House GOP Spending Bill Sides with the Powerful and Well-Connected, Against Middle Class and Working Families
WASHINGTON – A Republican spending bill advancing through the House Appropriations Committee sides in favor of the powerful and well connected, at the expense of working families and the middle class, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) said today. The spending bill was approved today on a partisan vote by the committee’s Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies subcommittee.
“The House Republican blueprint for the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services utterly fails to live up to Congress’ duty to grow and strengthen America’s middle class,” said Miller, the senior Democratic member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “This bill is a bonanza for special interest provisions that benefit the well-connected to the detriment of working families and our economy.”
The following is a summary of some of the provisions of the Appropriations Committee bill (pdf):
Curtails ability to protect workers’ paychecks and prevent wage theft
- Prohibits spending funds to strengthen any child labor protection. (Sec. 117)
- Reduces funding for the Wage and Hour Division by almost $12.5 million, harming the agency’s ability to identify and collect back pay for workers whose wages were stolen. (Title I)
- Stops an effort to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home health workers. (Sec. 115)
- Overturns executive order that encourages federal agencies to consider “project labor agreements” on major construction projects. These agreements have been used by some of the nation’s top corporations to ensure fair wages, local hiring, workforce development, and high quality, on-time work. (Sec. 110)
Attacks workers’ rights to a fair workplace election and to bargain for a better life
- Stops proposed transparency and disclosure rules for anti-union consultants. (Sec. 111)
- Stops rulemaking efforts to ensure that when workers want an election, they get an election. (Sec. 405)
Reverses efforts to ensure a safe and healthful workplace for America’s workers
- Stops a decades-long effort to modernize black lung protections for the nation’s coal miners. (Sec. 118)
- Blocks extending protections for residential roof construction workers from preventable falls that construction workers in commercial currently have. (Sec. 116)
- Stops any effort by OSHA to develop or issue an injury and illness prevention program. (Sec. 113)
- Prohibits OSHA from enforcing a 16 year-old rule that protects workers from being pulled into moving equipment or engulfed in a grain storage silo or bin. (Sec. 114)
Rolls back opportunities for nearly 90,000 Americans, including young adults just out of school, to give back to their communities
- Eliminates the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs service programs such as AmericCorps. (Title IV)
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