George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader. (Mr. Gephardt asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown). (Ms. BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the minority whip.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the matter before the House tonight is nothing more than a frontal assault on the rights of millions of workers, millions of workers who get up and go to work every day and work hard on behalf of their employer and on behalf of their family so they can provide for their family, so they can provide a standard of living that they desire for their children. In the process of working every day, many of these workers suffer injuries to their hands, wrists, to their back and neck because they have repetitive motion in their jobs. Whether they are keypunch operators, whether they work in a warehouse, whether they work as a baggage handler or waitress or waiter in a restaurant, whether they work in a lumber mill or hospital, these workers suffer these injuries, some 600,000 of them every year. As a result of these injuries, these workers lose wages, they lose hours of work, they lose the ability to provide for their family. Some of them lose the ability to even ever go back to work, they are so badly damaged. But one of the things we know is that most of these injuries are preventable. The workplace can be adjusted. We see it all of the time, in the supermarket, in the offices, in the hospitals. We have made adjustments to try to protect these workers. But what this legislation does today, it says you cannot have this standard as a matter of national right. So if you do not have protection in that workplace, if you do not have protection in that State that is adequate, you do not get it now, because if we vote to repeal the standard that is now on the books to protect workers, we do not get to come back. I appreciate what the Secretary of Labor has said. But the law as written says you do not get to come back and write an equivalent standard, a standard that is similar to this, because then someone will take you to court and you will be violating the law. This is about the repeal of the protections of 6 million workers who go to work every day. I do not know if my colleagues recognize them when the Fed Ex driver comes to their door. I do not know if they recognize these workers as the flight attendants who are wearing braces on their wrists. I do not know if they recognize them at Wal-Mart and Home Depot as they are wearing belts around their back, as they are wearing braces on their wrist because of those activities, but those are the people that make America go. The least they ought to have is protection against those damaging kinds of injuries. The least they ought to have is compensation to take care of them. And they ought to understand that we ought to be trying to improve these workplaces. When we do it, we save employers millions of dollars. When we do it, we keep workers from getting injured. But this now says that we are not going to have that as a matter of standard. This now says that we are going to take 10 years of medical evidence, 10 years of scientific evidence, 10 years of testimony by workers, men and women all across this country, about the damage that they have suffered and the manner in which it can be prevented. And in 1 hour of debate tonight, we are going to throw that argument out. We are going to throw these standards out. We are going to take this protection away from America's working men and women. It is not fair to them. It is not fair to their families. It is not fair to the standard of living that they are trying to maintain. I would urge that we vote against this resolution.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would have yielded, I would have pointed out he is not holding up the regulations at all, he is holding up the comments. The regulations is 9-pages long. It is not 600 pages, and the gentleman completely misrepresented what, in fact, he was telling the American public. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey). (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci). (Mr. Baldacci asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). (Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), a member of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer). (Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird). (Mr. BAIRD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, if I might inquire as to how much time we have remaining.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender- McDonald). (Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I said earlier this evening this was an assault on the American worker, and it is; but it is also an insult to the American worker that earlier today, rather than extend the debate so we could discuss the facts, so we could debate it back and forth, the House chose to rather stand in recess than have a debate in the people's House. When we asked for a hearing in committee, there was no hearing forthcoming in the committee. When the Committee on Appropriations asked for a hearing, there was no hearing. Yet for years the Republicans have stalled this regulation by saying they wanted more evidence, they wanted additional studies. They stalled it right up until the last days of the Clinton administration. And then when President Clinton issued this regulation in the last days of his administration, they said, How could he do this at the last minute? Because they had been stalling him for 6 and 7 years to promulgate this regulation. This is like the people who kill their parents and then ask mercy from the court because they are orphans. It is no wonder this regulation has been stalled. And now when it is finally in place to protect the American workers, they insult the American workers by overturning it in 1 hour.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, what is taking place here today is not terribly complicated. It is pretty straightforward. It is an unapologetic assault on some of the hardest working men and women in this country. It is an assault on the right to be pain free in their job. It is an assault on their right not to be injured on their job. It is an assault on their right to provide the wherewithal for their families. Because the workers who suffer these workplace injuries lose wages, they lose hours, and they lose jobs, which means they cannot provide what they want for their families. But the Republicans in the Congress have decided that they are going to assault these workplace rules in spite of all the science, in spite of all the evidence, in spite of all the medical testimony about the terrible toll that these workplace injuries take upon America's working men and women, and disproportionately on women. Women are 40 percent of the work force. There is over 63 percent of the injuries. They have decided also that, not only are they going to assault America's workers, they are going to insult America's workers. They are going to insult them in the manner in which they bring this to the floor of the Congress. They are not going to use a procedure that allows for 10 hours of debate so those who are pro this regulation and against this regulation can debate it. But they have decided we will only be given 1 hour of debate. That will be a half an hour on each side for 435 Members of Congress. So they are going to take 10 years of work, 10 years of scientific study, 10 years of medical evidence, 10 years of worker testimony and business testimony, and they are going to overturn it in 1 hour of debate. Now, I guess one could argue that maybe the Republicans do not know who these workers are. They do not see them with the wrist braces, with the finger braces, with the elbow brace, with the shoulder braces, with their arms in a sling, with the back braces. They do not see them at Home Depot. They do not see them at Wal-Mart. They do not see them at United Airline as they are making out their tickets or as their flight attendants on their airplane are serving them meals or the people who handle their baggage. They do not see them when the UPS driver comes by or the FedEx worker comes by and drops off their packages and is wearing a brace on their arm. They do not see them in the lumber mills. They do not see them as the health-care attendants and the nurses in our hospitals. They do not see them in the Safeway stores, the checkers at the stand who are wearing braces on their arms because of repetitive motion injuries to them. They do not see these workers when it is painful for them to get into the car to drive to work because their arms and their wrists and their hands are so badly damaged from being a key punch operator. They do not see them when they get into their cars painfully to drive home. They do not see them when they get into their house and they cannot pick up their children because their arms are so badly damaged from repetitive motion or their back is badly damaged from repetitive motion or from loads on their back. Somehow the Republicans do not see these individuals. But America sees them. We see them when we fly. We see them when we go to the supermarket. We see them when we go to the hardware store. We see them in the hospitals as they take care of members of our family. We see them as they turn over a patient in bed. And they are wearing braces on their arms because of these kinds of workplace injuries, the very same injuries that Republicans are insisting now that American workers do not have the right of protection from.