Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to make my comments on this bill very briefly. Essentially, H.R. 741 weakens the fundamental policy of the Secretary of Labor while enhancing the powers of the OSHA commission. Such action would create two divided regulators and a great deal of confusion. The Secretary of Labor is best able to regulate and enforce safety standards, and as such, the authority should remain with her. This is just plain common sense. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 741. We do not need more confusion. More confusion is only a way to trivialize and make OSHA less effective. Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn my attention to an issue that should be of great concern to all Members of this body in relation to this particular subject, and that is worker deaths and serious injuries. Between 5,000 and 6,000 American workers are killed on the job every year by willful and negligent safety violations on the part of errant employers. I have talked about that already. The surviving family members killed by corporate wrongdoing deserve much more than just our sympathy, however. They deserve immediate congressional attention and action. Instead of considering these bills to weaken OSHA, we should be strengthening provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. We should be considering a bill like H.R. 2004, the Protecting America's Workers Act, which I introduced on April 28 to coincide with Workers' Memorial Day, a day set aside every year to honor workers killed on the job by safety violations. Joining me as cosponsors of H.R. 2004 are the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green) and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). The bill will hold those who commit corporate manslaughter accountable at the same time it reinforces critical health and safety protections for workers nationwide. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) to give us an example of the seriousness of the situation.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the critical question is what more important things should we be doing? This commission bill which creates confusion, to our knowledge, is still not sanctioned by the administration or the Secretary of Labor. Why are we putting such great amounts of time and energy into proposing new powers for this commission when there are other more important things that we ought to be addressing? And the statement by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) was all related to what other important things should we be doing. Why can we not have hearings when there is a major accident with four men being killed under the circumstances they were killed in Ohio? Why can we not call in OSHA and demand that there be an expedited investigation? Why are citations allowed to be unclassified? This committee, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, has oversight over the work of the Department of Labor and OSHA. Why can we not get better answers? Why can we not consider my bill, H.R. 2004, the Protecting America's Workers Act, which will call for penalties for corporations who are guilty of the kind of neglect that led to the deaths of the four workers in Ohio? Even by conservative estimates, 15 workers in this country will be killed on the job today, July 12. They will be killed due to serious safety lapses on the part of their employers. Why are we wasting our time playing around with the adjustment of a commission when these workers deaths are still going on in America? I spoke earlier about the fiery explosion some 3 months ago at the BP plant in Texas City that killed 15 workers and injured more than 100 others. This happened three months ago. It is not ancient history. Why has this committee with jurisdiction not examined that explosion more closely here in Washington? I had also previously mentioned the bridge collapse in Toledo, which the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) discussed in greater detail. Many other cases of worker deaths, equally as tragic and preventable, only make local headlines. They only know about them locally. And they go on in different parts of the country because we are not aware of the seriousness of the situation. The fact is that much of what happens in one area can be prevented from happening in another area if we would just address those serious issues. Every year in New York City, for example, a number of unprotected construction workers are killed by free-falls from buildings and collapses of faulty scaffolds and concrete walls. Almost 8 months ago in Walnut Creek, California, a gas pipeline explosion killed five workers, and badly injured four others. The list goes on and on. We welcome this opportunity to get on the record from both the Members of Congress and the American people the fact that these things are continuing--this steady rate of somewhere between 5,700 and 6,000 workers dying each year--and it has been going on too long. Why not address the fact that this is something that can be stopped? We can change the death rate by having a more effective OSHA instead of playing around the edges, as these four bills are doing. In the words of a New York State Supreme Court justice, these worker deaths in New York were not simply ``random accidents'' but rather, and I am quoting the judge here, ``tragic certainties.'' ``Tragic certainties.'' The workers died as the direct result of some employer's willful safety violations or serious negligence. What is even more reprehensible is that too often, and in the specific worker death cases I just referred to, the employers responsible for these fatalities are repeat safety offenders. In a forum I held last year entitled, ``Jobs to Die For: Inadequate Enforcement of U.S. Safety Standards,'' I heard from the grieving parents of 22-year-old Patrick Walters. Patrick was buried alive on June 14, 2002, working on a sewer pipe in a 10-foot trench. Patrick had spoken before about his fear of being suffocating because he was repeatedly sent down into the trenches without any protective equipment and without a metal trench box. We have a picture of Patrick here. He is the young man at the top tier of the poster to my right. I mentioned Patrick's employer before, Moeves Plumbing, with respect to H.R. 739. I did this because Moeves Plumbing is a repeat safety offender. The firm has been the subject of 13 OSHA inspections since 1989. Patrick died only weeks after OSHA had cited Moeves Plumbing for willful trenching violations. When OSHA settled the case of Patrick Walters' death with Moeves Plumbing, however, they changed the willful violation to an ``unclassified'' one. Have we heard that before today? Unclassified, just as they did in the case of Ohio. It was not a willful violation, but an unclassified violation. A weak OSHA, a corrupt OSHA changed it to ``unclassified.'' Without a willful violation, the Solicitor of Labor would not recommend criminal prosecution of Moeves Plumbing. As Patrick's parents told me last year: ``We need to get some stiffer penalties and some muscle behind it, or Moeves' company is going to kill another child again. They will. It's only a matter of time.'' Patrick's parents, who still live in the Cincinnati area, continue to see Moeves employees working inside trenches without any cave-in protections. As Patrick's father told a reporter in March of 2005, March of this year, about the owner of Moeves Plumbing: ``She's killed two people now, and she'll probably kill two people again. It's obvious she's not listening to what OSHA is telling her.'' Under the current OSHA Act, the maximum penalty any employer can receive for causing the death of a worker, considered a misdemeanor, is 6 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. Six months in prison and a $10,000 fine. Unlike surviving relatives of other crime victims, family members of workers killed on the job are left without any victim services or assistance under current law. They even lack a voice in any OSHA investigations of their loved ones' deaths. They also lack any voice in OSHA's subsequent negotiations with culpable employees over the downgrading of initial citations and fines tied to the worker fatalities. By stiffening criminal penalties for those found guilty of blatant safety violations that result in worker deaths, the Protecting America's Workers Act will make other employers think twice about ignoring basic health and safety rules that risk workers' lives. H.R. 2004 incorporates in its entirety the provisions of a bill I introduced last year, and that was called the Workplace Wrongful Death Accountability Act. Both bills would make it a felony offense to kill a worker and provide for a term of no more than 10 years in prison. A felony offense to kill a worker, and there will be a term of no more than 10 years in prison. For a second offense, the maximum term for a culpable employer would be 20 years in prison. Fines would be set in accordance with title 18 of the U.S. Code, which is standard practice for all other criminal matters. In other legislative matters, everyone agrees that holding people accountable by such means as stiffened penalties serves a critically important deterrent purpose. We are often on this floor talking about the need to not be soft on crime, to come with the hardest possible punishment as a deterrent. Yet I know that there are many on the other side of the aisle who are absolutely allergic to what I am proposing here, the prospect of holding accountable any employer whose willful or grossly negligent safety offenses kill workers. They don't want to hold accountable any employer whose willful or grossly negligent safety offenses kill workers. The opposition to holding such bad actors accountable does not even waver in instances where a number of workers are killed by the same safety violations over a 5- or 10-year period. The opposition also does not waver no matter how many workers are killed by an employer's egregious safety offenses. I am heartened, however, by the fact that yesterday's ``Inside OSHA'' reports that Senator Enzi from Wyoming, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, supports stiffening criminal penalties for health and safety violations that kill workers. As I understand it, Senator Enzi and I might differ on the maximum penalty for corporate manslaughter, but we agree on the need to make this a felony offense. I believe Senator Enzi would prefer to see a maximum prison sentence for a first offense set at 18 months, whereas my bill would set the maximum at 10 years, in accordance with standard criminal law. Senators Kennedy, Corzine, and others introduced the Protecting America's Workers Act on the Senate side; and they agree with setting the maximum penalty for corporate manslaughter at the 10-year mark. Mr. Speaker, the Protecting America's Workers Act would also extend OSHA coverage to millions of workers who currently lack the protection of workplace safety and health laws. Among others, these include public employees in a number of States and localities, certain transportation workers such as flight attendants, and a number of Federal workers, as well as those in public/private entities such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Moreover, this act provides stronger protections for any worker who reports safety and health violations of an errant employer. This bill requires OSHA to investigate any workplace incident that results in the death of a worker or the hospitalization of two or more workers. At the same time, it gives surviving family members of workers who are killed greater participation rights in OSHA's workplace investigation and penalty negotiation process with the respective employers responsible for these fatalities. Moreover, it prohibits OSHA from downgrading willful citations in worker fatalities, downgrading them to this ``unclassified'' category. They should not be categorized as ``unclassified'' ever again. Last, but not least, this bill that I propose strengthens workplace prevention efforts by requiring employers to cover the costs of personal protective equipment for their employees. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the New York Committee on the Safety and Health, NYCOSH, joined by COSH committees in other States, for launching a national campaign against corporate killing. This grassroots campaign will alert workers and the wider public about the importance of ensuring employers do not place profits above basic safety measures at the expense of workers' very health and lives. This is a serious business that this committee ought to be about. This is a serious business that ought to be on the floor today. This grassroots campaign says what Congress should also be saying, that it is important to ensure that employers, that bosses do not place profits above basic safety measures at the expense of workers' health and lives. Mr. Speaker, the time for the Protecting America's Workers Act is now. Although we have been making progress and making the American workplace safer in prior administrations, that progress has stalled, and we need to act immediately in a serious manner and stop the kinds of adjustments that are taking place in the bills that are on the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I certainly look forward to working with the gentleman also. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to just cite a few examples of how Republican policies have shortchanged the initiatives which they talked about today. Instead of having an aggressive policy on math and science education, the Bush administration has underinvested in proven math and science instruction. Today, China graduates four times as many engineers as the United States. And South Korea, which has one-sixth of the population of the United States, graduates the same number of engineers as the United States. Instead of keeping the Republican promise on education, President Bush has already underfunded No Child Left Behind, his own legislation, his own innovation, he has underfunded by more than $40 billion. Instead of investing in research and development to keep the U.S. on the cutting edge of technological advancement, Republicans have cut $877 million in Federal science and technology funding. Instead of having a national broadband policy, the Bush administration has allowed access to broadband to lag. Instead of passing the 21st century bill to increase energy independence through advances in cutting-edge technology, the Republicans have failed to enact any energy bill at all. This resolution before us is a mulligan stew that has been allowed to spoil; it is a spoiled mulligan stew. It is not serious. We have 40 minutes to discuss items which would require really 40 days. If we were serious, we would have a long discussion of these items before we move on and prepare some real legislation to deal with the shortcomings. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 739 specifically creates a legal loophole for bypassing the obligation on an employer's part to meet a 15-day deadline for contesting OSHA citations. As such, the bill promotes increased litigation. Given that the OSHA commission already has the authority to review any missed deadlines on a case-by-case basis, such litigation is completely unnecessary. That bears repeating. At present, the OSHA commission relies on its longstanding practice of reviewing, on a case- by-case basis, any missed deadlines. So what is the rationale for this bill? H.R. 739 is not only superfluous and offers nothing productive that is positive and new; it also negatively serves to delay the timely correction of workplace safety violations and hazards. The 15-business- day timeline for an employer's response was set to encourage speedy removal of work site hazards as well as the expeditious handling of cases. It establishes a reasonable time frame for protecting all the parties. It protects the employers as well as the workers. By contrast, H.R. 739 will needlessly place some workers at greater risk of on-the- job injuries or fatalities. Let me give you a few concrete examples to illustrate the risk. In March 2003, OSHA began an inspection of Strack, Incorporated, a pipeline company in Atlanta, Georgia. OSHA inspectors had seen Strack employees working in a trench that was up to 12 feet deep. Yet a trench box, designed to protect workers, had been left on higher ground and more than 100 feet away from the site. In May 2003, OSHA issued Strack, Inc. a willful citation with a proposed fine of $44,000 for failure to use a trench box. Fortunately in this case, the hazards were corrected before anyone was killed. As an OSHA inspector put it, cave-ins occur quickly and without warning; and then it is too late to protect workers. When it comes to trenching, failure to correct hazards in the 15-day required period can have fatal consequences. As Jeffrey Walters of Cincinnati, Ohio, testified before me last year, his only son Patrick died in a cave-in on June 14, 2002, only weeks after OSHA cited the firm Patrick worked for, which is Moeves Plumbing, for willful trenching violations. In fact, Moeves Plumbing had been inspected by OSHA 13 times before Patrick's death. Moreover, another worker had died while digging trenches for the same plumbing company several years before Patrick died in the same way. All of this is to say that speedy correction of work site hazards cited by OSHA can often mean the difference between life and death. Thus, when OSHA finds a safety violation, it clearly merits immediate attention. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill again. Madam 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. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt). (Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I would like to just say that when we say the Republican majority is trying to trivialize the role of OSHA and the role of safety in the workplace, there is good foundation for this. When this administration took power, the present administration in the White House, one of the first acts that they perpetrated was the repeal of ergonomic standards at the urging of, of course, Republican Members of Congress. They repealed the ergonomic standards that had been in process with a lot of bipartisan development and support over a long period of years. When the Secretary of Labor was Elizabeth Dole, great steps were made; and slowly we reached a point where we had ergonomic standards to pass. The current Bush Administration's first act was to repeal ergonomic standards, to toss them aside and to send a message that workers in the workplace are not that important, working families are really not important, working conditions in America are not important. The history of OSHA is that step by step they have saved thousands and thousands of lives. One of the worst industries for safety before OSHA came into existence was the construction industry. The construction industry is still one of the most unsafe industries, but it has made tremendous strides in terms of saving lives as a result of being forced to follow certain kinds of standards by OSHA. I think we need more light thrown on this subject, and for that reason we have prepared some information for each member of the committee by district, and they can get familiar with the problem in their district with this information that we have compiled. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2003, there were 200 worker deaths in the State of Illinois. But in the 13th Congressional District of Illinois, 69.5 percent of all the state's deaths took place. I think the Member of Congress from the 13th district ought to know that and take a look at what has happened in that district. This packet that we want to prepare for each Member includes a chart detailing the statistics. The chart also lists the worker deaths according to the industry the person worked in and also the type of incident that was responsible for their death: was it a fall, contact with equipment, et cetera. The information is also broken down between government workers and those working in the private industry. This packet also includes a census report for each one of the districts showing how it relates to the surrounding areas, et cetera. We will prepare this for each Member to just let them know how serious a matter this is in terms of their own immediate districts. We think working families in America should not be treated as if they lived in a Third World country, and a lot of Third World countries mores are being attempted by certain U.S. industries. Particularly the construction industry, the construction industry looks for the most vulnerable people, immigrants. Illegal immigrants are employed in large numbers in the construction industry. And I come from a city where 40 percent of all male blacks are unemployed, according to two studies, two studies that confirm that 40 percent of all male blacks are unemployed. Yet there is a tremendous amount of construction going on, and if we go around the construction sites, we will find that the workers doing the manual labor, unskilled labor, are immigrants; and in many cases there are tremendous accidents, and these people are shuffled off and frightened and intimidated to the point where they never even report it. They do not have any workman's compensation, let alone feel that they have the right to be protected under the OSHA laws. A review of more than 2,500 OSHA construction site inspection records in New York State from the year 2003 found that nearly one third of all OSHA construction violations in the State were of scaffolding or fall protection requirement violations, more than any other standard. The organizations involved in the analysis also said the results of this study as well as a separate review reveal troubling data about the plight of immigrant workers in the construction industry. Their analysis, titled ``Lives in the Balance--Immigrants and Workers at Elevated Heights at Greatest Risk in Construction,'' was prepared by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and issued by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, called ACORN. Two other organizations Make the Road by Walking, and the New York Immigration Coalition, also sponsored the study. The study reviewed all construction site OSHA inspections conducted in the State during 2003. Now, personally, I know and I have related on this floor, the total accidents that have taken place since then in New York City. Five immigrant workers lost their lives in a trench that was being constructed without proper safeguards. I want to repeat that there is a class problem developing in America. There is a class problem. Those in power are insensitive to the needs of those who are out there working on the front lines, whether it is in domestic service or in dangerous jobs like construction, trucking and a number of chemical plants. These are dangerous jobs, but they have to be done. Our industries cannot survive without people who work in those dangerous jobs. They deserve all the protection we can give them. Just as the soldiers on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else always deserve the best that we can give them. Every soldier is automatically a hero when he goes out to fight for his country, because for every one who goes out to fight, there are a few hundred thousand left behind who will never be called. We should recognize and honor those who go out to fight. Therefore, the best armor protection, the best bullet-proof vests, all of the things that are available to protect an individual's life should be available to those who go out to fight. What we have found in this present war in Iraq is that people on the top, with their class-conscious sentiments at work, did not provide at first the kind of protection that should have been provided to the soldiers on the front lines out there. The soldiers come from the same working families. I cannot stress enough the need for all Americans to recognize that we are all in this together. We have a governor of New York State now whose son was in the National Guard in a program that required that, once he came out, he had certain duties and obligations. This governor's son now is asking for a waiver. He does not want to go to Iraq; he wants a waiver. What kind of a message is that sending to all of the mothers and fathers of young men and women who have gone off to fight in Iraq in terms of our society? The person with the power does not want to make a sacrifice of his son.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time and would like to point out that despite the rhetoric of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and we did hear again the last speaker mention the fact that one of the reasons we are attacking OSHA is because employers feel they cannot compete with these regulations. They cannot compete with American workers being treated the way they are being treated. The humane treatment of American workers stands in the way of profits and competition with the people who are in the developing countries and China. They do not have to treat workers this way. They do not have to spend the money, as I said before. But I want to point out that this bill is hardly limited to small businesses. The appearance or the notion that small businesses are being persecuted by OSHA, by the government, is an incorrect one. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1998 there were more than 6.5 million private sector firms with 99 or fewer employees. H.R. 742 applies to all firms with 100 or fewer employees with a net worth of $7 million or less. These companies, those with a hundred or fewer employees and $7 million or less, comprise about 97 percent of all American businesses. Let me repeat that. H.R. 742 applies to all but 2 or 3 percent of American businesses. This is the broadest definition of small business that anyone could ever come up with or dream up. It is similar to categorizing elephants as small mammals. It does not tell the story as it should be told. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to employment-related laws, Congress traditionally defines a small business as one with 20 or fewer employees, 20 or fewer employees. As a matter of fact, that is the definition used on annual congressional appropriation riders, which exempt firms of 20 or fewer workers from scheduled OSHA inspections, 20 or fewer workers, not 100, as this bill treats. Mr. Speaker, I would also point out that OSHA also has a long- standing practice of reducing penalties for small employers. For businesses with 25 or fewer workers, any OSHA penalty is routinely reduced by 60 percent. Routinely reduced by 60 percent. Likewise, for businesses with between 26 and 100 workers, any OSHA penalty is reduced by 40 percent. Again, OSHA inspectors, in reality, are hardly like the draconian police inspector Javert from the famous novel, ``Les Miserable.'' It is important, Mr. Speaker, to realize that there is a need for both parties to come together and for the Republican majority to yield on its strategy to destroy labor unions. There is a strategy that has been pursued relentlessly to destroy labor unions; and in the process, working families of course get hurt because working families are represented by labor unions. In the effort to destroy labor unions, everything related to them, it gives them some kind of power, has to be destroyed, among them including OSHA. Members of unions are likely to complain. They are likely to insist on their rights. They are likely to report violations. OSHA is less likely to run over the interests of the workers if there is an accident or some problem. So the relentless pursuit of labor unions is part of the problem with this legislation. It has been brought back because it is a part of a master plan, and that master plan is to sort of distract our attention from the real issues related to safety in the workplace, distract our attention from the fact that it is really an employer protection act that we are concerned with. Employer protection at all cost. The constituency of the Republican majority party demands it all: destroy the kind of environment and atmosphere that working families have been used to for years in this Nation. Let us change all that because it is not competitive. It is not competitive. It costs too much. We cannot compete with our overseas competitors. We are, in the process, drawn into the trap of class warfare. We hate to hear the term class warfare anywhere in America. Nobody wants to be accused of class warfare, but that is what it amounts to: working families against people who never get enough. We have bloated capitalism. Aristotle said there are extremes of everything. There are extremes to capitalism. At one end of the spectrum, in terms of economic systems, you have communism; at the other end you have reckless capitalism. Capitalism out of control. Capitalism so greedy it never gets enough. I think democratic capitalism is the hope of the world, and we have enough experience now to know that democratic capitalism is the only system that really works. But if you allow capitalism to go to extremes, it tramples on the rights of workers. It tramples on the rights of consumers. You know, workers are consumers. There is a madness at work here. As we destroy the buying power of workers, we are destroying that which makes our economy go. We all agree, there is no debate about the fact that the economy of America is driven by consumer spending. Henry Ford understood that very early when he said, I am going to make cars and pay my workers enough money to buy them. That was a simple, commonsense idea that is at the heart of capitalism today. Two-thirds of our economy is dependent on what people buy. We are going to destroy the consumers by destroying the conditions in the workplace which allow our workers to work productively and get paid appropriately. The minimum wage of today, Henry Ford would see right away, is not going to allow our consumers to keep buying products. We are lucky; there is a sort of credit card fantasy, an oasis of credit card credit that is driving our economy right now. But slowly, as we lessen the amount of money that flows into the hands of workers, as we move more jobs overseas and encourage outsourcing, as we give more and more of our dollars to China, because we are not giving all of our dollars to China, we are giving the dollars that they use for manufacturing, for production, but the trade with China benefits the wholesalers and retailers. People are making big profits off China in this country. We would not be dealing with China if somebody was not making big profits in this country, but it is skewed. It is out of balance because in order to make big profits at the upper levels by producing products in a low- cost economy and getting the low-cost product, bringing them back into another economy with a different standard of living and selling those products at that standard, we are having consumers in America pay high prices for the lowest-priced goods that come from China. And the people who sell those goods and buy them from China, they walk off with the profits, along with the Chinese who produce those goods through the deals that have been made. There is more Wal-Mart in China than there is in the U.S., and more all of the time. They find it so profitable to take the product, the production, the manufacturing to China, and bring back the products to capitalize on the sales here. It is not going to work eventually. We are catering to those who benefit at the top, but it is not going to continue to work because we are destroying our own consumer market. We are going to wake up and find that the economy is going to come to a standstill because nobody is able to buy the products that we want to sell. Our own class war that we do not recognize and will not recognize will destroy us. Other evidence of a class war is the fact that we continue to give huge tax credits to the people at the very top who need it the least, yet we do not use the power of the Federal Government to increase the minimum wage. We started this discussion about minimum wage, and we are going to end it on minimum wage. The minimum wage is one way that we guarantee all Americans have a part of American prosperity. We should be paying something like $8 an hour in order to keep minimum wage competitive with when minimum wage was first instituted. We should be paying about $8 an hour to enable those workers to buy the products that we want to sell and keep our economy going. So minimum wage, we refuse to even consider. Congress has gotten huge increases in their own salaries, and refuse to consider a minimum wage increase for the workers at the very bottom. Is that not an element of class warfare? That is class contempt. That is class hatred, to stamp on those at the very bottom and refuse to use the authority invested in us by the American people. We have the authority to raise wages, but the same people who are being protected by these bills as far as OSHA is concerned by minimizing their expenses and minimizing any trouble they have to encounter in making the workplace safe, they are being protected by refusing to raise the minimum wage. What is the ultimate danger here? The ultimate danger here is that, one day, working families are going to wake up and say, you have it all wrong. The country belongs to all of us, not you. If you do not want to admit that, it belongs only to us. Working families are the people who go out and defend the existence of this country in times of war. They will determine whether we defeat terrorism or not. Working families are going to determine that we do not have domestic terrorism spreading in America because working families are going to save America by rising up to throw out people who insist on stamping on them and have contempt for them. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge a ``no'' vote on all four of these bills today.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is the worst of all of the OSHA bills before us today. It would treat OSHA differently than any other Federal agency. Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, if any agency's position is not ``substantially justified,'' the government must pay the opposing party's attorneys' fees. This bill says OSHA must pay attorneys' fees to a prevailing employer, even if OSHA's actions were reasonable. Under this bill, OSHA will find itself paying the attorneys' fees of repeated safety violators whose penalties were reduced on a technicality. The real-life example of an employer by the name of Eric Ho in Houston illustrates the problem here. Eric Ho hired undocumented workers and exposed them to high levels of asbestos, and this represents the kind of case that could not be tolerated by OSHA. Even after a city worker issued a stop-work order, Eric Ho secretly had the workers stay on the job. Eric Ho's workers ate at the site. They worked throughout the night, and some even slept at the site. Ho then directed the workers to tap into what would prove to be a gas line, and there was an explosion which resulted in one contractor and two workers being seriously injured. In the end, OSHA cited Eric Ho for ten serious violations and 29 willful violations. In turn, Eric Ho challenged OSHA and a divided OSHA review commission eventually downgraded Eric Ho's citations. Although Eric Ho was sentenced to prison in a prosecution led by the Environmental Protection Agency, because they had jurisdiction also. Eric Ho violated the Clean Air Act and H.R. 742 would require that this man, who had been convicted by one Federal agency, be awarded attorneys' fees because of OSHA's actions. OSHA would have to award attorneys' fees to Eric Ho. In this instance, H.R. 742 would use taxpayer funds to reimburse a convicted felon on OSHA technicalities. Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, when a Federal agency is not substantially justified and cites an employer and the employer prevails in judicial proceedings, the employer is reimbursed for his attorneys' fees and expenses by the U.S. Treasury funds. Under this bill, H.R. 742, OSHA would be required to reimburse from its own budget an employer who prevails in judicial or administrative proceedings, even when OSHA was ``substantially justified'' in issuing its initial citations. Now, they say, still, they are not trying to chip away at the effectiveness of OSHA, destroying OSHA bit by bit. OSHA would have to pay out of its own budget. Whereas, under the other circumstances that are similar, U.S. Treasury funds are used. Thus, any time an OSHA staffer conducts an inspection and discovers serious safety violations, that inspector would have to second-guess himself or herself. OSHA's inspectors will be forced to perform many mental gymnastics, trying to predict whether a citation, no matter how justified, might have the slightest chance of being adjusted or overturned on a technicality in review proceedings. Mr. Speaker, Members of both sides of the aisle agree that under its current budget and staffing configuration, it would take OSHA 108 years, 108 years to inspect all of the workplaces in America. Now, H.R. 742 would have the effect of tying the hands of OSHA inspectors behind their own backs, causing them to analyze each and every citation in the most serious minute detail. In a sense this bill calls for OSHA inspectors and supervisory staff to become forecasters. They will be required to predict any and all possible scenarios in which a specific citation might be reversed on a technicality. In the meantime, the founding purpose of OSHA, to assure, quote, ``every working man and woman in the United States safe and healthful working conditions,'' that would be more or lose forgotten. Mr. Speaker, there are Members on the other side of the aisle who would have us believe that every OSHA inspector is like police inspector Javert in Victor Hugo's famous novel ``Les Miserables.'' These Members compare every business owner to Hugo's noble character Jean Valjean, hounded by OSHA's Javertian inspector for having innocently slipped up on one point, one miniscule point of an obscure and archaic OSHA safety rule. In turn, those Members refuse to acknowledge the relevance of another great novelist, Charles Dickens, who captured bleak scenarios in which greed led the owners of blacking factories to subject child workers to inhumane and life-threatening conditions. In reality, we do not have to turn to 19th century novels to enlighten us on workplace safety conditions in this country. We need merely turn to the last year's astounding New York Times investigative series on worker deaths by David Barstow. Reporter Barstow reminded us all that someone harassing a wild burro on Federal lands in 2004 would get a stiffer penalty, that is up to a year in prison, than an unscrupulous employer whose willful safety violations resulted in the death of a worker. As I have repeated several times during today's debate, that employer's malfeasance could result in a sentence of no more than 6 months in jail. However, if Mr. Barstow were to write his series this year, he would have to alter the comparison slightly. It is not, I am afraid, that we are doing a better job of holding errant employers accountable for serious safety offenses. Rather, it is because a provision in the Omnibus Appropriations Act enacted at the end of the 108th Congress repealed the protection of wild burros and horses on Federal lands. So it is a different scenario; but still workers are no better off, I assure you. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The two speakers prior to me have raised the question of outsourcing, and other people have challenged the relevancy of that topic to this particular set of bills. Every statement I read from industry complaining about the competitive edge that other nations have mentioned the fact that our environmental laws and our safety laws and our minimum wage, that combination, puts them at a disadvantage. So it is logical to conclude that part of the exercise today is to take away one of those disadvantages, to the degree it can be accomplished. And if you have to chip away at it with bills like this and remove worker safety as an expense that has to be undertaken. This civilized nation was built by workers and the workers deserve to have a fair break. But those that want to reduce us to the level of Third World nations or want to imitate China are going to pursue the kinds of bills that we have before us today. So I want to just conclude with another section from the report of the AFL-CIO, their annual report on worker safety. I just want to read a few excerpts, which I think are excerpts that are important to educate our Members. More than 306,706 workers can now say their lives have been saved since the passage of the OSHA Act in 1970. Unfortunately, too many workers remain at risk. On average, 15 workers were fatally injured and more than 12,000 workers were injured or made ill each day of 2003. These statistics do not include deaths from occupational diseases, which claim the lives of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 workers each year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 5,559 workplace deaths due to traumatic injuries in 2003, which was a slight increase from the number of deaths in 2002, when 5,534 workplace deaths were reported. Wyoming, of all places, led the country with the highest fatality rate, 13.9 people per 100,000. The lowest State for the fatality rate was 1.5 per 100,000, which was reported in Delaware. The construction sector had the largest, as I said before, the construction sector had the largest number of fatal work injuries, 1,126 in 2003; followed by transportation and warehousing, which had 805 injuries; and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, which had 707 injuries. Industry sectors with the highest fatality rates were agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, 31.2 per 100,000 in hunting. Mining had 26.9 per 100,000. And transportation and warehousing, 17.5 per 100,000. So you can see we are not here just to talk in support of the blue States, the urban States, the Rust Belt States; but the rural areas are suffering quite a bit also. The workers there--the rural areas--suffer in terms of the large number of fatalities in the workplace. Transportation and material-moving occupations had the highest number of fatalities, 1,388, followed by construction and extraction occupations, with 1,033 fatal injuries. The occupations of greatest risk of work-related fatalities based on the number of fatalities per 100,000 employed were logging workers. Their occupation had 131.6 fatalities per 100,000; fishers and related fishing occupations had 115 deaths per 100,000; and aircraft pilots and flight engineers, 97.4 deaths per 100,000 employed. Very interesting that simple guys out there, fishers and logging workers, are in the same category as aircraft test pilots and flight engineers in terms of deaths and injuries. So our concern is universal, and the mission of OSHA is important and should not be denigrated or trivialized by this kind of legislation.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.