and Congress rushing for adjournment, time's running out for the few remaining working family issues that could see action—modernizing and rebuilding America's schools, raising the minimum wage and approving a Labor/Health and Human Services spending bill that allows the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to proceed with its ergonomics standard.

If working family-friendly candidates regain control of Congress after the Nov. 7 election, crucial issues such as these and others—strengthening rather than privatizing Social Security and Medicare, improving education with reduced class sizes and more teachers, ensuring good jobs and workers' rights—likely will have a better fate.

School Construction

AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades and Washington, D.C., Carpenters Council members built a model of a little red one-room schoolhouse on the White House South Lawn Oct. 24, the site of a rally to spur Congress to move on modernizing and repairing the nation's schools. But the model was not quite completed.

"In its unfinished state, it's also a symbol of the unfinished work still before the Congress. Nearly two months into the new school year, the majority leadership still hasn't given a single dime for school construction and modernization—not even enough to build a one-room schoolhouse," President Clinton said.

"Week after week now, " he added, "I've been signing continuing resolutions to give Congress more time to work on this year's budget. But the time for tardy slips is over. It's time for the leadership to put progress before partisanship, and address at last the needs of our schools and our children."

The effort to modernize and rebuild America's public schools enjoys bipartisan support. The fiscal year 2001 Labor/HHS/Education spending bill (H.R. 4577) contains block grant funds for a new loan and grant initiative to finance school construction.

In the House, a freestanding bill, H.R. 4094—America's Better Classrooms Act—is strongly supported by the AFL-CIO and has bipartisan backing. It incorporates most of the provisions of earlier bills (H.R. 1660 and H.R. 1760). There is a similar bill in the Senate.

The America's Better Classrooms Act, which has 229 co-sponsors in the House, also "ensures that workers on federally funded school facilities projects are paid local prevailing wages, so that this construction does not undermine community wage standards," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a message urging passage of H.R. 4094.

Minimum Wage

The AFL-CIO, community groups and their allies in Congress have fought to pass a $1-an-hour raise in the minimum wage since last year. But Republican leaders loaded their wage bills with special interest favors. This fall, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) proposed a plan to go along with the $1-an-hour raise over two years, but he and most of his Republican colleagues still insist on about $76 billion in tax breaks and provisions that would bring about a serious erosion of Fair Labor Standards Act protections for millions of workers. Their proposals are a direct assault on the 40-hour workweek.

Now, Republican lawmakers are crafting a new tax package they say will include a minimum-wage provision, but have not said whether the FLSA and unacceptable tax breaks will remain. The plan is expected to be announced Oct. 26 or 27.

Ergonomics

The fight over OSHA's proposed ergonomics standard still is unresolved. Both the House and Senate versions of the Labor/HHS/Education spending bill (H.R.4577) prohibit OSHA from moving forward with the standard, which is designed to help workers avoid repetitive motion injuries. Some 1.8 million workers suffer such injuries each year. Clinton has promised to veto the bill if it comes to his desk with the ban intact. Meanwhile, major business groups have continued their pressure to maintain the ban; the Republican Party platform also opposes OSHA's proposed standard.

Make your voice heard on these and other issues important to working families. Send the Working Families Agenda to congressional candidates.