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WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT
(House of Representatives - August 03, 1999)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6901-H6927] WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 271 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 271 Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 987) to require the Secretary of Labor to wait for completion of a National Academy of Sciences study before promulgating a standard or guideline on ergonomics. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule for a period not to exceed two hours. The bill shall be considered as read. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may accord priority in recognition on the basis of whether the Member offering an amendment has caused it to be [[Page H6902]] printed in the portion of the Congressional Record designated for that purpose in clause 8 of rule XVIII. Amendments so printed shall be considered as read. The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may: (1) postpone until a time during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a request for a recorded vote on any amendment; and (2) reduce to five minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any postponed question that follows another electronic vote without intervening business, provided that the minimum time for electronic voting on the first in any series of questions shall be 15 minutes. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. House Resolution 271 is a modified open rule, providing for the consideration of H.R. 987, the Workplace Preservation Act. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that the National Academy of Sciences completes and submits to Congress its study of a cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace and physical disorders or repetitive stress injuries before issuing standards or guidelines on ergonomics. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The rule also provides that the bill shall be open for amendment at any point and limits the amendment process to 2 hours. The rule authorizes the Chair to accord priority in recognition to Members who have preprinted their amendments in the Congressional Record. Additionally, the rule allows the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes during consideration of the bill, and to reduce voting time to 5 minutes on a postponed question if the vote follows a 15-minute vote. Finally, the rule provides for 1 motion to recommit with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 271 is a modified open and fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to 3 full hours. This is an extremely fair rule, given the amount of work Congress must complete this week. The Workforce Preservation Act is a brief and simple measure that prohibits OSHA from promulgating an ergonomics standard until the National Academy of Sciences completes its study and reports the results to Congress. Mr. Speaker, this body has long been concerned with the issue of sound scientific definitions of these types of workplace injuries. This bill merely requires OSHA to base their definitions on sound, scientific data. Last year, Congress authorized and American taxpayers paid almost $1 million for the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences to conduct a comprehensive study of all the available scientific literature examining the cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace. The study is currently underway and is expected to be completed within a 2-year time frame, and would be ready by mid-2001. Mr. Speaker, the study of ergonomics is one of OSHA's top priorities. This bill recognizes the importance of this study and requires that the most up-to-date scientific information is analyzed and included. This bill will in no way prohibit or deny OSHA the opportunity to create these standards. Rather, it will make sure that we get the most accurate information based on sound science. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the sponsor of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support both this rule and the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority spends a lot of time opining about how they want to help working men and women in this country. Yet, Mr. Speaker, at a time when the Occupational Health and Safety Administration is poised to issue a rule which seeks to protect American workers from workplace hazards which can lead to serious injury, the Republican majority wants to call a time-out. H.R. 987 does nothing to help working men and women in this country, and the Republican majority should not waste the time of this House by saying that it does. This bill is nothing more than another attack by the majority on establishing workplace protections that might very well save American businesses money in lost productivity, worker compensation claims, and disability insurance. If the House is going to call time-out, Mr. Speaker, it ought to be on the consideration of this bill and not on the health and safety of the American workforce. Mr. Speaker, work-related musculoskeletal disorders cost employers between $15 and $20 billion a year in workers compensation costs. Ergonomic injuries and illnesses are the single largest cause of injury-related lost workdays, with nearly 650,000 lost-time injuries each year. These injuries are found in every sector of our economy and cause real pain and suffering. Women workers are particularly victimized by ergonomic injuries and illness. They represent 69 percent of workers who lose time due to carpal tunnel syndrome, 63 percent of those who suffer repetitive motion injuries, and 61 percent who lose work time to tendonitis. {time} 1745 In fact, Mr. Speaker, nearly half of all injuries and illnesses to women workers are due to ergonomic hazards. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 987 proposes for at least another year and a half the promulgation of a rule that will provide needed health and safety standards for American workers. There is sound scientific evidence that shows that workplace factors cause musculoskeletal injuries and that show these injuries can be prevented. Many employers have seen the benefit in improving workplace conditions to prevent these injuries and have, as a result, seen injuries fall and productivity rise. If the Republican majority really wanted to do something for working men and women in this country, they would drop their opposition to these workplace protections and withdraw this bill. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 987 and a ``no'' vote on the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger.) Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this open rule. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in strong support of H.R. 982. It is a very simple bill. It simply says that the National Academy of Sciences must complete its study on ergonomics and report to Congress before OSHA promulgates a proposed or final standard. Clearly, the will of the House is that an almost million-dollar study on ergonomics by the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, should be completed before we rush to regulate. Science should precede regulation, not the other way around. Let me just summarize the following points in support of the bill: first, ergonomics regulation would be a substantially mandated cost on the American companies and the American economy. OSHA's own estimates show that draft regulation could cost an additional $3.5 billion annually. I believe that cost is greatly underestimated. Before we consider imposing this standard on the American people, let us have the scientific and medical proof to back it up. [[Page H6903]] Second, there is no question that there is a great deal of scientific and medical uncertainty and debate about ergonomics. If OSHA regulates before the causes are understood, OSHA may very well regulate the wrong thing and impose a lot of unnecessary costs without benefiting workers. Third, Congress and the President agree that we need a comprehensive study of ergonomics by NAS. The purpose of the study is to inform Congress, the Department of Labor, employers and employees about the state of scientific information on ergonomics. Only then can we determine whether a broad ergonomics regulation is appropriate. To issue a regulation before NAS completes its study is an outrage and a gross waste of taxpayers' funds. Fourth, an appropriations letter does not take precedence over the will of Congress in calling for an NAS study. Finally, the fact that OSHA has worked on ergonomics for over a decade is irrelevant since Congress decided the issue needed further study. Moreover, the fact that there has been substantial study with no conclusions about ergonomics suggests that more study is needed before imposing a nationwide standard at a great cost. In conclusion, I urge the Members to vote for the rule and H.R. 987. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay). Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. H.R. 987 is a measure of how antagonistic the majority of the Republican majority is to the interest of working people. Despite 7 years of unprecedented prosperity under the Clinton administration, there remains much that this House can do to improve the well-being of workers. We should be considering legislation to make a job pay a decent salary and increase the minimum wage. We should be ensuring that all workers have affordable health care. We should be expanding pension coverage. We should be ensuring better family leave coverage. Instead, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order a bill that will result in hundreds of thousands of workers suffering avoidable serious injury in the workplace. We should not let special interests downplay the seriousness of ergonomic injuries and illnesses. Imagine suffering from a workplace injury that prevents one from lifting anything over a half a pound. Imagine being disabled, so disabled that one cannot hold a book to read to their child. Imagine being unable to caress their newborn or to give him or her a shower or a bath. Mr. Speaker, there is no excuse for further delaying OSHA's ergonomic standard. The National Academy of Sciences study is a review of existing scientific literature. It is not intended and will not produce new information. Two previous studies of the existing scientific literature, one by NIOSH and one by NAS, have already confirmed that ergonomic injuries and illnesses are work related and that they cannot be prevented by workplace interventions. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, practical experience by thousands of companies has proven that ergonomic injuries and illnesses can be significantly reduced. Passage of H.R. 987 only ensures that some employers will continue to ignore the working welfare of the workers for that much longer. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and in support of the Workplace Preservation Act. During the Easter recess, I embarked on an industry tour in my district in North Carolina. The industries of the 8th district are primarily agriculture and textile related. I visited eight small- and medium-sized manufacturers, including Cuddy Farms in Monroe and Clayson Knitting Mill in Star. These companies and many others like them represent the backbone of our district's economy. The number one concern on their minds was the new ergonomics regulations being considered by OSHA. They were truly fearful of the burdensome regulation that would not only create more paperwork and costly, unneeded changes but would also hinder communications between employer and employee. All too often it appears as if the government is slightly behind the times. The current unemployment rate is so low that in many parts of the country employers do and in fact must offer the most attractive work environment in order to recruit and retain employees. As one employer from the district wrote to me, ``My company is begging for employees from laborers to drivers to high-tech computer operators. We are doing everything we can to attract employees.'' Plant managers, human resources managers, and office managers are more than willing to work with their own employees on grievances and workplace conditions rather than plow through layers of government bureaucracy. The number of manufacturing jobs is on the decline. We are seeing more and more jobs going to Central America and overseas because, frankly, our government is making the cost of doing business in the United States too high for too many companies. Rural areas in our Nation are being hit hardest by the decline in manufacturing jobs. Keeping more unsubstantiated government regulation on these industries will only encourage them to continue to flee. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that politically powerful forces are at work here. Why else would OSHA hastily recognize a casual relationship between repetitive tasks and repetitive stress injuries without complete scientific documentation? I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and allow the National Academy of Sciences to complete its work. With all the facts, Congress can step back and prudently evaluate the need for new ergonomic guidelines. We must resist another in a long line of attempts to impose costly restrictions upon employers and employees with the one-size-fits-all Federal approach. Please support the rule and this bill. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, every time I tour a plant in my district I run into workers, especially women, who are wearing wrist braces. When I ask them about their problem, the answer over and over again is the same: carpal tunnel syndrome. Where does carpal tunnel syndrome or many of those other injuries come from? They come from workers having to do the same thing hundreds of times and thousands of times without properly designed equipment and work stations. And workers I see are not isolated examples. Repetitive motion injuries affect 650,000 workers each year. That is more than the number of people who die each year from cancer and stroke. Those injuries account for more lost workday injuries than any other cause, especially for women workers. Nearly half of all workplace injuries for women are due to repetitive motion problems. Now, there are those in this body who say there ought to be more delay in protecting those workers, but they are virtually alone in the world. Every industrialized country has recognized that there is more than enough evidence to move forward on a repetitive motion standard. Most progressive businesses recognize it is their duty to protect workers and to protect their stockholders from the economic impact of huge amounts of lost work time. But a powerful band of economic royalists in this country and in this Congress continue to fight that protection, and it is time to get on with it. In 1990, that well-known ``radical'' liberal Elizabeth Dole said that it was time to move forward on this. In 1995, the Republican majority attached a rider blocking the issuance of draft regulations. In 1996, they tried to prevent OSHA from even collecting the data on repetitive motion injuries. In 1997, they tried to block it again but failed. At that time, the National Institutes for Occupational Health and Safety conducted a detailed review of [[Page H6904]] more than 600 scientific studies on the problem, and they found a strong correlation between workplace conditions and worker injuries. That study was peer reviewed by 27 experts throughout the country. But that was not good enough for some of my colleagues. So in 1998, they pushed the National Institutes of Health to fund another study at the National Academy of Sciences. They convened 65 of the world's leading scientists, and again they found evidence that clearly demonstrates that specific intervention can reduce injury. But that is not good enough for some of my colleagues. They want yet another delay. That delay does not hurt anybody in this room. The only repetitive motion injury that Members of Congress are likely to get are knee injuries from continuous genuflecting to big business special interests who want us to put their profit margins ahead of worker health. Maybe the time has not come for my colleagues. But, by God, it has come for those workers. We need action and we need it now. No delays. No foot dragging. No excuses. We need action and we need action now. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson). Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yield me the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I want to address myself to the rule first because that is what we are debating. I have heard it said here today that we should not wait any longer for the scientific evidence to be evaluated by the National Academy of Science, what we should immediately do is proceed to pass rules and regulations. That is a little bit like going into a waiting room of a sick patient and saying, let us just not do any diagnostic testing, let us go ahead and operate. It is risky business. Secondly, I want to agree completely that this is about the cost to American business and the safety of American workers. In a period of unprecedented prosperity, in a period of full employment, the last thing an employer wants for a moment is to have workers getting hurt on the job, because there are not good replacements, because we are fully employed. They want workplace safety. But the last thing they want, also, is conflicting scientific data dictating to a bureaucracy to go ahead and establish rules and regulations preceding a final determination. In committee on this bill, whether my colleagues agree with the bill or not, no one can argue that professionals and physicians from both sides of the musculoskeletal disorder syndrome agree that there were conflicting data and it was time to have a decision. Mr. Speaker, I believe we should move forward with what will be a very contested debate. To vote against this rule makes no sense. When the debate on the rule is over and the rule passes, I think the evidence will come forward that we are doing what is right for workers and what is right for the employer and what is right for America, to depend on conclusive evidence and not conflict opinions. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1800 Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss the platforms of the two parties in respect to the lives of working people and what kinds of programs we would like to offer for working people. One party is clearly against working families and they express it in many ways. This particular piece of legislation has a symbolic significance far beyond what you see written on the paper. It is one part of an overall attack by the majority Republicans on working families. I think the President has made it clear in his message on this bill what we are about here today and it is pretty simple. The administration has written that it strongly opposes enactment of H.R. 987, a bill that would unnecessarily delay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's issuance of a protective standard on ergonomics until the National Academy of Sciences has completed a second study of the scientific literature regarding musculoskeletal disorders and ergonomics. I think that it is very clear that what the Republican majority is saying is, let the workers suffer, let the working families suffer. Six hundred thousand people are affected yearly by these work-related musculoskeletal disorders, but it does not matter, let the workers suffer. They are only working families. We are Republicans. We care only about the upper income and we want to spend our time getting benefits out to them in the form of a massive, $794 billion tax cut over 10 years. I would like to see all of the Members come to the floor and use this opportunity. I think we may have about 3 hours to discuss the working families of America and which party really represents them and their welfare. Let them suffer for another 2 years, that is what the immediate concrete message is. So what? We have had studies. The studies clearly show that there is a cause and effect. The new studies that the NAS will be attempting and continuing to undertake relate to intervention strategies. How do you intervene to prevent these disorders. How do you intervene to lessen the impact of the kinds of unhealthy working conditions in the workplace? They want to go on gathering evidence and data which can go on forever and that is the way that any scientific gathering of evidence should take place. But why make the workers wait before you issue standards and you begin the process of intervening to lessen the impact of the injuries? The Republicans say, let them wait. Small businesses and even big businesses are going to suffer because the amount of workmen's compensation payments will continue to go up. It is around $20 billion a year now, related to these various disorders, and there have been many successful attempts by businesses to install ergonomic standards and to take steps to deal with the ergonomics of the workplace which have benefited the businesses as well as the workers. By preventing OSHA from formalizing these procedures and allowing DSHA to do what some businesses have done and what the State of California has done with their standards; by preventing OSHA from moving forward with the number of positive kinds of developments that have taken place, we are going to force more workers to suffer unnecessarily. We have case histories of workers in every State in the union; terrible things have happened in terms of injuries that have wrecked whole families. No, people do not bleed a great deal, they do not have concussions, it is not the kind of dramatic workplace accident situation that you have in the construction industry, but the slow death that is taking place more and more as we increase our digital world and people are more and more sitting before keyboards, eyestrain, all kinds of carpal tunnel syndromes from the actions of the wrists, all kinds of disorders are developing rapidly that injure more and more workers. More and more women, also, are drawn into this, more and more women incidentally who happen to be the wage earners and their families have been drawn into this. Why let the workers suffer? Let us get it over with. Let us get the standards out there and stop the suffering of the workers. The Democrats want to stop the suffering. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). (Mr. BONILLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Speaker, the American worker makes up the lifeblood of our economy and we can all agree in this Chamber that our utmost concern is their safety and well-being in the workplace. Every employer in America understands that it is to their advantage and the employee's advantage to keep workers healthy and happy on the job. In fact, we should all be celebrating today here that because of the safety measures that have been taken in the private sector. Working with some folks in OSHA, we have dropped employee injuries by 17 percent. The number of injuries dropped by 17 percent since 1995 because of the [[Page H6905]] changes that employers have made in the workplace. There is no crisis at hand. Let us be honest about what we are debating here. We are debating a power grab by a government agency and by America's big labor unions who are trying to get a stranglehold on America's businesses both small and large. The debate we have here today is about the rush to promulgate and to write a rule dealing with repetitive stress injuries, with ergonomics, something that would be far more dangerous to the American worker if it is written too fast versus waiting for sound science to guide them versus having political science guide them. Imagine for 1 second if OSHA rushes to write a rule without sound science, a one-size-fits-all rule that would apply to florists as it would to people who work in manufacturing plants, to people who work in auto parts stores, at restaurants and on farms and ranches throughout this country. What a nightmare this would be for the American workers. They would suddenly have their bosses having to spend gobs of money, money that could go to raises and better benefits and instead trying to comply with a one-size-fits-all regulation. Let us all remember that the first draft that OSHA had of this rule was 600 pages long. Imagine if you are working in a bakery out in the heartland in America, you are working in a dentist's office, in a lab, in an auto parts store or a restaurant and you suddenly saw this regulation show up on your doorstep. That is why the calculation of what this would cost the American workers in this country is at about $4 billion, because this is the kind of penalty we pay in our American society when we have a one-size-fits-all regulation hastily written and showing up at the doorstep of America's workplaces. All we are asking in this bill and in this rule is to allow us to stop the rush. There is no need to rush. We can wait for the sound science to take over and have the political science take a back seat so that we can do this the right way. There is no guarantee. When this National Academy of Science study is ultimately completed, it could in fact recommend that an ergonomics regulation move forward. We understand that. But let us let the scientists decide, let us let the researchers decide. Let us not turn this process over to a power-hungry Federal agency and labor unions that are also behind it. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento). (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and in opposition to this measure which is not letting the scientists decide, it is not letting the experts at OSHA decide. It is putting it here on the floor in a political way and letting all the experts here, the political experts, decide. This is not something being pushed by labor. If labor is interested in it, they are only interested because they are trying to protect the safety and health of workers. This is not some arcane problem that exists with regards to workers. Almost half the injuries that occur on the part of workers are related to repetitive stress type of injuries. If we wait another year, another year and a half, we are going to have another million people that are injured in this way. For those of you that love science, it sounds like you like it just to study. You do not want to apply the science. It is time we take the knowledge and information we have and put it in place so that we can protect the workers that are intended to be protected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that has been working on this for a decade, that depended upon 600 studies to base their decision upon. Over 2,000 articles and reviews were written of those studies and endless hearings to make certain as to the appropriateness of such rule. This bill is just an effort to study this into infinity, to frustrate the implementation of a legitimate law and rule. What is the cost? The cost in the end is a very high cost, because it means that individuals that are on the job, that are trying to work, will have to lay down their bodies, they will cripple their bodies simply to earn a living. That is really what this is about. We have to open our eyes up and begin to see what is happening. This is like some bad film. ``Eyes Wide Shut'' on the other side, disregarding reality is what we really have here with regards to this repetitive stress issue. Open them up to the people you shake hands with when you are out campaigning and they draw their hand back because of the injuries that they have sustained in the world of work. We can change it. We can make it better. This Congress ought to take its political act and go home with it and leave the experts that are supposed to be working on this issue and rule do their job. We should defeat this rule and defeat this bill. This measure, H.R. 987, seeks to study to infinity worker injuries and yet again delay Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) action on rules that would govern and prevent such injuries. This is no less than a frontal attack on all of OSHA to frustrate, dismantle and renege on worker safety embodied in the Occupational Safety Health Act. Repetitive work related motion trauma is not some arcane, isolated occurrence--nearly half of all workplace illnesses documented are caused by such repetitive motion, ergonomics. Each year injuries which result from such work-related musculoskeletal disorders harm nearly 650,000 workers and are estimated to cost businesses $60 billion dollars in worker compensation payments and other costs. More than 100 different injuries can result from repetitive motions causing painful wear and tear to the bodies of working men and women. Women are especially affected by this problem, comprising 60 to 70 percent of those injured in many categories. This repetitive injury OSHA rule is an all too common case of good news, bad news. The good news is that for almost every job that results in such injuries, there are alternative methods of performing work which can decrease the risk of harm. The bad news is that there isn't a focus on such prevention, and in fact some want to frustrate implementation. In February 1999, OSHA released a discussion draft for an ergonomics standard which would implement the use of ergonomics in the workplace. This draft proposal is an important step toward protecting workers from musculoskeletal disorders in a way which allows employers the flexibility to adopt solutions that fit their workplaces. The legislation we are debating today, H.R. 987, is euphemistically titled the ``Workplace Preservation Act.'' This bill is an unnecessary tactic which could ultimately result in thousands more workers being needlessly injured on the job--650,000 in one year more. Proponents of H.R. 987, playing a game of delay, mock and question the soundness and effectiveness of a well researched ergonomics standard, all the time wrapping themselves in ``sound science''. However, both a 1998 National Academy of Science study and a 1997 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study provides scientific evidence linking musculoskeletal disorders to the job. A document based on 600 research studies of such injuries and 2000 scientific articles build a solid foundation upon which to act. Even beyond official studies, there is practical proof that ergonomics programs work. The draft standard that OSHA is developing is actually based on programs which have been implemented and proven successful in various work sites across the country. OSHA would be irresponsible and derelict in its duties to not act upon such a clear record which pinpoints the cause of one half of workplace illnesses. We have waited long enough to address this problem, any opposition by Congress now will serve to needlessly delay the process even further. For every day that we waste on redundant research, life-altering impairment which could have been avoided will occur. It is truly a travesty that our workforce continues to suffer serious disabling injuries while Congress debates whether or not a known solution should be set in place. Clearly, this is exactly the kind of issue that OSHA was created to address, and attempts to block this organization from implementing solution to improve harmful work environments are disingenuous, misdirected and counterproductive. This Congressional measure to delay sound OSHA action should be identified for what it is; ``The Right to Risk Worker's Health Act.'' Enough is enough--too many bodies and limbs have been needlessly worn to numbness and a life of pain and permanent injury. We owe it to elemental common sense and fairness to accord workers the OSHA rule and safeguard, to prevent working conditions which force them to sacrifice their health and cripple their bodies to earn a living. Mr. Speaker, I will oppose this harmful legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson). Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the rhetoric I [[Page H6906]] am hearing today. I listened to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). He is absolutely on track. All that is happening is a takeover by big government trying to interfere in individuals' lives. Last year, the Congress and the President agreed to spend nearly $1 million on a study, and it is going to be completed in 2001. Why can we not wait until then? OSHA instead wants to rush forward and eliminate thousands of jobs and cost us billions of dollars while failing to assure the prevention of one single injury. Some single industry estimates go as high as 18 to $30 billion of cost. It is going to cost our businesses money. That means you, the consumer, the taxpayer, you are not only going to pay taxes, you are going to pay higher costs on everything you do. Let me just tell my colleagues something. When I was down at Homestead Air Force Base as commander, we had a little platform out on every level in a three-story barracks that our men lived in. OSHA came in and said you have to put a rail around there so when the guys get out there to clean the windows, they will not fall off. And furthermore, they have to have a hook to hook on that rail to make sure that if they do fall off, they will not fall and hurt themselves. Now, that is your government at work. Let me tell you what happened. A hurricane came through and destroyed that base totally. It does not anymore exist. So we got rid of the OSHA requirement in that way. Mr. Speaker, we need water here pretty bad. I hope we get a hurricane and just push OSHA out to sea. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink). (Mr. KLINK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is very plain to me that this rule should not be on the floor and this bill should not be on the floor. This is probably the biggest health and safety vote that we will see this year if not this Congress. The impact that ergonomic injuries have had on workers will touch every part of the family of labor. If this is such a big organized labor deal as some of the speakers have talked about, then that tool of organized labor, Elizabeth Dole, back in 1990 when she was Secretary of Labor, and I do not think anyone has ever accused her of being that closely aligned with organized labor, but her comment was that these injuries, and this is a direct quote, ``one of the Nation's most debilitating across-the-board worker safety and health illnesses of the 1990s.'' Ms. Dole was right then and she is right today. Business has to recognize the need to incorporate a new philosophy. We have to be able to adjust the way we manufacture, to adjust our equipment rather than asking workers to adjust their bodies to the way we manufacture. If we do that, the workers will be healthier and they will miss fewer days of work; workers' comp costs are going to go down, productivity would be higher, jobs would be secure and, yes, profit margins for our companies would go up. Let us look at the figures in 1997. There were 620,459 lost workdays due to workplace ergonomic injuries. These injuries were overexertion, repetitive motion, carpal tunnel syndrome, back injuries. This represents 34 percent, over one-third, of all the workdays that were lost by injured workers were due to ergonomic injuries. There has been some discussion on the other side about what this might cost the employers of this Nation. Someone threw out the figure of $4 billion. I do not know if that is true, I do not know if it is an exaggerated figure, but these ergonomic injuries each year cost business and workers between 15 and $20 billion. We ought to take a look at what Red Wing Shoes did. Here is an example of a company that modified its work stations. This was not an inexpensive thing for them to do. It cost them money. But at Red Wing, they reduced their workers' comp costs by 75 percent over a 4-year period. There was also some discussion on the other side about the fact that studies have not been done yet. The fact is the studies have been done. If you take a look at the NIOSH report it says, and I am quoting here, NIOSH director Dr. Linda Rosenstock, it found strong evidence of its association between musculoskeletal disorders and work factors such as heavy lifting. Then we go to this bill, H.R. 987, in the ``Findings'' section, you quoted exactly the opposite. You say that there is insufficient evidence to assess the level of risk that workers have from repetitive motion. {time} 1815 When the finding section of their own bill is exactly opposite of the finding that is actually in the study, no wonder they brought a cockeyed bill to the floor, because they do not know how to read the findings. Whoops, I am sorry. What was it Gilda Radner said? Excuse me. My colleagues have got to read the finding section. NIOSH has found that in fact repetitive motion does cause injuries. We have seen it; we have heard the stories. People who injure themselves on the job through ergonomic problems, they cannot comb their children's hair, cannot wash dishes, cannot sweep the floors at home. This bill should go down; the rule should go down. In fact, we should not even be here. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume just to make out a simple point that House Resolution 271 is a modified and open, fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for the debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to three full hours. It is an extremely fair rule, and given the amount of work that Congress is needed to do to complete its work this week, there will be ample time to have great debate on the merits of the legislation. But I remind my colleagues my view is we have a fair and open rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that everybody understands exactly what we are doing today. No one is saying that we are here to say that there will not be any ergonomic regulations in the future. In fact, I am sure there will be, but it seems to me, if there are going to be, then we should have the best scientific knowledge we possibly can so we do it right because we may just do the opposite of what we should be doing to try to help the people who we are trying to help. I would point out very quickly to my colleague from Pennsylvania that the NIOSH study also said additional research would be very, very valuable, and that is what it is all about. That is what it is all about; that is what the discussion is all about. We said in legislation, agreed by the President and by the Congress, that we would spend up to almost a million dollars of taxpayers' money to get the kind of scientific knowledge that we need in order to make sure what regulations are promulgated, that they are done properly, that they are done to help. That is all this legislation says: Get the study, colleagues asked for the study, they are willing to pay taxpayers' dollars for the study, get the study, use it, and then write the regulations that go with it. As my colleagues know, we have had 2 years of hearings where we have heard, if nothing else, a lot of inconclusive evidence, a lot of people who are not positively sure what the cause is and are not positively sure how to solve the problem. That is why we are asking the National Academy of Sciences to help us, help us determine what the problem is, help us determine what the direction is that we should be going. We had one of the finest back surgeons, one of the most prominent back surgeons in the country who said after years of his study and years of his dealing with the issue he found that in many instances it is not physical factors like how often you lift or how often you bend. In fact, he said that it is in many instances nonphysical factors, just stress in life, not enjoying one's job, and I think we can all relate [[Page H6907]] to that. Get down low enough, boy, people can have aches and pains. We all go through that process. And so here is a back surgeon, a prominent back surgeon who made that statement. So again, all the hearings that we have had, there is so much indecision as to what is the proper way to go, what do we specifically know and how do we handle the issue? And so all we say is, wait, get the study. We are paying almost a million bucks for it, and then see whether you can promulgate regulations that will truly help the men and women that we are trying to help. So no one is here trying to prevent forever ergonomic regulations. We are here saying let us do it right, let us get the scientific evidence first, and then proceed. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, today we vote on legislation to block OSHA from protecting America's working men and women from workplace injuries and illnesses caused by ergonomic-related issues. My colleagues have the figures, but they bear repeating. Each year more than 2 million workers suffer these injures, more than 640,000 workers lose time at work, and each year this costs the economy $15 to $20 billion in worker compensation, an overall $60 billion, all things considered. I oppose this legislation and support workplace protection for American workers. What is ergonomics? What is that word? What does it mean? Ergonomics and what are ergonomic-related injuries? Ergonomics is the science of adapting the workplace to the physical needs of the workers such as giving telephone headsets to telephone operators to avoid cradling the phone to reduce neck and shoulder pain, a work place that is poorly adapted to workers' causes, ergonomics injuries. One type of injury, repetitive motion injuries frequently mentioned here, is caused when a worker repeats a specific motion hundreds or thousands of times. For example, secretaries and office workers who type all day at their computer keyboards often suffer wrist and arm injuries. Similarly, America's poultry workers who cut up and sliced up the chicken parts for our meals repeat the same cutting and slicing motion hundreds of time an hour each day as they cut up thousands of chickens for our meals. The cumulative stress of these repetitive motions cause secretaries, poultry workers, and other workers to suffer health problems. But I want to get personal about this, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about one particular poultry worker. Betty Yvonne Green. Betty worked as a chicken fillet puller for seven years. Her job required her to use her thumbs to separate the fillet from the bone, cut the tips off the fillet with scissors and then place the product in a tub. Betty performed this task 16 to 17 times a minute for 2\1/2\ hours straight without a break. In 1984, Betty began to feel pain in her right arm and reported it to her supervisor, the directors of personnel and the plant manager. They all told her there was nothing wrong and she would have to live with this problem. Management felt her pain did not warrant medical assistance, and nothing was to be done until Betty went to her personal physician. Betty's doctor found that both her rotator cuffs had been torn and required surgery. She went back to work after both surgeries, but was unable to continue to do her fillet job. She worked some light duty, but to no avail. Betty was terminated by the company for what they said was excessive absenteeism. She was denied unemployment and only received workers compensation after retaining an attorney. On behalf of Betty Yvonne Green and many, many workers throughout this country who deserve our respect, in fact deserve our protection, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this so-called Workplace Preservation Act. Indeed it should be called the Workplace Persecution Act because that is exactly what it does to the American worker. We can study this thing to death. Of course we are always open to more science, but we have to also know when we have enough science to proceed and learn many more ways that we can do better in the workplace, but not to deny, not to deny what has been fully documented by NIOSH, which has been fully documented by the National Academy of Sciences as a relationship between repetitive motion and ergonomic disease. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham). (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) says that the Democrats are for working people, for working men and women, but yet every piece of legislation that they had out of here in support are against 90 percent of the working people. But if it is for the union bosses, they will support it. In 1993, they put the highest tax on the American people possible and increased the tax on middle- income workers, and this year they are trying to stop tax relief for those same workers. Salting for the unions where the unions go in and just destroy a small business, not even looking to overtake that business. That is wrong, but yet our union brothers over here support it. Davis-Bacon, that increases inflation 15 to 35 percent of construction for school buildings, but yet will they waive for the children? No, they will support the unions. Now we are asking for a scientific study, and I would say that even Republicans, we need to go one step further because when colleagues say based on science you need to look at who pays for the science. Is it the Republican groups or the Democrat groups, and people need an individual peer review to be fair, a nonpartisan independent review. Sometimes that does not exist, and I will give into that and we need that. As my colleagues know, in the office the people that work with computers all the times, they have carpel tunnel. There is good scientific basis that we need to help those people and provide the pads and make sure there is rotation and lights, and we have some pretty good science on it. But the problem is our colleagues want to go in without a study or agenda instead of science, and we are saying, no, let us back it up with the science to show so there will not be a big input on it, and I brought up yesterday www.dsa/usa. Democrat Socialists of America, progressive caucus, has a 12 point agenda: government control of health care, government control of education, government control of private property, and guess what? Union over small business and cut military by half, by 50 percent, and it is to support the union. That is their working men and women, but not the 90 percent of the people that have all of the other jobs. My colleagues should put their mouth and money where their rhetoric is. Support the people, the working men and women. Who is for this? The union bosses. Who is against it? Chamber, NFIB, every small business group out there because they know that the only thing that my colleagues are focusing on is the union bosses who give them their campaign finance money. Admit it. Why do they fight against 90 percent of the small businesses and workers every single bill that we have? They do not support the networking men and women in this country; they only support the union members. As my colleagues know, I take a look at the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) who gets up here and says, Oh, the poor lady in the red dress, not again, and he talks about the working men and women and the class warfare, only the rich versus the poor. Well, cut out the rhetoric. Do things based on science; the environmentalists, the same thing. We want environmental changes. Do my colleagues think we want bad environment, the Republicans over the Democrats? We just want it based on good science, and then we want a peer review. The same thing with ergonomics. We want a good science and peer review so they do not destroy the 90 percent of the jobs that are out there in favor of their union bosses. And that is what we are asking, Mr. Speaker. We are tired and tired and tired of the Democrats' rhetoric trying [[Page H6908]] to make points for the year 2000 where they get their campaign money, and that is what they support. If colleagues really support the working men and women, support the Republican position on this. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson). Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and this bill, and I would hope that we could cut back a little bit on the rhetoric. First of all, people need to understand this talk about this study. There is no study that is going on. All that is happening is it is going to be a compilation of a bunch of studies that have already been done. So we need to get that clear. Second thing I think that people need to understand is that it would help if somebody would have talked to the people in the department that are actually working on this. {time} 1830 I have met with Secretary Jeffers more than once and talked to him about this proposed rule that they are looking at. They have been working on it a long time. There is a lot of science that has gone into this. I do not think a lot of people that are talking on this floor have actually looked into what this is about. This only applies to manufacturing and manual lifting businesses, where 60 percent of these injuries take place. If you do not have an injury, this is not going to apply to you. It only applies when you have an injury where there is ergonomics involved, and at that point, you have to come up with a way to deal with it. If you have got a situation where it is only one injury and you are a small employer, they have something called a quick fix where you can go in and work on this without having to put a plan together. So they have listened to small business, they have tried to make this workable, and if anybody sat down and read this, they would understand that. The other thing is that businesses that have gone out and actually worked on this have found it to be cost effective. It saves money for their company, and it is good for their employees. This afternoon I talked to 3M. They have an ergonomist on their staff. That person has saved them money. It is better for the company and better for the workers. This is something that clearly works. So I hope that people will focus on what is really going on here. Back in October of 1998, then appropriations Chairman Livingston and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) sent a letter to Alexis Herman saying we are funding this NAS study and it is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics. Well, it looks to me today like what is going on here is delay, and is contrary to what was said. So I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this bill. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) the Chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.) Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time, and I assure him I will reserve time for my friend from Louisiana and will not fill out the entire hour here. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and congratulate my friend from Buffalo for his super management. We have an expression that we have been trying our doggonedest to successfully implement around here in the 106th Congress, and we call it regular order. We try to, as much as possible, follow regular order. Frankly, that is exactly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) is trying to do with this legislation. We authorized $1 million for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with some sort of finding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proceeds with implementation of its regulations on ergonomics. The fact of the matter is, nothing, as has been said by several of my colleagues, nothing prevents them from moving ahead. But what we are saying is get every bit of information you possibly can so that you come up with good public policy. Now, that will be unique for OSHA in the eyes of many, because a number of us have been very critical of the fact that regulations that they over the years have imposed have been extraordinarily costly to the private sector, and, in turn, to the consumers of this country. But, obviously we are all wanting to deal with the problems of stress-related repetitive actions that people take in their work, so all we are saying is let us do it right. This is a very fair and balanced rule which allows for a free-flowing debate, while at the same time recognizing that most of my colleagues with whom I have spoken over the last few days want us to complete our work by the end of this week so we can go home for August. This rule allows us to have a debate and do it in a fair way, and also get this, and I hope the rest of our work, done. So I urge support of the rule. Mr. FROST. 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. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I listened intently to my friend from New York, a member of the Committee on Rules who spoke about this rule a few minutes ago, and I wanted to make several points about the rule. We are operating here under the facade that this will give, as the chairman of the Committee on Rules just said, a free-flowing and open debate about worker safety. I want to point something out: There are many of us who believe that OSHA is understaffed, that OSHA does not have enough inspectors to go find workplace violations and do something about them. But, if I am not mistaken, and my friend from the Committee on Rules can correct me, an amendment that would add inspectors to OSHA's inspection force would be ruled out of order because it is not germane. There are many of us who are concerned about sick building syndrome, about people going to work, day after day, in buildings where the heating and air conditioning systems do not work properly and they cannot breathe properly and their asthma is aggravated or their other breathing related disabilities are aggravated, and many of us believe OSHA should do something about that. An amendment that would address that problem would be out of order because it would not be germane. In fact, it is almost impossible to think of any amendment that could be offered under this bill that would do anything other than kill this regulation or delay this regulation that would be germane. So let us get the record straight here. There are dozens of important worker safety issues that confront this country. None of them, none of them, are in order for debate under this rule on the floor. The only thing we can do is either accept or reject this attempt to delay, and I think ultimately defeat, the new ergonomic standard by OSHA. So let us be very clear about this, that this is an open rule in form only. Every other consideration in worker safety is not in order. That is why the rule should be defeated. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Crowley. (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to my good friend from Buffalo, New York, a fellow New Yorker, to this rule and to, even more importantly, to H.R. 987, the Workforce Preservation Act. Injuries resulting from workplace stress and strain have long been studied. We cannot continue to needlessly put off a standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the belief that ergonomically unsafe conditions result in repetitive strain injuries, also called RSIs. Approximately 700,000 serious workplace injuries result from ergonomically unsafe working conditions. This [[Page H6909]] accounts for 31 percent of all injuries and illnesses involving lost workdays. The cost of these lost workdays has been estimated to be between $15 and 20 billion. Now, these are not made-up injuries, they are not fantasies in workers' minds. These are real injuries, not only costing billions of dollars, but destroying people's everyday lives, people who can no longer work in their chosen professions, no longer cook at home, no longer play the guitar, no longer ride their bicycles even, and even no longer picking up their little children. That is what we are talking about here. I cannot understand how my colleagues could want to delay the implementation of a standard that would not only reduce pain and suffering but save the business community of this country billions of dollars each year. I applaud last year's appropriation funding of the National Academy of Sciences study of ergonomic injuries. However, that is no reason to delay the implementation of a highly researched and needed OSHA standard. Stand up for working Americans, stand up for healthy workplaces. Vote against this rule, H.R. 987, to help prevent thousands of injuries and save employers up to $20 billion a year. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and to the bill. Like many of my colleagues, I feel as if I am in a time warp. Last year when the latest NAS scientific review was funded, there was an agreement that this study should not and would not bloc

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WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT
(House of Representatives - August 03, 1999)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6901-H6927] WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 271 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 271 Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 987) to require the Secretary of Labor to wait for completion of a National Academy of Sciences study before promulgating a standard or guideline on ergonomics. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule for a period not to exceed two hours. The bill shall be considered as read. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may accord priority in recognition on the basis of whether the Member offering an amendment has caused it to be [[Page H6902]] printed in the portion of the Congressional Record designated for that purpose in clause 8 of rule XVIII. Amendments so printed shall be considered as read. The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may: (1) postpone until a time during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a request for a recorded vote on any amendment; and (2) reduce to five minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any postponed question that follows another electronic vote without intervening business, provided that the minimum time for electronic voting on the first in any series of questions shall be 15 minutes. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. House Resolution 271 is a modified open rule, providing for the consideration of H.R. 987, the Workplace Preservation Act. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that the National Academy of Sciences completes and submits to Congress its study of a cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace and physical disorders or repetitive stress injuries before issuing standards or guidelines on ergonomics. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The rule also provides that the bill shall be open for amendment at any point and limits the amendment process to 2 hours. The rule authorizes the Chair to accord priority in recognition to Members who have preprinted their amendments in the Congressional Record. Additionally, the rule allows the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes during consideration of the bill, and to reduce voting time to 5 minutes on a postponed question if the vote follows a 15-minute vote. Finally, the rule provides for 1 motion to recommit with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 271 is a modified open and fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to 3 full hours. This is an extremely fair rule, given the amount of work Congress must complete this week. The Workforce Preservation Act is a brief and simple measure that prohibits OSHA from promulgating an ergonomics standard until the National Academy of Sciences completes its study and reports the results to Congress. Mr. Speaker, this body has long been concerned with the issue of sound scientific definitions of these types of workplace injuries. This bill merely requires OSHA to base their definitions on sound, scientific data. Last year, Congress authorized and American taxpayers paid almost $1 million for the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences to conduct a comprehensive study of all the available scientific literature examining the cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace. The study is currently underway and is expected to be completed within a 2-year time frame, and would be ready by mid-2001. Mr. Speaker, the study of ergonomics is one of OSHA's top priorities. This bill recognizes the importance of this study and requires that the most up-to-date scientific information is analyzed and included. This bill will in no way prohibit or deny OSHA the opportunity to create these standards. Rather, it will make sure that we get the most accurate information based on sound science. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the sponsor of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support both this rule and the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority spends a lot of time opining about how they want to help working men and women in this country. Yet, Mr. Speaker, at a time when the Occupational Health and Safety Administration is poised to issue a rule which seeks to protect American workers from workplace hazards which can lead to serious injury, the Republican majority wants to call a time-out. H.R. 987 does nothing to help working men and women in this country, and the Republican majority should not waste the time of this House by saying that it does. This bill is nothing more than another attack by the majority on establishing workplace protections that might very well save American businesses money in lost productivity, worker compensation claims, and disability insurance. If the House is going to call time-out, Mr. Speaker, it ought to be on the consideration of this bill and not on the health and safety of the American workforce. Mr. Speaker, work-related musculoskeletal disorders cost employers between $15 and $20 billion a year in workers compensation costs. Ergonomic injuries and illnesses are the single largest cause of injury-related lost workdays, with nearly 650,000 lost-time injuries each year. These injuries are found in every sector of our economy and cause real pain and suffering. Women workers are particularly victimized by ergonomic injuries and illness. They represent 69 percent of workers who lose time due to carpal tunnel syndrome, 63 percent of those who suffer repetitive motion injuries, and 61 percent who lose work time to tendonitis. {time} 1745 In fact, Mr. Speaker, nearly half of all injuries and illnesses to women workers are due to ergonomic hazards. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 987 proposes for at least another year and a half the promulgation of a rule that will provide needed health and safety standards for American workers. There is sound scientific evidence that shows that workplace factors cause musculoskeletal injuries and that show these injuries can be prevented. Many employers have seen the benefit in improving workplace conditions to prevent these injuries and have, as a result, seen injuries fall and productivity rise. If the Republican majority really wanted to do something for working men and women in this country, they would drop their opposition to these workplace protections and withdraw this bill. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 987 and a ``no'' vote on the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger.) Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this open rule. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in strong support of H.R. 982. It is a very simple bill. It simply says that the National Academy of Sciences must complete its study on ergonomics and report to Congress before OSHA promulgates a proposed or final standard. Clearly, the will of the House is that an almost million-dollar study on ergonomics by the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, should be completed before we rush to regulate. Science should precede regulation, not the other way around. Let me just summarize the following points in support of the bill: first, ergonomics regulation would be a substantially mandated cost on the American companies and the American economy. OSHA's own estimates show that draft regulation could cost an additional $3.5 billion annually. I believe that cost is greatly underestimated. Before we consider imposing this standard on the American people, let us have the scientific and medical proof to back it up. [[Page H6903]] Second, there is no question that there is a great deal of scientific and medical uncertainty and debate about ergonomics. If OSHA regulates before the causes are understood, OSHA may very well regulate the wrong thing and impose a lot of unnecessary costs without benefiting workers. Third, Congress and the President agree that we need a comprehensive study of ergonomics by NAS. The purpose of the study is to inform Congress, the Department of Labor, employers and employees about the state of scientific information on ergonomics. Only then can we determine whether a broad ergonomics regulation is appropriate. To issue a regulation before NAS completes its study is an outrage and a gross waste of taxpayers' funds. Fourth, an appropriations letter does not take precedence over the will of Congress in calling for an NAS study. Finally, the fact that OSHA has worked on ergonomics for over a decade is irrelevant since Congress decided the issue needed further study. Moreover, the fact that there has been substantial study with no conclusions about ergonomics suggests that more study is needed before imposing a nationwide standard at a great cost. In conclusion, I urge the Members to vote for the rule and H.R. 987. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay). Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. H.R. 987 is a measure of how antagonistic the majority of the Republican majority is to the interest of working people. Despite 7 years of unprecedented prosperity under the Clinton administration, there remains much that this House can do to improve the well-being of workers. We should be considering legislation to make a job pay a decent salary and increase the minimum wage. We should be ensuring that all workers have affordable health care. We should be expanding pension coverage. We should be ensuring better family leave coverage. Instead, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order a bill that will result in hundreds of thousands of workers suffering avoidable serious injury in the workplace. We should not let special interests downplay the seriousness of ergonomic injuries and illnesses. Imagine suffering from a workplace injury that prevents one from lifting anything over a half a pound. Imagine being disabled, so disabled that one cannot hold a book to read to their child. Imagine being unable to caress their newborn or to give him or her a shower or a bath. Mr. Speaker, there is no excuse for further delaying OSHA's ergonomic standard. The National Academy of Sciences study is a review of existing scientific literature. It is not intended and will not produce new information. Two previous studies of the existing scientific literature, one by NIOSH and one by NAS, have already confirmed that ergonomic injuries and illnesses are work related and that they cannot be prevented by workplace interventions. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, practical experience by thousands of companies has proven that ergonomic injuries and illnesses can be significantly reduced. Passage of H.R. 987 only ensures that some employers will continue to ignore the working welfare of the workers for that much longer. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and in support of the Workplace Preservation Act. During the Easter recess, I embarked on an industry tour in my district in North Carolina. The industries of the 8th district are primarily agriculture and textile related. I visited eight small- and medium-sized manufacturers, including Cuddy Farms in Monroe and Clayson Knitting Mill in Star. These companies and many others like them represent the backbone of our district's economy. The number one concern on their minds was the new ergonomics regulations being considered by OSHA. They were truly fearful of the burdensome regulation that would not only create more paperwork and costly, unneeded changes but would also hinder communications between employer and employee. All too often it appears as if the government is slightly behind the times. The current unemployment rate is so low that in many parts of the country employers do and in fact must offer the most attractive work environment in order to recruit and retain employees. As one employer from the district wrote to me, ``My company is begging for employees from laborers to drivers to high-tech computer operators. We are doing everything we can to attract employees.'' Plant managers, human resources managers, and office managers are more than willing to work with their own employees on grievances and workplace conditions rather than plow through layers of government bureaucracy. The number of manufacturing jobs is on the decline. We are seeing more and more jobs going to Central America and overseas because, frankly, our government is making the cost of doing business in the United States too high for too many companies. Rural areas in our Nation are being hit hardest by the decline in manufacturing jobs. Keeping more unsubstantiated government regulation on these industries will only encourage them to continue to flee. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that politically powerful forces are at work here. Why else would OSHA hastily recognize a casual relationship between repetitive tasks and repetitive stress injuries without complete scientific documentation? I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and allow the National Academy of Sciences to complete its work. With all the facts, Congress can step back and prudently evaluate the need for new ergonomic guidelines. We must resist another in a long line of attempts to impose costly restrictions upon employers and employees with the one-size-fits-all Federal approach. Please support the rule and this bill. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, every time I tour a plant in my district I run into workers, especially women, who are wearing wrist braces. When I ask them about their problem, the answer over and over again is the same: carpal tunnel syndrome. Where does carpal tunnel syndrome or many of those other injuries come from? They come from workers having to do the same thing hundreds of times and thousands of times without properly designed equipment and work stations. And workers I see are not isolated examples. Repetitive motion injuries affect 650,000 workers each year. That is more than the number of people who die each year from cancer and stroke. Those injuries account for more lost workday injuries than any other cause, especially for women workers. Nearly half of all workplace injuries for women are due to repetitive motion problems. Now, there are those in this body who say there ought to be more delay in protecting those workers, but they are virtually alone in the world. Every industrialized country has recognized that there is more than enough evidence to move forward on a repetitive motion standard. Most progressive businesses recognize it is their duty to protect workers and to protect their stockholders from the economic impact of huge amounts of lost work time. But a powerful band of economic royalists in this country and in this Congress continue to fight that protection, and it is time to get on with it. In 1990, that well-known ``radical'' liberal Elizabeth Dole said that it was time to move forward on this. In 1995, the Republican majority attached a rider blocking the issuance of draft regulations. In 1996, they tried to prevent OSHA from even collecting the data on repetitive motion injuries. In 1997, they tried to block it again but failed. At that time, the National Institutes for Occupational Health and Safety conducted a detailed review of [[Page H6904]] more than 600 scientific studies on the problem, and they found a strong correlation between workplace conditions and worker injuries. That study was peer reviewed by 27 experts throughout the country. But that was not good enough for some of my colleagues. So in 1998, they pushed the National Institutes of Health to fund another study at the National Academy of Sciences. They convened 65 of the world's leading scientists, and again they found evidence that clearly demonstrates that specific intervention can reduce injury. But that is not good enough for some of my colleagues. They want yet another delay. That delay does not hurt anybody in this room. The only repetitive motion injury that Members of Congress are likely to get are knee injuries from continuous genuflecting to big business special interests who want us to put their profit margins ahead of worker health. Maybe the time has not come for my colleagues. But, by God, it has come for those workers. We need action and we need it now. No delays. No foot dragging. No excuses. We need action and we need action now. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson). Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yield me the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I want to address myself to the rule first because that is what we are debating. I have heard it said here today that we should not wait any longer for the scientific evidence to be evaluated by the National Academy of Science, what we should immediately do is proceed to pass rules and regulations. That is a little bit like going into a waiting room of a sick patient and saying, let us just not do any diagnostic testing, let us go ahead and operate. It is risky business. Secondly, I want to agree completely that this is about the cost to American business and the safety of American workers. In a period of unprecedented prosperity, in a period of full employment, the last thing an employer wants for a moment is to have workers getting hurt on the job, because there are not good replacements, because we are fully employed. They want workplace safety. But the last thing they want, also, is conflicting scientific data dictating to a bureaucracy to go ahead and establish rules and regulations preceding a final determination. In committee on this bill, whether my colleagues agree with the bill or not, no one can argue that professionals and physicians from both sides of the musculoskeletal disorder syndrome agree that there were conflicting data and it was time to have a decision. Mr. Speaker, I believe we should move forward with what will be a very contested debate. To vote against this rule makes no sense. When the debate on the rule is over and the rule passes, I think the evidence will come forward that we are doing what is right for workers and what is right for the employer and what is right for America, to depend on conclusive evidence and not conflict opinions. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1800 Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss the platforms of the two parties in respect to the lives of working people and what kinds of programs we would like to offer for working people. One party is clearly against working families and they express it in many ways. This particular piece of legislation has a symbolic significance far beyond what you see written on the paper. It is one part of an overall attack by the majority Republicans on working families. I think the President has made it clear in his message on this bill what we are about here today and it is pretty simple. The administration has written that it strongly opposes enactment of H.R. 987, a bill that would unnecessarily delay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's issuance of a protective standard on ergonomics until the National Academy of Sciences has completed a second study of the scientific literature regarding musculoskeletal disorders and ergonomics. I think that it is very clear that what the Republican majority is saying is, let the workers suffer, let the working families suffer. Six hundred thousand people are affected yearly by these work-related musculoskeletal disorders, but it does not matter, let the workers suffer. They are only working families. We are Republicans. We care only about the upper income and we want to spend our time getting benefits out to them in the form of a massive, $794 billion tax cut over 10 years. I would like to see all of the Members come to the floor and use this opportunity. I think we may have about 3 hours to discuss the working families of America and which party really represents them and their welfare. Let them suffer for another 2 years, that is what the immediate concrete message is. So what? We have had studies. The studies clearly show that there is a cause and effect. The new studies that the NAS will be attempting and continuing to undertake relate to intervention strategies. How do you intervene to prevent these disorders. How do you intervene to lessen the impact of the kinds of unhealthy working conditions in the workplace? They want to go on gathering evidence and data which can go on forever and that is the way that any scientific gathering of evidence should take place. But why make the workers wait before you issue standards and you begin the process of intervening to lessen the impact of the injuries? The Republicans say, let them wait. Small businesses and even big businesses are going to suffer because the amount of workmen's compensation payments will continue to go up. It is around $20 billion a year now, related to these various disorders, and there have been many successful attempts by businesses to install ergonomic standards and to take steps to deal with the ergonomics of the workplace which have benefited the businesses as well as the workers. By preventing OSHA from formalizing these procedures and allowing DSHA to do what some businesses have done and what the State of California has done with their standards; by preventing OSHA from moving forward with the number of positive kinds of developments that have taken place, we are going to force more workers to suffer unnecessarily. We have case histories of workers in every State in the union; terrible things have happened in terms of injuries that have wrecked whole families. No, people do not bleed a great deal, they do not have concussions, it is not the kind of dramatic workplace accident situation that you have in the construction industry, but the slow death that is taking place more and more as we increase our digital world and people are more and more sitting before keyboards, eyestrain, all kinds of carpal tunnel syndromes from the actions of the wrists, all kinds of disorders are developing rapidly that injure more and more workers. More and more women, also, are drawn into this, more and more women incidentally who happen to be the wage earners and their families have been drawn into this. Why let the workers suffer? Let us get it over with. Let us get the standards out there and stop the suffering of the workers. The Democrats want to stop the suffering. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). (Mr. BONILLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Speaker, the American worker makes up the lifeblood of our economy and we can all agree in this Chamber that our utmost concern is their safety and well-being in the workplace. Every employer in America understands that it is to their advantage and the employee's advantage to keep workers healthy and happy on the job. In fact, we should all be celebrating today here that because of the safety measures that have been taken in the private sector. Working with some folks in OSHA, we have dropped employee injuries by 17 percent. The number of injuries dropped by 17 percent since 1995 because of the [[Page H6905]] changes that employers have made in the workplace. There is no crisis at hand. Let us be honest about what we are debating here. We are debating a power grab by a government agency and by America's big labor unions who are trying to get a stranglehold on America's businesses both small and large. The debate we have here today is about the rush to promulgate and to write a rule dealing with repetitive stress injuries, with ergonomics, something that would be far more dangerous to the American worker if it is written too fast versus waiting for sound science to guide them versus having political science guide them. Imagine for 1 second if OSHA rushes to write a rule without sound science, a one-size-fits-all rule that would apply to florists as it would to people who work in manufacturing plants, to people who work in auto parts stores, at restaurants and on farms and ranches throughout this country. What a nightmare this would be for the American workers. They would suddenly have their bosses having to spend gobs of money, money that could go to raises and better benefits and instead trying to comply with a one-size-fits-all regulation. Let us all remember that the first draft that OSHA had of this rule was 600 pages long. Imagine if you are working in a bakery out in the heartland in America, you are working in a dentist's office, in a lab, in an auto parts store or a restaurant and you suddenly saw this regulation show up on your doorstep. That is why the calculation of what this would cost the American workers in this country is at about $4 billion, because this is the kind of penalty we pay in our American society when we have a one-size-fits-all regulation hastily written and showing up at the doorstep of America's workplaces. All we are asking in this bill and in this rule is to allow us to stop the rush. There is no need to rush. We can wait for the sound science to take over and have the political science take a back seat so that we can do this the right way. There is no guarantee. When this National Academy of Science study is ultimately completed, it could in fact recommend that an ergonomics regulation move forward. We understand that. But let us let the scientists decide, let us let the researchers decide. Let us not turn this process over to a power-hungry Federal agency and labor unions that are also behind it. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento). (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and in opposition to this measure which is not letting the scientists decide, it is not letting the experts at OSHA decide. It is putting it here on the floor in a political way and letting all the experts here, the political experts, decide. This is not something being pushed by labor. If labor is interested in it, they are only interested because they are trying to protect the safety and health of workers. This is not some arcane problem that exists with regards to workers. Almost half the injuries that occur on the part of workers are related to repetitive stress type of injuries. If we wait another year, another year and a half, we are going to have another million people that are injured in this way. For those of you that love science, it sounds like you like it just to study. You do not want to apply the science. It is time we take the knowledge and information we have and put it in place so that we can protect the workers that are intended to be protected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that has been working on this for a decade, that depended upon 600 studies to base their decision upon. Over 2,000 articles and reviews were written of those studies and endless hearings to make certain as to the appropriateness of such rule. This bill is just an effort to study this into infinity, to frustrate the implementation of a legitimate law and rule. What is the cost? The cost in the end is a very high cost, because it means that individuals that are on the job, that are trying to work, will have to lay down their bodies, they will cripple their bodies simply to earn a living. That is really what this is about. We have to open our eyes up and begin to see what is happening. This is like some bad film. ``Eyes Wide Shut'' on the other side, disregarding reality is what we really have here with regards to this repetitive stress issue. Open them up to the people you shake hands with when you are out campaigning and they draw their hand back because of the injuries that they have sustained in the world of work. We can change it. We can make it better. This Congress ought to take its political act and go home with it and leave the experts that are supposed to be working on this issue and rule do their job. We should defeat this rule and defeat this bill. This measure, H.R. 987, seeks to study to infinity worker injuries and yet again delay Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) action on rules that would govern and prevent such injuries. This is no less than a frontal attack on all of OSHA to frustrate, dismantle and renege on worker safety embodied in the Occupational Safety Health Act. Repetitive work related motion trauma is not some arcane, isolated occurrence--nearly half of all workplace illnesses documented are caused by such repetitive motion, ergonomics. Each year injuries which result from such work-related musculoskeletal disorders harm nearly 650,000 workers and are estimated to cost businesses $60 billion dollars in worker compensation payments and other costs. More than 100 different injuries can result from repetitive motions causing painful wear and tear to the bodies of working men and women. Women are especially affected by this problem, comprising 60 to 70 percent of those injured in many categories. This repetitive injury OSHA rule is an all too common case of good news, bad news. The good news is that for almost every job that results in such injuries, there are alternative methods of performing work which can decrease the risk of harm. The bad news is that there isn't a focus on such prevention, and in fact some want to frustrate implementation. In February 1999, OSHA released a discussion draft for an ergonomics standard which would implement the use of ergonomics in the workplace. This draft proposal is an important step toward protecting workers from musculoskeletal disorders in a way which allows employers the flexibility to adopt solutions that fit their workplaces. The legislation we are debating today, H.R. 987, is euphemistically titled the ``Workplace Preservation Act.'' This bill is an unnecessary tactic which could ultimately result in thousands more workers being needlessly injured on the job--650,000 in one year more. Proponents of H.R. 987, playing a game of delay, mock and question the soundness and effectiveness of a well researched ergonomics standard, all the time wrapping themselves in ``sound science''. However, both a 1998 National Academy of Science study and a 1997 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study provides scientific evidence linking musculoskeletal disorders to the job. A document based on 600 research studies of such injuries and 2000 scientific articles build a solid foundation upon which to act. Even beyond official studies, there is practical proof that ergonomics programs work. The draft standard that OSHA is developing is actually based on programs which have been implemented and proven successful in various work sites across the country. OSHA would be irresponsible and derelict in its duties to not act upon such a clear record which pinpoints the cause of one half of workplace illnesses. We have waited long enough to address this problem, any opposition by Congress now will serve to needlessly delay the process even further. For every day that we waste on redundant research, life-altering impairment which could have been avoided will occur. It is truly a travesty that our workforce continues to suffer serious disabling injuries while Congress debates whether or not a known solution should be set in place. Clearly, this is exactly the kind of issue that OSHA was created to address, and attempts to block this organization from implementing solution to improve harmful work environments are disingenuous, misdirected and counterproductive. This Congressional measure to delay sound OSHA action should be identified for what it is; ``The Right to Risk Worker's Health Act.'' Enough is enough--too many bodies and limbs have been needlessly worn to numbness and a life of pain and permanent injury. We owe it to elemental common sense and fairness to accord workers the OSHA rule and safeguard, to prevent working conditions which force them to sacrifice their health and cripple their bodies to earn a living. Mr. Speaker, I will oppose this harmful legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson). Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the rhetoric I [[Page H6906]] am hearing today. I listened to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). He is absolutely on track. All that is happening is a takeover by big government trying to interfere in individuals' lives. Last year, the Congress and the President agreed to spend nearly $1 million on a study, and it is going to be completed in 2001. Why can we not wait until then? OSHA instead wants to rush forward and eliminate thousands of jobs and cost us billions of dollars while failing to assure the prevention of one single injury. Some single industry estimates go as high as 18 to $30 billion of cost. It is going to cost our businesses money. That means you, the consumer, the taxpayer, you are not only going to pay taxes, you are going to pay higher costs on everything you do. Let me just tell my colleagues something. When I was down at Homestead Air Force Base as commander, we had a little platform out on every level in a three-story barracks that our men lived in. OSHA came in and said you have to put a rail around there so when the guys get out there to clean the windows, they will not fall off. And furthermore, they have to have a hook to hook on that rail to make sure that if they do fall off, they will not fall and hurt themselves. Now, that is your government at work. Let me tell you what happened. A hurricane came through and destroyed that base totally. It does not anymore exist. So we got rid of the OSHA requirement in that way. Mr. Speaker, we need water here pretty bad. I hope we get a hurricane and just push OSHA out to sea. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink). (Mr. KLINK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is very plain to me that this rule should not be on the floor and this bill should not be on the floor. This is probably the biggest health and safety vote that we will see this year if not this Congress. The impact that ergonomic injuries have had on workers will touch every part of the family of labor. If this is such a big organized labor deal as some of the speakers have talked about, then that tool of organized labor, Elizabeth Dole, back in 1990 when she was Secretary of Labor, and I do not think anyone has ever accused her of being that closely aligned with organized labor, but her comment was that these injuries, and this is a direct quote, ``one of the Nation's most debilitating across-the-board worker safety and health illnesses of the 1990s.'' Ms. Dole was right then and she is right today. Business has to recognize the need to incorporate a new philosophy. We have to be able to adjust the way we manufacture, to adjust our equipment rather than asking workers to adjust their bodies to the way we manufacture. If we do that, the workers will be healthier and they will miss fewer days of work; workers' comp costs are going to go down, productivity would be higher, jobs would be secure and, yes, profit margins for our companies would go up. Let us look at the figures in 1997. There were 620,459 lost workdays due to workplace ergonomic injuries. These injuries were overexertion, repetitive motion, carpal tunnel syndrome, back injuries. This represents 34 percent, over one-third, of all the workdays that were lost by injured workers were due to ergonomic injuries. There has been some discussion on the other side about what this might cost the employers of this Nation. Someone threw out the figure of $4 billion. I do not know if that is true, I do not know if it is an exaggerated figure, but these ergonomic injuries each year cost business and workers between 15 and $20 billion. We ought to take a look at what Red Wing Shoes did. Here is an example of a company that modified its work stations. This was not an inexpensive thing for them to do. It cost them money. But at Red Wing, they reduced their workers' comp costs by 75 percent over a 4-year period. There was also some discussion on the other side about the fact that studies have not been done yet. The fact is the studies have been done. If you take a look at the NIOSH report it says, and I am quoting here, NIOSH director Dr. Linda Rosenstock, it found strong evidence of its association between musculoskeletal disorders and work factors such as heavy lifting. Then we go to this bill, H.R. 987, in the ``Findings'' section, you quoted exactly the opposite. You say that there is insufficient evidence to assess the level of risk that workers have from repetitive motion. {time} 1815 When the finding section of their own bill is exactly opposite of the finding that is actually in the study, no wonder they brought a cockeyed bill to the floor, because they do not know how to read the findings. Whoops, I am sorry. What was it Gilda Radner said? Excuse me. My colleagues have got to read the finding section. NIOSH has found that in fact repetitive motion does cause injuries. We have seen it; we have heard the stories. People who injure themselves on the job through ergonomic problems, they cannot comb their children's hair, cannot wash dishes, cannot sweep the floors at home. This bill should go down; the rule should go down. In fact, we should not even be here. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume just to make out a simple point that House Resolution 271 is a modified and open, fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for the debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to three full hours. It is an extremely fair rule, and given the amount of work that Congress is needed to do to complete its work this week, there will be ample time to have great debate on the merits of the legislation. But I remind my colleagues my view is we have a fair and open rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that everybody understands exactly what we are doing today. No one is saying that we are here to say that there will not be any ergonomic regulations in the future. In fact, I am sure there will be, but it seems to me, if there are going to be, then we should have the best scientific knowledge we possibly can so we do it right because we may just do the opposite of what we should be doing to try to help the people who we are trying to help. I would point out very quickly to my colleague from Pennsylvania that the NIOSH study also said additional research would be very, very valuable, and that is what it is all about. That is what it is all about; that is what the discussion is all about. We said in legislation, agreed by the President and by the Congress, that we would spend up to almost a million dollars of taxpayers' money to get the kind of scientific knowledge that we need in order to make sure what regulations are promulgated, that they are done properly, that they are done to help. That is all this legislation says: Get the study, colleagues asked for the study, they are willing to pay taxpayers' dollars for the study, get the study, use it, and then write the regulations that go with it. As my colleagues know, we have had 2 years of hearings where we have heard, if nothing else, a lot of inconclusive evidence, a lot of people who are not positively sure what the cause is and are not positively sure how to solve the problem. That is why we are asking the National Academy of Sciences to help us, help us determine what the problem is, help us determine what the direction is that we should be going. We had one of the finest back surgeons, one of the most prominent back surgeons in the country who said after years of his study and years of his dealing with the issue he found that in many instances it is not physical factors like how often you lift or how often you bend. In fact, he said that it is in many instances nonphysical factors, just stress in life, not enjoying one's job, and I think we can all relate [[Page H6907]] to that. Get down low enough, boy, people can have aches and pains. We all go through that process. And so here is a back surgeon, a prominent back surgeon who made that statement. So again, all the hearings that we have had, there is so much indecision as to what is the proper way to go, what do we specifically know and how do we handle the issue? And so all we say is, wait, get the study. We are paying almost a million bucks for it, and then see whether you can promulgate regulations that will truly help the men and women that we are trying to help. So no one is here trying to prevent forever ergonomic regulations. We are here saying let us do it right, let us get the scientific evidence first, and then proceed. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, today we vote on legislation to block OSHA from protecting America's working men and women from workplace injuries and illnesses caused by ergonomic-related issues. My colleagues have the figures, but they bear repeating. Each year more than 2 million workers suffer these injures, more than 640,000 workers lose time at work, and each year this costs the economy $15 to $20 billion in worker compensation, an overall $60 billion, all things considered. I oppose this legislation and support workplace protection for American workers. What is ergonomics? What is that word? What does it mean? Ergonomics and what are ergonomic-related injuries? Ergonomics is the science of adapting the workplace to the physical needs of the workers such as giving telephone headsets to telephone operators to avoid cradling the phone to reduce neck and shoulder pain, a work place that is poorly adapted to workers' causes, ergonomics injuries. One type of injury, repetitive motion injuries frequently mentioned here, is caused when a worker repeats a specific motion hundreds or thousands of times. For example, secretaries and office workers who type all day at their computer keyboards often suffer wrist and arm injuries. Similarly, America's poultry workers who cut up and sliced up the chicken parts for our meals repeat the same cutting and slicing motion hundreds of time an hour each day as they cut up thousands of chickens for our meals. The cumulative stress of these repetitive motions cause secretaries, poultry workers, and other workers to suffer health problems. But I want to get personal about this, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about one particular poultry worker. Betty Yvonne Green. Betty worked as a chicken fillet puller for seven years. Her job required her to use her thumbs to separate the fillet from the bone, cut the tips off the fillet with scissors and then place the product in a tub. Betty performed this task 16 to 17 times a minute for 2\1/2\ hours straight without a break. In 1984, Betty began to feel pain in her right arm and reported it to her supervisor, the directors of personnel and the plant manager. They all told her there was nothing wrong and she would have to live with this problem. Management felt her pain did not warrant medical assistance, and nothing was to be done until Betty went to her personal physician. Betty's doctor found that both her rotator cuffs had been torn and required surgery. She went back to work after both surgeries, but was unable to continue to do her fillet job. She worked some light duty, but to no avail. Betty was terminated by the company for what they said was excessive absenteeism. She was denied unemployment and only received workers compensation after retaining an attorney. On behalf of Betty Yvonne Green and many, many workers throughout this country who deserve our respect, in fact deserve our protection, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this so-called Workplace Preservation Act. Indeed it should be called the Workplace Persecution Act because that is exactly what it does to the American worker. We can study this thing to death. Of course we are always open to more science, but we have to also know when we have enough science to proceed and learn many more ways that we can do better in the workplace, but not to deny, not to deny what has been fully documented by NIOSH, which has been fully documented by the National Academy of Sciences as a relationship between repetitive motion and ergonomic disease. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham). (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) says that the Democrats are for working people, for working men and women, but yet every piece of legislation that they had out of here in support are against 90 percent of the working people. But if it is for the union bosses, they will support it. In 1993, they put the highest tax on the American people possible and increased the tax on middle- income workers, and this year they are trying to stop tax relief for those same workers. Salting for the unions where the unions go in and just destroy a small business, not even looking to overtake that business. That is wrong, but yet our union brothers over here support it. Davis-Bacon, that increases inflation 15 to 35 percent of construction for school buildings, but yet will they waive for the children? No, they will support the unions. Now we are asking for a scientific study, and I would say that even Republicans, we need to go one step further because when colleagues say based on science you need to look at who pays for the science. Is it the Republican groups or the Democrat groups, and people need an individual peer review to be fair, a nonpartisan independent review. Sometimes that does not exist, and I will give into that and we need that. As my colleagues know, in the office the people that work with computers all the times, they have carpel tunnel. There is good scientific basis that we need to help those people and provide the pads and make sure there is rotation and lights, and we have some pretty good science on it. But the problem is our colleagues want to go in without a study or agenda instead of science, and we are saying, no, let us back it up with the science to show so there will not be a big input on it, and I brought up yesterday www.dsa/usa. Democrat Socialists of America, progressive caucus, has a 12 point agenda: government control of health care, government control of education, government control of private property, and guess what? Union over small business and cut military by half, by 50 percent, and it is to support the union. That is their working men and women, but not the 90 percent of the people that have all of the other jobs. My colleagues should put their mouth and money where their rhetoric is. Support the people, the working men and women. Who is for this? The union bosses. Who is against it? Chamber, NFIB, every small business group out there because they know that the only thing that my colleagues are focusing on is the union bosses who give them their campaign finance money. Admit it. Why do they fight against 90 percent of the small businesses and workers every single bill that we have? They do not support the networking men and women in this country; they only support the union members. As my colleagues know, I take a look at the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) who gets up here and says, Oh, the poor lady in the red dress, not again, and he talks about the working men and women and the class warfare, only the rich versus the poor. Well, cut out the rhetoric. Do things based on science; the environmentalists, the same thing. We want environmental changes. Do my colleagues think we want bad environment, the Republicans over the Democrats? We just want it based on good science, and then we want a peer review. The same thing with ergonomics. We want a good science and peer review so they do not destroy the 90 percent of the jobs that are out there in favor of their union bosses. And that is what we are asking, Mr. Speaker. We are tired and tired and tired of the Democrats' rhetoric trying [[Page H6908]] to make points for the year 2000 where they get their campaign money, and that is what they support. If colleagues really support the working men and women, support the Republican position on this. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson). Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and this bill, and I would hope that we could cut back a little bit on the rhetoric. First of all, people need to understand this talk about this study. There is no study that is going on. All that is happening is it is going to be a compilation of a bunch of studies that have already been done. So we need to get that clear. Second thing I think that people need to understand is that it would help if somebody would have talked to the people in the department that are actually working on this. {time} 1830 I have met with Secretary Jeffers more than once and talked to him about this proposed rule that they are looking at. They have been working on it a long time. There is a lot of science that has gone into this. I do not think a lot of people that are talking on this floor have actually looked into what this is about. This only applies to manufacturing and manual lifting businesses, where 60 percent of these injuries take place. If you do not have an injury, this is not going to apply to you. It only applies when you have an injury where there is ergonomics involved, and at that point, you have to come up with a way to deal with it. If you have got a situation where it is only one injury and you are a small employer, they have something called a quick fix where you can go in and work on this without having to put a plan together. So they have listened to small business, they have tried to make this workable, and if anybody sat down and read this, they would understand that. The other thing is that businesses that have gone out and actually worked on this have found it to be cost effective. It saves money for their company, and it is good for their employees. This afternoon I talked to 3M. They have an ergonomist on their staff. That person has saved them money. It is better for the company and better for the workers. This is something that clearly works. So I hope that people will focus on what is really going on here. Back in October of 1998, then appropriations Chairman Livingston and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) sent a letter to Alexis Herman saying we are funding this NAS study and it is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics. Well, it looks to me today like what is going on here is delay, and is contrary to what was said. So I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this bill. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) the Chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.) Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time, and I assure him I will reserve time for my friend from Louisiana and will not fill out the entire hour here. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and congratulate my friend from Buffalo for his super management. We have an expression that we have been trying our doggonedest to successfully implement around here in the 106th Congress, and we call it regular order. We try to, as much as possible, follow regular order. Frankly, that is exactly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) is trying to do with this legislation. We authorized $1 million for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with some sort of finding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proceeds with implementation of its regulations on ergonomics. The fact of the matter is, nothing, as has been said by several of my colleagues, nothing prevents them from moving ahead. But what we are saying is get every bit of information you possibly can so that you come up with good public policy. Now, that will be unique for OSHA in the eyes of many, because a number of us have been very critical of the fact that regulations that they over the years have imposed have been extraordinarily costly to the private sector, and, in turn, to the consumers of this country. But, obviously we are all wanting to deal with the problems of stress-related repetitive actions that people take in their work, so all we are saying is let us do it right. This is a very fair and balanced rule which allows for a free-flowing debate, while at the same time recognizing that most of my colleagues with whom I have spoken over the last few days want us to complete our work by the end of this week so we can go home for August. This rule allows us to have a debate and do it in a fair way, and also get this, and I hope the rest of our work, done. So I urge support of the rule. Mr. FROST. 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. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I listened intently to my friend from New York, a member of the Committee on Rules who spoke about this rule a few minutes ago, and I wanted to make several points about the rule. We are operating here under the facade that this will give, as the chairman of the Committee on Rules just said, a free-flowing and open debate about worker safety. I want to point something out: There are many of us who believe that OSHA is understaffed, that OSHA does not have enough inspectors to go find workplace violations and do something about them. But, if I am not mistaken, and my friend from the Committee on Rules can correct me, an amendment that would add inspectors to OSHA's inspection force would be ruled out of order because it is not germane. There are many of us who are concerned about sick building syndrome, about people going to work, day after day, in buildings where the heating and air conditioning systems do not work properly and they cannot breathe properly and their asthma is aggravated or their other breathing related disabilities are aggravated, and many of us believe OSHA should do something about that. An amendment that would address that problem would be out of order because it would not be germane. In fact, it is almost impossible to think of any amendment that could be offered under this bill that would do anything other than kill this regulation or delay this regulation that would be germane. So let us get the record straight here. There are dozens of important worker safety issues that confront this country. None of them, none of them, are in order for debate under this rule on the floor. The only thing we can do is either accept or reject this attempt to delay, and I think ultimately defeat, the new ergonomic standard by OSHA. So let us be very clear about this, that this is an open rule in form only. Every other consideration in worker safety is not in order. That is why the rule should be defeated. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Crowley. (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to my good friend from Buffalo, New York, a fellow New Yorker, to this rule and to, even more importantly, to H.R. 987, the Workforce Preservation Act. Injuries resulting from workplace stress and strain have long been studied. We cannot continue to needlessly put off a standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the belief that ergonomically unsafe conditions result in repetitive strain injuries, also called RSIs. Approximately 700,000 serious workplace injuries result from ergonomically unsafe working conditions. This [[Page H6909]] accounts for 31 percent of all injuries and illnesses involving lost workdays. The cost of these lost workdays has been estimated to be between $15 and 20 billion. Now, these are not made-up injuries, they are not fantasies in workers' minds. These are real injuries, not only costing billions of dollars, but destroying people's everyday lives, people who can no longer work in their chosen professions, no longer cook at home, no longer play the guitar, no longer ride their bicycles even, and even no longer picking up their little children. That is what we are talking about here. I cannot understand how my colleagues could want to delay the implementation of a standard that would not only reduce pain and suffering but save the business community of this country billions of dollars each year. I applaud last year's appropriation funding of the National Academy of Sciences study of ergonomic injuries. However, that is no reason to delay the implementation of a highly researched and needed OSHA standard. Stand up for working Americans, stand up for healthy workplaces. Vote against this rule, H.R. 987, to help prevent thousands of injuries and save employers up to $20 billion a year. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and to the bill. Like many of my colleagues, I feel as if I am in a time warp. Last year when the latest NAS scientific review was funded, there was an agreement that this study should not and would not block or delay a proposed rule on e

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WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT
(House of Representatives - August 03, 1999)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6901-H6927] WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 271 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 271 Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 987) to require the Secretary of Labor to wait for completion of a National Academy of Sciences study before promulgating a standard or guideline on ergonomics. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule for a period not to exceed two hours. The bill shall be considered as read. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may accord priority in recognition on the basis of whether the Member offering an amendment has caused it to be [[Page H6902]] printed in the portion of the Congressional Record designated for that purpose in clause 8 of rule XVIII. Amendments so printed shall be considered as read. The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may: (1) postpone until a time during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a request for a recorded vote on any amendment; and (2) reduce to five minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any postponed question that follows another electronic vote without intervening business, provided that the minimum time for electronic voting on the first in any series of questions shall be 15 minutes. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. House Resolution 271 is a modified open rule, providing for the consideration of H.R. 987, the Workplace Preservation Act. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that the National Academy of Sciences completes and submits to Congress its study of a cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace and physical disorders or repetitive stress injuries before issuing standards or guidelines on ergonomics. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The rule also provides that the bill shall be open for amendment at any point and limits the amendment process to 2 hours. The rule authorizes the Chair to accord priority in recognition to Members who have preprinted their amendments in the Congressional Record. Additionally, the rule allows the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes during consideration of the bill, and to reduce voting time to 5 minutes on a postponed question if the vote follows a 15-minute vote. Finally, the rule provides for 1 motion to recommit with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 271 is a modified open and fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to 3 full hours. This is an extremely fair rule, given the amount of work Congress must complete this week. The Workforce Preservation Act is a brief and simple measure that prohibits OSHA from promulgating an ergonomics standard until the National Academy of Sciences completes its study and reports the results to Congress. Mr. Speaker, this body has long been concerned with the issue of sound scientific definitions of these types of workplace injuries. This bill merely requires OSHA to base their definitions on sound, scientific data. Last year, Congress authorized and American taxpayers paid almost $1 million for the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences to conduct a comprehensive study of all the available scientific literature examining the cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace. The study is currently underway and is expected to be completed within a 2-year time frame, and would be ready by mid-2001. Mr. Speaker, the study of ergonomics is one of OSHA's top priorities. This bill recognizes the importance of this study and requires that the most up-to-date scientific information is analyzed and included. This bill will in no way prohibit or deny OSHA the opportunity to create these standards. Rather, it will make sure that we get the most accurate information based on sound science. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the sponsor of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support both this rule and the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority spends a lot of time opining about how they want to help working men and women in this country. Yet, Mr. Speaker, at a time when the Occupational Health and Safety Administration is poised to issue a rule which seeks to protect American workers from workplace hazards which can lead to serious injury, the Republican majority wants to call a time-out. H.R. 987 does nothing to help working men and women in this country, and the Republican majority should not waste the time of this House by saying that it does. This bill is nothing more than another attack by the majority on establishing workplace protections that might very well save American businesses money in lost productivity, worker compensation claims, and disability insurance. If the House is going to call time-out, Mr. Speaker, it ought to be on the consideration of this bill and not on the health and safety of the American workforce. Mr. Speaker, work-related musculoskeletal disorders cost employers between $15 and $20 billion a year in workers compensation costs. Ergonomic injuries and illnesses are the single largest cause of injury-related lost workdays, with nearly 650,000 lost-time injuries each year. These injuries are found in every sector of our economy and cause real pain and suffering. Women workers are particularly victimized by ergonomic injuries and illness. They represent 69 percent of workers who lose time due to carpal tunnel syndrome, 63 percent of those who suffer repetitive motion injuries, and 61 percent who lose work time to tendonitis. {time} 1745 In fact, Mr. Speaker, nearly half of all injuries and illnesses to women workers are due to ergonomic hazards. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 987 proposes for at least another year and a half the promulgation of a rule that will provide needed health and safety standards for American workers. There is sound scientific evidence that shows that workplace factors cause musculoskeletal injuries and that show these injuries can be prevented. Many employers have seen the benefit in improving workplace conditions to prevent these injuries and have, as a result, seen injuries fall and productivity rise. If the Republican majority really wanted to do something for working men and women in this country, they would drop their opposition to these workplace protections and withdraw this bill. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 987 and a ``no'' vote on the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger.) Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this open rule. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in strong support of H.R. 982. It is a very simple bill. It simply says that the National Academy of Sciences must complete its study on ergonomics and report to Congress before OSHA promulgates a proposed or final standard. Clearly, the will of the House is that an almost million-dollar study on ergonomics by the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, should be completed before we rush to regulate. Science should precede regulation, not the other way around. Let me just summarize the following points in support of the bill: first, ergonomics regulation would be a substantially mandated cost on the American companies and the American economy. OSHA's own estimates show that draft regulation could cost an additional $3.5 billion annually. I believe that cost is greatly underestimated. Before we consider imposing this standard on the American people, let us have the scientific and medical proof to back it up. [[Page H6903]] Second, there is no question that there is a great deal of scientific and medical uncertainty and debate about ergonomics. If OSHA regulates before the causes are understood, OSHA may very well regulate the wrong thing and impose a lot of unnecessary costs without benefiting workers. Third, Congress and the President agree that we need a comprehensive study of ergonomics by NAS. The purpose of the study is to inform Congress, the Department of Labor, employers and employees about the state of scientific information on ergonomics. Only then can we determine whether a broad ergonomics regulation is appropriate. To issue a regulation before NAS completes its study is an outrage and a gross waste of taxpayers' funds. Fourth, an appropriations letter does not take precedence over the will of Congress in calling for an NAS study. Finally, the fact that OSHA has worked on ergonomics for over a decade is irrelevant since Congress decided the issue needed further study. Moreover, the fact that there has been substantial study with no conclusions about ergonomics suggests that more study is needed before imposing a nationwide standard at a great cost. In conclusion, I urge the Members to vote for the rule and H.R. 987. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay). Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. H.R. 987 is a measure of how antagonistic the majority of the Republican majority is to the interest of working people. Despite 7 years of unprecedented prosperity under the Clinton administration, there remains much that this House can do to improve the well-being of workers. We should be considering legislation to make a job pay a decent salary and increase the minimum wage. We should be ensuring that all workers have affordable health care. We should be expanding pension coverage. We should be ensuring better family leave coverage. Instead, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order a bill that will result in hundreds of thousands of workers suffering avoidable serious injury in the workplace. We should not let special interests downplay the seriousness of ergonomic injuries and illnesses. Imagine suffering from a workplace injury that prevents one from lifting anything over a half a pound. Imagine being disabled, so disabled that one cannot hold a book to read to their child. Imagine being unable to caress their newborn or to give him or her a shower or a bath. Mr. Speaker, there is no excuse for further delaying OSHA's ergonomic standard. The National Academy of Sciences study is a review of existing scientific literature. It is not intended and will not produce new information. Two previous studies of the existing scientific literature, one by NIOSH and one by NAS, have already confirmed that ergonomic injuries and illnesses are work related and that they cannot be prevented by workplace interventions. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, practical experience by thousands of companies has proven that ergonomic injuries and illnesses can be significantly reduced. Passage of H.R. 987 only ensures that some employers will continue to ignore the working welfare of the workers for that much longer. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and in support of the Workplace Preservation Act. During the Easter recess, I embarked on an industry tour in my district in North Carolina. The industries of the 8th district are primarily agriculture and textile related. I visited eight small- and medium-sized manufacturers, including Cuddy Farms in Monroe and Clayson Knitting Mill in Star. These companies and many others like them represent the backbone of our district's economy. The number one concern on their minds was the new ergonomics regulations being considered by OSHA. They were truly fearful of the burdensome regulation that would not only create more paperwork and costly, unneeded changes but would also hinder communications between employer and employee. All too often it appears as if the government is slightly behind the times. The current unemployment rate is so low that in many parts of the country employers do and in fact must offer the most attractive work environment in order to recruit and retain employees. As one employer from the district wrote to me, ``My company is begging for employees from laborers to drivers to high-tech computer operators. We are doing everything we can to attract employees.'' Plant managers, human resources managers, and office managers are more than willing to work with their own employees on grievances and workplace conditions rather than plow through layers of government bureaucracy. The number of manufacturing jobs is on the decline. We are seeing more and more jobs going to Central America and overseas because, frankly, our government is making the cost of doing business in the United States too high for too many companies. Rural areas in our Nation are being hit hardest by the decline in manufacturing jobs. Keeping more unsubstantiated government regulation on these industries will only encourage them to continue to flee. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that politically powerful forces are at work here. Why else would OSHA hastily recognize a casual relationship between repetitive tasks and repetitive stress injuries without complete scientific documentation? I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and allow the National Academy of Sciences to complete its work. With all the facts, Congress can step back and prudently evaluate the need for new ergonomic guidelines. We must resist another in a long line of attempts to impose costly restrictions upon employers and employees with the one-size-fits-all Federal approach. Please support the rule and this bill. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, every time I tour a plant in my district I run into workers, especially women, who are wearing wrist braces. When I ask them about their problem, the answer over and over again is the same: carpal tunnel syndrome. Where does carpal tunnel syndrome or many of those other injuries come from? They come from workers having to do the same thing hundreds of times and thousands of times without properly designed equipment and work stations. And workers I see are not isolated examples. Repetitive motion injuries affect 650,000 workers each year. That is more than the number of people who die each year from cancer and stroke. Those injuries account for more lost workday injuries than any other cause, especially for women workers. Nearly half of all workplace injuries for women are due to repetitive motion problems. Now, there are those in this body who say there ought to be more delay in protecting those workers, but they are virtually alone in the world. Every industrialized country has recognized that there is more than enough evidence to move forward on a repetitive motion standard. Most progressive businesses recognize it is their duty to protect workers and to protect their stockholders from the economic impact of huge amounts of lost work time. But a powerful band of economic royalists in this country and in this Congress continue to fight that protection, and it is time to get on with it. In 1990, that well-known ``radical'' liberal Elizabeth Dole said that it was time to move forward on this. In 1995, the Republican majority attached a rider blocking the issuance of draft regulations. In 1996, they tried to prevent OSHA from even collecting the data on repetitive motion injuries. In 1997, they tried to block it again but failed. At that time, the National Institutes for Occupational Health and Safety conducted a detailed review of [[Page H6904]] more than 600 scientific studies on the problem, and they found a strong correlation between workplace conditions and worker injuries. That study was peer reviewed by 27 experts throughout the country. But that was not good enough for some of my colleagues. So in 1998, they pushed the National Institutes of Health to fund another study at the National Academy of Sciences. They convened 65 of the world's leading scientists, and again they found evidence that clearly demonstrates that specific intervention can reduce injury. But that is not good enough for some of my colleagues. They want yet another delay. That delay does not hurt anybody in this room. The only repetitive motion injury that Members of Congress are likely to get are knee injuries from continuous genuflecting to big business special interests who want us to put their profit margins ahead of worker health. Maybe the time has not come for my colleagues. But, by God, it has come for those workers. We need action and we need it now. No delays. No foot dragging. No excuses. We need action and we need action now. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson). Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yield me the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I want to address myself to the rule first because that is what we are debating. I have heard it said here today that we should not wait any longer for the scientific evidence to be evaluated by the National Academy of Science, what we should immediately do is proceed to pass rules and regulations. That is a little bit like going into a waiting room of a sick patient and saying, let us just not do any diagnostic testing, let us go ahead and operate. It is risky business. Secondly, I want to agree completely that this is about the cost to American business and the safety of American workers. In a period of unprecedented prosperity, in a period of full employment, the last thing an employer wants for a moment is to have workers getting hurt on the job, because there are not good replacements, because we are fully employed. They want workplace safety. But the last thing they want, also, is conflicting scientific data dictating to a bureaucracy to go ahead and establish rules and regulations preceding a final determination. In committee on this bill, whether my colleagues agree with the bill or not, no one can argue that professionals and physicians from both sides of the musculoskeletal disorder syndrome agree that there were conflicting data and it was time to have a decision. Mr. Speaker, I believe we should move forward with what will be a very contested debate. To vote against this rule makes no sense. When the debate on the rule is over and the rule passes, I think the evidence will come forward that we are doing what is right for workers and what is right for the employer and what is right for America, to depend on conclusive evidence and not conflict opinions. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1800 Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss the platforms of the two parties in respect to the lives of working people and what kinds of programs we would like to offer for working people. One party is clearly against working families and they express it in many ways. This particular piece of legislation has a symbolic significance far beyond what you see written on the paper. It is one part of an overall attack by the majority Republicans on working families. I think the President has made it clear in his message on this bill what we are about here today and it is pretty simple. The administration has written that it strongly opposes enactment of H.R. 987, a bill that would unnecessarily delay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's issuance of a protective standard on ergonomics until the National Academy of Sciences has completed a second study of the scientific literature regarding musculoskeletal disorders and ergonomics. I think that it is very clear that what the Republican majority is saying is, let the workers suffer, let the working families suffer. Six hundred thousand people are affected yearly by these work-related musculoskeletal disorders, but it does not matter, let the workers suffer. They are only working families. We are Republicans. We care only about the upper income and we want to spend our time getting benefits out to them in the form of a massive, $794 billion tax cut over 10 years. I would like to see all of the Members come to the floor and use this opportunity. I think we may have about 3 hours to discuss the working families of America and which party really represents them and their welfare. Let them suffer for another 2 years, that is what the immediate concrete message is. So what? We have had studies. The studies clearly show that there is a cause and effect. The new studies that the NAS will be attempting and continuing to undertake relate to intervention strategies. How do you intervene to prevent these disorders. How do you intervene to lessen the impact of the kinds of unhealthy working conditions in the workplace? They want to go on gathering evidence and data which can go on forever and that is the way that any scientific gathering of evidence should take place. But why make the workers wait before you issue standards and you begin the process of intervening to lessen the impact of the injuries? The Republicans say, let them wait. Small businesses and even big businesses are going to suffer because the amount of workmen's compensation payments will continue to go up. It is around $20 billion a year now, related to these various disorders, and there have been many successful attempts by businesses to install ergonomic standards and to take steps to deal with the ergonomics of the workplace which have benefited the businesses as well as the workers. By preventing OSHA from formalizing these procedures and allowing DSHA to do what some businesses have done and what the State of California has done with their standards; by preventing OSHA from moving forward with the number of positive kinds of developments that have taken place, we are going to force more workers to suffer unnecessarily. We have case histories of workers in every State in the union; terrible things have happened in terms of injuries that have wrecked whole families. No, people do not bleed a great deal, they do not have concussions, it is not the kind of dramatic workplace accident situation that you have in the construction industry, but the slow death that is taking place more and more as we increase our digital world and people are more and more sitting before keyboards, eyestrain, all kinds of carpal tunnel syndromes from the actions of the wrists, all kinds of disorders are developing rapidly that injure more and more workers. More and more women, also, are drawn into this, more and more women incidentally who happen to be the wage earners and their families have been drawn into this. Why let the workers suffer? Let us get it over with. Let us get the standards out there and stop the suffering of the workers. The Democrats want to stop the suffering. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). (Mr. BONILLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Speaker, the American worker makes up the lifeblood of our economy and we can all agree in this Chamber that our utmost concern is their safety and well-being in the workplace. Every employer in America understands that it is to their advantage and the employee's advantage to keep workers healthy and happy on the job. In fact, we should all be celebrating today here that because of the safety measures that have been taken in the private sector. Working with some folks in OSHA, we have dropped employee injuries by 17 percent. The number of injuries dropped by 17 percent since 1995 because of the [[Page H6905]] changes that employers have made in the workplace. There is no crisis at hand. Let us be honest about what we are debating here. We are debating a power grab by a government agency and by America's big labor unions who are trying to get a stranglehold on America's businesses both small and large. The debate we have here today is about the rush to promulgate and to write a rule dealing with repetitive stress injuries, with ergonomics, something that would be far more dangerous to the American worker if it is written too fast versus waiting for sound science to guide them versus having political science guide them. Imagine for 1 second if OSHA rushes to write a rule without sound science, a one-size-fits-all rule that would apply to florists as it would to people who work in manufacturing plants, to people who work in auto parts stores, at restaurants and on farms and ranches throughout this country. What a nightmare this would be for the American workers. They would suddenly have their bosses having to spend gobs of money, money that could go to raises and better benefits and instead trying to comply with a one-size-fits-all regulation. Let us all remember that the first draft that OSHA had of this rule was 600 pages long. Imagine if you are working in a bakery out in the heartland in America, you are working in a dentist's office, in a lab, in an auto parts store or a restaurant and you suddenly saw this regulation show up on your doorstep. That is why the calculation of what this would cost the American workers in this country is at about $4 billion, because this is the kind of penalty we pay in our American society when we have a one-size-fits-all regulation hastily written and showing up at the doorstep of America's workplaces. All we are asking in this bill and in this rule is to allow us to stop the rush. There is no need to rush. We can wait for the sound science to take over and have the political science take a back seat so that we can do this the right way. There is no guarantee. When this National Academy of Science study is ultimately completed, it could in fact recommend that an ergonomics regulation move forward. We understand that. But let us let the scientists decide, let us let the researchers decide. Let us not turn this process over to a power-hungry Federal agency and labor unions that are also behind it. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento). (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and in opposition to this measure which is not letting the scientists decide, it is not letting the experts at OSHA decide. It is putting it here on the floor in a political way and letting all the experts here, the political experts, decide. This is not something being pushed by labor. If labor is interested in it, they are only interested because they are trying to protect the safety and health of workers. This is not some arcane problem that exists with regards to workers. Almost half the injuries that occur on the part of workers are related to repetitive stress type of injuries. If we wait another year, another year and a half, we are going to have another million people that are injured in this way. For those of you that love science, it sounds like you like it just to study. You do not want to apply the science. It is time we take the knowledge and information we have and put it in place so that we can protect the workers that are intended to be protected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that has been working on this for a decade, that depended upon 600 studies to base their decision upon. Over 2,000 articles and reviews were written of those studies and endless hearings to make certain as to the appropriateness of such rule. This bill is just an effort to study this into infinity, to frustrate the implementation of a legitimate law and rule. What is the cost? The cost in the end is a very high cost, because it means that individuals that are on the job, that are trying to work, will have to lay down their bodies, they will cripple their bodies simply to earn a living. That is really what this is about. We have to open our eyes up and begin to see what is happening. This is like some bad film. ``Eyes Wide Shut'' on the other side, disregarding reality is what we really have here with regards to this repetitive stress issue. Open them up to the people you shake hands with when you are out campaigning and they draw their hand back because of the injuries that they have sustained in the world of work. We can change it. We can make it better. This Congress ought to take its political act and go home with it and leave the experts that are supposed to be working on this issue and rule do their job. We should defeat this rule and defeat this bill. This measure, H.R. 987, seeks to study to infinity worker injuries and yet again delay Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) action on rules that would govern and prevent such injuries. This is no less than a frontal attack on all of OSHA to frustrate, dismantle and renege on worker safety embodied in the Occupational Safety Health Act. Repetitive work related motion trauma is not some arcane, isolated occurrence--nearly half of all workplace illnesses documented are caused by such repetitive motion, ergonomics. Each year injuries which result from such work-related musculoskeletal disorders harm nearly 650,000 workers and are estimated to cost businesses $60 billion dollars in worker compensation payments and other costs. More than 100 different injuries can result from repetitive motions causing painful wear and tear to the bodies of working men and women. Women are especially affected by this problem, comprising 60 to 70 percent of those injured in many categories. This repetitive injury OSHA rule is an all too common case of good news, bad news. The good news is that for almost every job that results in such injuries, there are alternative methods of performing work which can decrease the risk of harm. The bad news is that there isn't a focus on such prevention, and in fact some want to frustrate implementation. In February 1999, OSHA released a discussion draft for an ergonomics standard which would implement the use of ergonomics in the workplace. This draft proposal is an important step toward protecting workers from musculoskeletal disorders in a way which allows employers the flexibility to adopt solutions that fit their workplaces. The legislation we are debating today, H.R. 987, is euphemistically titled the ``Workplace Preservation Act.'' This bill is an unnecessary tactic which could ultimately result in thousands more workers being needlessly injured on the job--650,000 in one year more. Proponents of H.R. 987, playing a game of delay, mock and question the soundness and effectiveness of a well researched ergonomics standard, all the time wrapping themselves in ``sound science''. However, both a 1998 National Academy of Science study and a 1997 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study provides scientific evidence linking musculoskeletal disorders to the job. A document based on 600 research studies of such injuries and 2000 scientific articles build a solid foundation upon which to act. Even beyond official studies, there is practical proof that ergonomics programs work. The draft standard that OSHA is developing is actually based on programs which have been implemented and proven successful in various work sites across the country. OSHA would be irresponsible and derelict in its duties to not act upon such a clear record which pinpoints the cause of one half of workplace illnesses. We have waited long enough to address this problem, any opposition by Congress now will serve to needlessly delay the process even further. For every day that we waste on redundant research, life-altering impairment which could have been avoided will occur. It is truly a travesty that our workforce continues to suffer serious disabling injuries while Congress debates whether or not a known solution should be set in place. Clearly, this is exactly the kind of issue that OSHA was created to address, and attempts to block this organization from implementing solution to improve harmful work environments are disingenuous, misdirected and counterproductive. This Congressional measure to delay sound OSHA action should be identified for what it is; ``The Right to Risk Worker's Health Act.'' Enough is enough--too many bodies and limbs have been needlessly worn to numbness and a life of pain and permanent injury. We owe it to elemental common sense and fairness to accord workers the OSHA rule and safeguard, to prevent working conditions which force them to sacrifice their health and cripple their bodies to earn a living. Mr. Speaker, I will oppose this harmful legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson). Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the rhetoric I [[Page H6906]] am hearing today. I listened to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). He is absolutely on track. All that is happening is a takeover by big government trying to interfere in individuals' lives. Last year, the Congress and the President agreed to spend nearly $1 million on a study, and it is going to be completed in 2001. Why can we not wait until then? OSHA instead wants to rush forward and eliminate thousands of jobs and cost us billions of dollars while failing to assure the prevention of one single injury. Some single industry estimates go as high as 18 to $30 billion of cost. It is going to cost our businesses money. That means you, the consumer, the taxpayer, you are not only going to pay taxes, you are going to pay higher costs on everything you do. Let me just tell my colleagues something. When I was down at Homestead Air Force Base as commander, we had a little platform out on every level in a three-story barracks that our men lived in. OSHA came in and said you have to put a rail around there so when the guys get out there to clean the windows, they will not fall off. And furthermore, they have to have a hook to hook on that rail to make sure that if they do fall off, they will not fall and hurt themselves. Now, that is your government at work. Let me tell you what happened. A hurricane came through and destroyed that base totally. It does not anymore exist. So we got rid of the OSHA requirement in that way. Mr. Speaker, we need water here pretty bad. I hope we get a hurricane and just push OSHA out to sea. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink). (Mr. KLINK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is very plain to me that this rule should not be on the floor and this bill should not be on the floor. This is probably the biggest health and safety vote that we will see this year if not this Congress. The impact that ergonomic injuries have had on workers will touch every part of the family of labor. If this is such a big organized labor deal as some of the speakers have talked about, then that tool of organized labor, Elizabeth Dole, back in 1990 when she was Secretary of Labor, and I do not think anyone has ever accused her of being that closely aligned with organized labor, but her comment was that these injuries, and this is a direct quote, ``one of the Nation's most debilitating across-the-board worker safety and health illnesses of the 1990s.'' Ms. Dole was right then and she is right today. Business has to recognize the need to incorporate a new philosophy. We have to be able to adjust the way we manufacture, to adjust our equipment rather than asking workers to adjust their bodies to the way we manufacture. If we do that, the workers will be healthier and they will miss fewer days of work; workers' comp costs are going to go down, productivity would be higher, jobs would be secure and, yes, profit margins for our companies would go up. Let us look at the figures in 1997. There were 620,459 lost workdays due to workplace ergonomic injuries. These injuries were overexertion, repetitive motion, carpal tunnel syndrome, back injuries. This represents 34 percent, over one-third, of all the workdays that were lost by injured workers were due to ergonomic injuries. There has been some discussion on the other side about what this might cost the employers of this Nation. Someone threw out the figure of $4 billion. I do not know if that is true, I do not know if it is an exaggerated figure, but these ergonomic injuries each year cost business and workers between 15 and $20 billion. We ought to take a look at what Red Wing Shoes did. Here is an example of a company that modified its work stations. This was not an inexpensive thing for them to do. It cost them money. But at Red Wing, they reduced their workers' comp costs by 75 percent over a 4-year period. There was also some discussion on the other side about the fact that studies have not been done yet. The fact is the studies have been done. If you take a look at the NIOSH report it says, and I am quoting here, NIOSH director Dr. Linda Rosenstock, it found strong evidence of its association between musculoskeletal disorders and work factors such as heavy lifting. Then we go to this bill, H.R. 987, in the ``Findings'' section, you quoted exactly the opposite. You say that there is insufficient evidence to assess the level of risk that workers have from repetitive motion. {time} 1815 When the finding section of their own bill is exactly opposite of the finding that is actually in the study, no wonder they brought a cockeyed bill to the floor, because they do not know how to read the findings. Whoops, I am sorry. What was it Gilda Radner said? Excuse me. My colleagues have got to read the finding section. NIOSH has found that in fact repetitive motion does cause injuries. We have seen it; we have heard the stories. People who injure themselves on the job through ergonomic problems, they cannot comb their children's hair, cannot wash dishes, cannot sweep the floors at home. This bill should go down; the rule should go down. In fact, we should not even be here. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume just to make out a simple point that House Resolution 271 is a modified and open, fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for the debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to three full hours. It is an extremely fair rule, and given the amount of work that Congress is needed to do to complete its work this week, there will be ample time to have great debate on the merits of the legislation. But I remind my colleagues my view is we have a fair and open rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that everybody understands exactly what we are doing today. No one is saying that we are here to say that there will not be any ergonomic regulations in the future. In fact, I am sure there will be, but it seems to me, if there are going to be, then we should have the best scientific knowledge we possibly can so we do it right because we may just do the opposite of what we should be doing to try to help the people who we are trying to help. I would point out very quickly to my colleague from Pennsylvania that the NIOSH study also said additional research would be very, very valuable, and that is what it is all about. That is what it is all about; that is what the discussion is all about. We said in legislation, agreed by the President and by the Congress, that we would spend up to almost a million dollars of taxpayers' money to get the kind of scientific knowledge that we need in order to make sure what regulations are promulgated, that they are done properly, that they are done to help. That is all this legislation says: Get the study, colleagues asked for the study, they are willing to pay taxpayers' dollars for the study, get the study, use it, and then write the regulations that go with it. As my colleagues know, we have had 2 years of hearings where we have heard, if nothing else, a lot of inconclusive evidence, a lot of people who are not positively sure what the cause is and are not positively sure how to solve the problem. That is why we are asking the National Academy of Sciences to help us, help us determine what the problem is, help us determine what the direction is that we should be going. We had one of the finest back surgeons, one of the most prominent back surgeons in the country who said after years of his study and years of his dealing with the issue he found that in many instances it is not physical factors like how often you lift or how often you bend. In fact, he said that it is in many instances nonphysical factors, just stress in life, not enjoying one's job, and I think we can all relate [[Page H6907]] to that. Get down low enough, boy, people can have aches and pains. We all go through that process. And so here is a back surgeon, a prominent back surgeon who made that statement. So again, all the hearings that we have had, there is so much indecision as to what is the proper way to go, what do we specifically know and how do we handle the issue? And so all we say is, wait, get the study. We are paying almost a million bucks for it, and then see whether you can promulgate regulations that will truly help the men and women that we are trying to help. So no one is here trying to prevent forever ergonomic regulations. We are here saying let us do it right, let us get the scientific evidence first, and then proceed. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, today we vote on legislation to block OSHA from protecting America's working men and women from workplace injuries and illnesses caused by ergonomic-related issues. My colleagues have the figures, but they bear repeating. Each year more than 2 million workers suffer these injures, more than 640,000 workers lose time at work, and each year this costs the economy $15 to $20 billion in worker compensation, an overall $60 billion, all things considered. I oppose this legislation and support workplace protection for American workers. What is ergonomics? What is that word? What does it mean? Ergonomics and what are ergonomic-related injuries? Ergonomics is the science of adapting the workplace to the physical needs of the workers such as giving telephone headsets to telephone operators to avoid cradling the phone to reduce neck and shoulder pain, a work place that is poorly adapted to workers' causes, ergonomics injuries. One type of injury, repetitive motion injuries frequently mentioned here, is caused when a worker repeats a specific motion hundreds or thousands of times. For example, secretaries and office workers who type all day at their computer keyboards often suffer wrist and arm injuries. Similarly, America's poultry workers who cut up and sliced up the chicken parts for our meals repeat the same cutting and slicing motion hundreds of time an hour each day as they cut up thousands of chickens for our meals. The cumulative stress of these repetitive motions cause secretaries, poultry workers, and other workers to suffer health problems. But I want to get personal about this, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about one particular poultry worker. Betty Yvonne Green. Betty worked as a chicken fillet puller for seven years. Her job required her to use her thumbs to separate the fillet from the bone, cut the tips off the fillet with scissors and then place the product in a tub. Betty performed this task 16 to 17 times a minute for 2\1/2\ hours straight without a break. In 1984, Betty began to feel pain in her right arm and reported it to her supervisor, the directors of personnel and the plant manager. They all told her there was nothing wrong and she would have to live with this problem. Management felt her pain did not warrant medical assistance, and nothing was to be done until Betty went to her personal physician. Betty's doctor found that both her rotator cuffs had been torn and required surgery. She went back to work after both surgeries, but was unable to continue to do her fillet job. She worked some light duty, but to no avail. Betty was terminated by the company for what they said was excessive absenteeism. She was denied unemployment and only received workers compensation after retaining an attorney. On behalf of Betty Yvonne Green and many, many workers throughout this country who deserve our respect, in fact deserve our protection, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this so-called Workplace Preservation Act. Indeed it should be called the Workplace Persecution Act because that is exactly what it does to the American worker. We can study this thing to death. Of course we are always open to more science, but we have to also know when we have enough science to proceed and learn many more ways that we can do better in the workplace, but not to deny, not to deny what has been fully documented by NIOSH, which has been fully documented by the National Academy of Sciences as a relationship between repetitive motion and ergonomic disease. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham). (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) says that the Democrats are for working people, for working men and women, but yet every piece of legislation that they had out of here in support are against 90 percent of the working people. But if it is for the union bosses, they will support it. In 1993, they put the highest tax on the American people possible and increased the tax on middle- income workers, and this year they are trying to stop tax relief for those same workers. Salting for the unions where the unions go in and just destroy a small business, not even looking to overtake that business. That is wrong, but yet our union brothers over here support it. Davis-Bacon, that increases inflation 15 to 35 percent of construction for school buildings, but yet will they waive for the children? No, they will support the unions. Now we are asking for a scientific study, and I would say that even Republicans, we need to go one step further because when colleagues say based on science you need to look at who pays for the science. Is it the Republican groups or the Democrat groups, and people need an individual peer review to be fair, a nonpartisan independent review. Sometimes that does not exist, and I will give into that and we need that. As my colleagues know, in the office the people that work with computers all the times, they have carpel tunnel. There is good scientific basis that we need to help those people and provide the pads and make sure there is rotation and lights, and we have some pretty good science on it. But the problem is our colleagues want to go in without a study or agenda instead of science, and we are saying, no, let us back it up with the science to show so there will not be a big input on it, and I brought up yesterday www.dsa/usa. Democrat Socialists of America, progressive caucus, has a 12 point agenda: government control of health care, government control of education, government control of private property, and guess what? Union over small business and cut military by half, by 50 percent, and it is to support the union. That is their working men and women, but not the 90 percent of the people that have all of the other jobs. My colleagues should put their mouth and money where their rhetoric is. Support the people, the working men and women. Who is for this? The union bosses. Who is against it? Chamber, NFIB, every small business group out there because they know that the only thing that my colleagues are focusing on is the union bosses who give them their campaign finance money. Admit it. Why do they fight against 90 percent of the small businesses and workers every single bill that we have? They do not support the networking men and women in this country; they only support the union members. As my colleagues know, I take a look at the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) who gets up here and says, Oh, the poor lady in the red dress, not again, and he talks about the working men and women and the class warfare, only the rich versus the poor. Well, cut out the rhetoric. Do things based on science; the environmentalists, the same thing. We want environmental changes. Do my colleagues think we want bad environment, the Republicans over the Democrats? We just want it based on good science, and then we want a peer review. The same thing with ergonomics. We want a good science and peer review so they do not destroy the 90 percent of the jobs that are out there in favor of their union bosses. And that is what we are asking, Mr. Speaker. We are tired and tired and tired of the Democrats' rhetoric trying [[Page H6908]] to make points for the year 2000 where they get their campaign money, and that is what they support. If colleagues really support the working men and women, support the Republican position on this. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson). Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and this bill, and I would hope that we could cut back a little bit on the rhetoric. First of all, people need to understand this talk about this study. There is no study that is going on. All that is happening is it is going to be a compilation of a bunch of studies that have already been done. So we need to get that clear. Second thing I think that people need to understand is that it would help if somebody would have talked to the people in the department that are actually working on this. {time} 1830 I have met with Secretary Jeffers more than once and talked to him about this proposed rule that they are looking at. They have been working on it a long time. There is a lot of science that has gone into this. I do not think a lot of people that are talking on this floor have actually looked into what this is about. This only applies to manufacturing and manual lifting businesses, where 60 percent of these injuries take place. If you do not have an injury, this is not going to apply to you. It only applies when you have an injury where there is ergonomics involved, and at that point, you have to come up with a way to deal with it. If you have got a situation where it is only one injury and you are a small employer, they have something called a quick fix where you can go in and work on this without having to put a plan together. So they have listened to small business, they have tried to make this workable, and if anybody sat down and read this, they would understand that. The other thing is that businesses that have gone out and actually worked on this have found it to be cost effective. It saves money for their company, and it is good for their employees. This afternoon I talked to 3M. They have an ergonomist on their staff. That person has saved them money. It is better for the company and better for the workers. This is something that clearly works. So I hope that people will focus on what is really going on here. Back in October of 1998, then appropriations Chairman Livingston and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) sent a letter to Alexis Herman saying we are funding this NAS study and it is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics. Well, it looks to me today like what is going on here is delay, and is contrary to what was said. So I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this bill. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) the Chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.) Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time, and I assure him I will reserve time for my friend from Louisiana and will not fill out the entire hour here. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and congratulate my friend from Buffalo for his super management. We have an expression that we have been trying our doggonedest to successfully implement around here in the 106th Congress, and we call it regular order. We try to, as much as possible, follow regular order. Frankly, that is exactly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) is trying to do with this legislation. We authorized $1 million for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with some sort of finding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proceeds with implementation of its regulations on ergonomics. The fact of the matter is, nothing, as has been said by several of my colleagues, nothing prevents them from moving ahead. But what we are saying is get every bit of information you possibly can so that you come up with good public policy. Now, that will be unique for OSHA in the eyes of many, because a number of us have been very critical of the fact that regulations that they over the years have imposed have been extraordinarily costly to the private sector, and, in turn, to the consumers of this country. But, obviously we are all wanting to deal with the problems of stress-related repetitive actions that people take in their work, so all we are saying is let us do it right. This is a very fair and balanced rule which allows for a free-flowing debate, while at the same time recognizing that most of my colleagues with whom I have spoken over the last few days want us to complete our work by the end of this week so we can go home for August. This rule allows us to have a debate and do it in a fair way, and also get this, and I hope the rest of our work, done. So I urge support of the rule. Mr. FROST. 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. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I listened intently to my friend from New York, a member of the Committee on Rules who spoke about this rule a few minutes ago, and I wanted to make several points about the rule. We are operating here under the facade that this will give, as the chairman of the Committee on Rules just said, a free-flowing and open debate about worker safety. I want to point something out: There are many of us who believe that OSHA is understaffed, that OSHA does not have enough inspectors to go find workplace violations and do something about them. But, if I am not mistaken, and my friend from the Committee on Rules can correct me, an amendment that would add inspectors to OSHA's inspection force would be ruled out of order because it is not germane. There are many of us who are concerned about sick building syndrome, about people going to work, day after day, in buildings where the heating and air conditioning systems do not work properly and they cannot breathe properly and their asthma is aggravated or their other breathing related disabilities are aggravated, and many of us believe OSHA should do something about that. An amendment that would address that problem would be out of order because it would not be germane. In fact, it is almost impossible to think of any amendment that could be offered under this bill that would do anything other than kill this regulation or delay this regulation that would be germane. So let us get the record straight here. There are dozens of important worker safety issues that confront this country. None of them, none of them, are in order for debate under this rule on the floor. The only thing we can do is either accept or reject this attempt to delay, and I think ultimately defeat, the new ergonomic standard by OSHA. So let us be very clear about this, that this is an open rule in form only. Every other consideration in worker safety is not in order. That is why the rule should be defeated. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Crowley. (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to my good friend from Buffalo, New York, a fellow New Yorker, to this rule and to, even more importantly, to H.R. 987, the Workforce Preservation Act. Injuries resulting from workplace stress and strain have long been studied. We cannot continue to needlessly put off a standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the belief that ergonomically unsafe conditions result in repetitive strain injuries, also called RSIs. Approximately 700,000 serious workplace injuries result from ergonomically unsafe working conditions. This [[Page H6909]] accounts for 31 percent of all injuries and illnesses involving lost workdays. The cost of these lost workdays has been estimated to be between $15 and 20 billion. Now, these are not made-up injuries, they are not fantasies in workers' minds. These are real injuries, not only costing billions of dollars, but destroying people's everyday lives, people who can no longer work in their chosen professions, no longer cook at home, no longer play the guitar, no longer ride their bicycles even, and even no longer picking up their little children. That is what we are talking about here. I cannot understand how my colleagues could want to delay the implementation of a standard that would not only reduce pain and suffering but save the business community of this country billions of dollars each year. I applaud last year's appropriation funding of the National Academy of Sciences study of ergonomic injuries. However, that is no reason to delay the implementation of a highly researched and needed OSHA standard. Stand up for working Americans, stand up for healthy workplaces. Vote against this rule, H.R. 987, to help prevent thousands of injuries and save employers up to $20 billion a year. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and to the bill. Like many of my colleagues, I feel as if I am in a time warp. Last year when the latest NAS scientific review was funded, there was an agreement that this study should not and would not bloc

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WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT
(House of Representatives - August 03, 1999)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6901-H6927] WORKPLACE PRESERVATION ACT Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 271 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 271 Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 987) to require the Secretary of Labor to wait for completion of a National Academy of Sciences study before promulgating a standard or guideline on ergonomics. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule for a period not to exceed two hours. The bill shall be considered as read. During consideration of the bill for amendment, the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may accord priority in recognition on the basis of whether the Member offering an amendment has caused it to be [[Page H6902]] printed in the portion of the Congressional Record designated for that purpose in clause 8 of rule XVIII. Amendments so printed shall be considered as read. The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may: (1) postpone until a time during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a request for a recorded vote on any amendment; and (2) reduce to five minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any postponed question that follows another electronic vote without intervening business, provided that the minimum time for electronic voting on the first in any series of questions shall be 15 minutes. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. House Resolution 271 is a modified open rule, providing for the consideration of H.R. 987, the Workplace Preservation Act. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that the National Academy of Sciences completes and submits to Congress its study of a cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace and physical disorders or repetitive stress injuries before issuing standards or guidelines on ergonomics. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The rule also provides that the bill shall be open for amendment at any point and limits the amendment process to 2 hours. The rule authorizes the Chair to accord priority in recognition to Members who have preprinted their amendments in the Congressional Record. Additionally, the rule allows the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes during consideration of the bill, and to reduce voting time to 5 minutes on a postponed question if the vote follows a 15-minute vote. Finally, the rule provides for 1 motion to recommit with or without instructions. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 271 is a modified open and fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to 3 full hours. This is an extremely fair rule, given the amount of work Congress must complete this week. The Workforce Preservation Act is a brief and simple measure that prohibits OSHA from promulgating an ergonomics standard until the National Academy of Sciences completes its study and reports the results to Congress. Mr. Speaker, this body has long been concerned with the issue of sound scientific definitions of these types of workplace injuries. This bill merely requires OSHA to base their definitions on sound, scientific data. Last year, Congress authorized and American taxpayers paid almost $1 million for the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences to conduct a comprehensive study of all the available scientific literature examining the cause-and-effect relationship between repetitive tasks in the workplace. The study is currently underway and is expected to be completed within a 2-year time frame, and would be ready by mid-2001. Mr. Speaker, the study of ergonomics is one of OSHA's top priorities. This bill recognizes the importance of this study and requires that the most up-to-date scientific information is analyzed and included. This bill will in no way prohibit or deny OSHA the opportunity to create these standards. Rather, it will make sure that we get the most accurate information based on sound science. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the sponsor of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support both this rule and the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority spends a lot of time opining about how they want to help working men and women in this country. Yet, Mr. Speaker, at a time when the Occupational Health and Safety Administration is poised to issue a rule which seeks to protect American workers from workplace hazards which can lead to serious injury, the Republican majority wants to call a time-out. H.R. 987 does nothing to help working men and women in this country, and the Republican majority should not waste the time of this House by saying that it does. This bill is nothing more than another attack by the majority on establishing workplace protections that might very well save American businesses money in lost productivity, worker compensation claims, and disability insurance. If the House is going to call time-out, Mr. Speaker, it ought to be on the consideration of this bill and not on the health and safety of the American workforce. Mr. Speaker, work-related musculoskeletal disorders cost employers between $15 and $20 billion a year in workers compensation costs. Ergonomic injuries and illnesses are the single largest cause of injury-related lost workdays, with nearly 650,000 lost-time injuries each year. These injuries are found in every sector of our economy and cause real pain and suffering. Women workers are particularly victimized by ergonomic injuries and illness. They represent 69 percent of workers who lose time due to carpal tunnel syndrome, 63 percent of those who suffer repetitive motion injuries, and 61 percent who lose work time to tendonitis. {time} 1745 In fact, Mr. Speaker, nearly half of all injuries and illnesses to women workers are due to ergonomic hazards. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 987 proposes for at least another year and a half the promulgation of a rule that will provide needed health and safety standards for American workers. There is sound scientific evidence that shows that workplace factors cause musculoskeletal injuries and that show these injuries can be prevented. Many employers have seen the benefit in improving workplace conditions to prevent these injuries and have, as a result, seen injuries fall and productivity rise. If the Republican majority really wanted to do something for working men and women in this country, they would drop their opposition to these workplace protections and withdraw this bill. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 987 and a ``no'' vote on the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger.) Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this open rule. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in strong support of H.R. 982. It is a very simple bill. It simply says that the National Academy of Sciences must complete its study on ergonomics and report to Congress before OSHA promulgates a proposed or final standard. Clearly, the will of the House is that an almost million-dollar study on ergonomics by the National Academy of Sciences, NAS, should be completed before we rush to regulate. Science should precede regulation, not the other way around. Let me just summarize the following points in support of the bill: first, ergonomics regulation would be a substantially mandated cost on the American companies and the American economy. OSHA's own estimates show that draft regulation could cost an additional $3.5 billion annually. I believe that cost is greatly underestimated. Before we consider imposing this standard on the American people, let us have the scientific and medical proof to back it up. [[Page H6903]] Second, there is no question that there is a great deal of scientific and medical uncertainty and debate about ergonomics. If OSHA regulates before the causes are understood, OSHA may very well regulate the wrong thing and impose a lot of unnecessary costs without benefiting workers. Third, Congress and the President agree that we need a comprehensive study of ergonomics by NAS. The purpose of the study is to inform Congress, the Department of Labor, employers and employees about the state of scientific information on ergonomics. Only then can we determine whether a broad ergonomics regulation is appropriate. To issue a regulation before NAS completes its study is an outrage and a gross waste of taxpayers' funds. Fourth, an appropriations letter does not take precedence over the will of Congress in calling for an NAS study. Finally, the fact that OSHA has worked on ergonomics for over a decade is irrelevant since Congress decided the issue needed further study. Moreover, the fact that there has been substantial study with no conclusions about ergonomics suggests that more study is needed before imposing a nationwide standard at a great cost. In conclusion, I urge the Members to vote for the rule and H.R. 987. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay). Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. H.R. 987 is a measure of how antagonistic the majority of the Republican majority is to the interest of working people. Despite 7 years of unprecedented prosperity under the Clinton administration, there remains much that this House can do to improve the well-being of workers. We should be considering legislation to make a job pay a decent salary and increase the minimum wage. We should be ensuring that all workers have affordable health care. We should be expanding pension coverage. We should be ensuring better family leave coverage. Instead, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order a bill that will result in hundreds of thousands of workers suffering avoidable serious injury in the workplace. We should not let special interests downplay the seriousness of ergonomic injuries and illnesses. Imagine suffering from a workplace injury that prevents one from lifting anything over a half a pound. Imagine being disabled, so disabled that one cannot hold a book to read to their child. Imagine being unable to caress their newborn or to give him or her a shower or a bath. Mr. Speaker, there is no excuse for further delaying OSHA's ergonomic standard. The National Academy of Sciences study is a review of existing scientific literature. It is not intended and will not produce new information. Two previous studies of the existing scientific literature, one by NIOSH and one by NAS, have already confirmed that ergonomic injuries and illnesses are work related and that they cannot be prevented by workplace interventions. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, practical experience by thousands of companies has proven that ergonomic injuries and illnesses can be significantly reduced. Passage of H.R. 987 only ensures that some employers will continue to ignore the working welfare of the workers for that much longer. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes). (Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and in support of the Workplace Preservation Act. During the Easter recess, I embarked on an industry tour in my district in North Carolina. The industries of the 8th district are primarily agriculture and textile related. I visited eight small- and medium-sized manufacturers, including Cuddy Farms in Monroe and Clayson Knitting Mill in Star. These companies and many others like them represent the backbone of our district's economy. The number one concern on their minds was the new ergonomics regulations being considered by OSHA. They were truly fearful of the burdensome regulation that would not only create more paperwork and costly, unneeded changes but would also hinder communications between employer and employee. All too often it appears as if the government is slightly behind the times. The current unemployment rate is so low that in many parts of the country employers do and in fact must offer the most attractive work environment in order to recruit and retain employees. As one employer from the district wrote to me, ``My company is begging for employees from laborers to drivers to high-tech computer operators. We are doing everything we can to attract employees.'' Plant managers, human resources managers, and office managers are more than willing to work with their own employees on grievances and workplace conditions rather than plow through layers of government bureaucracy. The number of manufacturing jobs is on the decline. We are seeing more and more jobs going to Central America and overseas because, frankly, our government is making the cost of doing business in the United States too high for too many companies. Rural areas in our Nation are being hit hardest by the decline in manufacturing jobs. Keeping more unsubstantiated government regulation on these industries will only encourage them to continue to flee. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that politically powerful forces are at work here. Why else would OSHA hastily recognize a casual relationship between repetitive tasks and repetitive stress injuries without complete scientific documentation? I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and allow the National Academy of Sciences to complete its work. With all the facts, Congress can step back and prudently evaluate the need for new ergonomic guidelines. We must resist another in a long line of attempts to impose costly restrictions upon employers and employees with the one-size-fits-all Federal approach. Please support the rule and this bill. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, every time I tour a plant in my district I run into workers, especially women, who are wearing wrist braces. When I ask them about their problem, the answer over and over again is the same: carpal tunnel syndrome. Where does carpal tunnel syndrome or many of those other injuries come from? They come from workers having to do the same thing hundreds of times and thousands of times without properly designed equipment and work stations. And workers I see are not isolated examples. Repetitive motion injuries affect 650,000 workers each year. That is more than the number of people who die each year from cancer and stroke. Those injuries account for more lost workday injuries than any other cause, especially for women workers. Nearly half of all workplace injuries for women are due to repetitive motion problems. Now, there are those in this body who say there ought to be more delay in protecting those workers, but they are virtually alone in the world. Every industrialized country has recognized that there is more than enough evidence to move forward on a repetitive motion standard. Most progressive businesses recognize it is their duty to protect workers and to protect their stockholders from the economic impact of huge amounts of lost work time. But a powerful band of economic royalists in this country and in this Congress continue to fight that protection, and it is time to get on with it. In 1990, that well-known ``radical'' liberal Elizabeth Dole said that it was time to move forward on this. In 1995, the Republican majority attached a rider blocking the issuance of draft regulations. In 1996, they tried to prevent OSHA from even collecting the data on repetitive motion injuries. In 1997, they tried to block it again but failed. At that time, the National Institutes for Occupational Health and Safety conducted a detailed review of [[Page H6904]] more than 600 scientific studies on the problem, and they found a strong correlation between workplace conditions and worker injuries. That study was peer reviewed by 27 experts throughout the country. But that was not good enough for some of my colleagues. So in 1998, they pushed the National Institutes of Health to fund another study at the National Academy of Sciences. They convened 65 of the world's leading scientists, and again they found evidence that clearly demonstrates that specific intervention can reduce injury. But that is not good enough for some of my colleagues. They want yet another delay. That delay does not hurt anybody in this room. The only repetitive motion injury that Members of Congress are likely to get are knee injuries from continuous genuflecting to big business special interests who want us to put their profit margins ahead of worker health. Maybe the time has not come for my colleagues. But, by God, it has come for those workers. We need action and we need it now. No delays. No foot dragging. No excuses. We need action and we need action now. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson). Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yield me the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I want to address myself to the rule first because that is what we are debating. I have heard it said here today that we should not wait any longer for the scientific evidence to be evaluated by the National Academy of Science, what we should immediately do is proceed to pass rules and regulations. That is a little bit like going into a waiting room of a sick patient and saying, let us just not do any diagnostic testing, let us go ahead and operate. It is risky business. Secondly, I want to agree completely that this is about the cost to American business and the safety of American workers. In a period of unprecedented prosperity, in a period of full employment, the last thing an employer wants for a moment is to have workers getting hurt on the job, because there are not good replacements, because we are fully employed. They want workplace safety. But the last thing they want, also, is conflicting scientific data dictating to a bureaucracy to go ahead and establish rules and regulations preceding a final determination. In committee on this bill, whether my colleagues agree with the bill or not, no one can argue that professionals and physicians from both sides of the musculoskeletal disorder syndrome agree that there were conflicting data and it was time to have a decision. Mr. Speaker, I believe we should move forward with what will be a very contested debate. To vote against this rule makes no sense. When the debate on the rule is over and the rule passes, I think the evidence will come forward that we are doing what is right for workers and what is right for the employer and what is right for America, to depend on conclusive evidence and not conflict opinions. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1800 Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule, but I welcome the opportunity to discuss the platforms of the two parties in respect to the lives of working people and what kinds of programs we would like to offer for working people. One party is clearly against working families and they express it in many ways. This particular piece of legislation has a symbolic significance far beyond what you see written on the paper. It is one part of an overall attack by the majority Republicans on working families. I think the President has made it clear in his message on this bill what we are about here today and it is pretty simple. The administration has written that it strongly opposes enactment of H.R. 987, a bill that would unnecessarily delay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's issuance of a protective standard on ergonomics until the National Academy of Sciences has completed a second study of the scientific literature regarding musculoskeletal disorders and ergonomics. I think that it is very clear that what the Republican majority is saying is, let the workers suffer, let the working families suffer. Six hundred thousand people are affected yearly by these work-related musculoskeletal disorders, but it does not matter, let the workers suffer. They are only working families. We are Republicans. We care only about the upper income and we want to spend our time getting benefits out to them in the form of a massive, $794 billion tax cut over 10 years. I would like to see all of the Members come to the floor and use this opportunity. I think we may have about 3 hours to discuss the working families of America and which party really represents them and their welfare. Let them suffer for another 2 years, that is what the immediate concrete message is. So what? We have had studies. The studies clearly show that there is a cause and effect. The new studies that the NAS will be attempting and continuing to undertake relate to intervention strategies. How do you intervene to prevent these disorders. How do you intervene to lessen the impact of the kinds of unhealthy working conditions in the workplace? They want to go on gathering evidence and data which can go on forever and that is the way that any scientific gathering of evidence should take place. But why make the workers wait before you issue standards and you begin the process of intervening to lessen the impact of the injuries? The Republicans say, let them wait. Small businesses and even big businesses are going to suffer because the amount of workmen's compensation payments will continue to go up. It is around $20 billion a year now, related to these various disorders, and there have been many successful attempts by businesses to install ergonomic standards and to take steps to deal with the ergonomics of the workplace which have benefited the businesses as well as the workers. By preventing OSHA from formalizing these procedures and allowing DSHA to do what some businesses have done and what the State of California has done with their standards; by preventing OSHA from moving forward with the number of positive kinds of developments that have taken place, we are going to force more workers to suffer unnecessarily. We have case histories of workers in every State in the union; terrible things have happened in terms of injuries that have wrecked whole families. No, people do not bleed a great deal, they do not have concussions, it is not the kind of dramatic workplace accident situation that you have in the construction industry, but the slow death that is taking place more and more as we increase our digital world and people are more and more sitting before keyboards, eyestrain, all kinds of carpal tunnel syndromes from the actions of the wrists, all kinds of disorders are developing rapidly that injure more and more workers. More and more women, also, are drawn into this, more and more women incidentally who happen to be the wage earners and their families have been drawn into this. Why let the workers suffer? Let us get it over with. Let us get the standards out there and stop the suffering of the workers. The Democrats want to stop the suffering. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). (Mr. BONILLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Speaker, the American worker makes up the lifeblood of our economy and we can all agree in this Chamber that our utmost concern is their safety and well-being in the workplace. Every employer in America understands that it is to their advantage and the employee's advantage to keep workers healthy and happy on the job. In fact, we should all be celebrating today here that because of the safety measures that have been taken in the private sector. Working with some folks in OSHA, we have dropped employee injuries by 17 percent. The number of injuries dropped by 17 percent since 1995 because of the [[Page H6905]] changes that employers have made in the workplace. There is no crisis at hand. Let us be honest about what we are debating here. We are debating a power grab by a government agency and by America's big labor unions who are trying to get a stranglehold on America's businesses both small and large. The debate we have here today is about the rush to promulgate and to write a rule dealing with repetitive stress injuries, with ergonomics, something that would be far more dangerous to the American worker if it is written too fast versus waiting for sound science to guide them versus having political science guide them. Imagine for 1 second if OSHA rushes to write a rule without sound science, a one-size-fits-all rule that would apply to florists as it would to people who work in manufacturing plants, to people who work in auto parts stores, at restaurants and on farms and ranches throughout this country. What a nightmare this would be for the American workers. They would suddenly have their bosses having to spend gobs of money, money that could go to raises and better benefits and instead trying to comply with a one-size-fits-all regulation. Let us all remember that the first draft that OSHA had of this rule was 600 pages long. Imagine if you are working in a bakery out in the heartland in America, you are working in a dentist's office, in a lab, in an auto parts store or a restaurant and you suddenly saw this regulation show up on your doorstep. That is why the calculation of what this would cost the American workers in this country is at about $4 billion, because this is the kind of penalty we pay in our American society when we have a one-size-fits-all regulation hastily written and showing up at the doorstep of America's workplaces. All we are asking in this bill and in this rule is to allow us to stop the rush. There is no need to rush. We can wait for the sound science to take over and have the political science take a back seat so that we can do this the right way. There is no guarantee. When this National Academy of Science study is ultimately completed, it could in fact recommend that an ergonomics regulation move forward. We understand that. But let us let the scientists decide, let us let the researchers decide. Let us not turn this process over to a power-hungry Federal agency and labor unions that are also behind it. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento). (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and in opposition to this measure which is not letting the scientists decide, it is not letting the experts at OSHA decide. It is putting it here on the floor in a political way and letting all the experts here, the political experts, decide. This is not something being pushed by labor. If labor is interested in it, they are only interested because they are trying to protect the safety and health of workers. This is not some arcane problem that exists with regards to workers. Almost half the injuries that occur on the part of workers are related to repetitive stress type of injuries. If we wait another year, another year and a half, we are going to have another million people that are injured in this way. For those of you that love science, it sounds like you like it just to study. You do not want to apply the science. It is time we take the knowledge and information we have and put it in place so that we can protect the workers that are intended to be protected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that has been working on this for a decade, that depended upon 600 studies to base their decision upon. Over 2,000 articles and reviews were written of those studies and endless hearings to make certain as to the appropriateness of such rule. This bill is just an effort to study this into infinity, to frustrate the implementation of a legitimate law and rule. What is the cost? The cost in the end is a very high cost, because it means that individuals that are on the job, that are trying to work, will have to lay down their bodies, they will cripple their bodies simply to earn a living. That is really what this is about. We have to open our eyes up and begin to see what is happening. This is like some bad film. ``Eyes Wide Shut'' on the other side, disregarding reality is what we really have here with regards to this repetitive stress issue. Open them up to the people you shake hands with when you are out campaigning and they draw their hand back because of the injuries that they have sustained in the world of work. We can change it. We can make it better. This Congress ought to take its political act and go home with it and leave the experts that are supposed to be working on this issue and rule do their job. We should defeat this rule and defeat this bill. This measure, H.R. 987, seeks to study to infinity worker injuries and yet again delay Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) action on rules that would govern and prevent such injuries. This is no less than a frontal attack on all of OSHA to frustrate, dismantle and renege on worker safety embodied in the Occupational Safety Health Act. Repetitive work related motion trauma is not some arcane, isolated occurrence--nearly half of all workplace illnesses documented are caused by such repetitive motion, ergonomics. Each year injuries which result from such work-related musculoskeletal disorders harm nearly 650,000 workers and are estimated to cost businesses $60 billion dollars in worker compensation payments and other costs. More than 100 different injuries can result from repetitive motions causing painful wear and tear to the bodies of working men and women. Women are especially affected by this problem, comprising 60 to 70 percent of those injured in many categories. This repetitive injury OSHA rule is an all too common case of good news, bad news. The good news is that for almost every job that results in such injuries, there are alternative methods of performing work which can decrease the risk of harm. The bad news is that there isn't a focus on such prevention, and in fact some want to frustrate implementation. In February 1999, OSHA released a discussion draft for an ergonomics standard which would implement the use of ergonomics in the workplace. This draft proposal is an important step toward protecting workers from musculoskeletal disorders in a way which allows employers the flexibility to adopt solutions that fit their workplaces. The legislation we are debating today, H.R. 987, is euphemistically titled the ``Workplace Preservation Act.'' This bill is an unnecessary tactic which could ultimately result in thousands more workers being needlessly injured on the job--650,000 in one year more. Proponents of H.R. 987, playing a game of delay, mock and question the soundness and effectiveness of a well researched ergonomics standard, all the time wrapping themselves in ``sound science''. However, both a 1998 National Academy of Science study and a 1997 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study provides scientific evidence linking musculoskeletal disorders to the job. A document based on 600 research studies of such injuries and 2000 scientific articles build a solid foundation upon which to act. Even beyond official studies, there is practical proof that ergonomics programs work. The draft standard that OSHA is developing is actually based on programs which have been implemented and proven successful in various work sites across the country. OSHA would be irresponsible and derelict in its duties to not act upon such a clear record which pinpoints the cause of one half of workplace illnesses. We have waited long enough to address this problem, any opposition by Congress now will serve to needlessly delay the process even further. For every day that we waste on redundant research, life-altering impairment which could have been avoided will occur. It is truly a travesty that our workforce continues to suffer serious disabling injuries while Congress debates whether or not a known solution should be set in place. Clearly, this is exactly the kind of issue that OSHA was created to address, and attempts to block this organization from implementing solution to improve harmful work environments are disingenuous, misdirected and counterproductive. This Congressional measure to delay sound OSHA action should be identified for what it is; ``The Right to Risk Worker's Health Act.'' Enough is enough--too many bodies and limbs have been needlessly worn to numbness and a life of pain and permanent injury. We owe it to elemental common sense and fairness to accord workers the OSHA rule and safeguard, to prevent working conditions which force them to sacrifice their health and cripple their bodies to earn a living. Mr. Speaker, I will oppose this harmful legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson). Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the rhetoric I [[Page H6906]] am hearing today. I listened to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). He is absolutely on track. All that is happening is a takeover by big government trying to interfere in individuals' lives. Last year, the Congress and the President agreed to spend nearly $1 million on a study, and it is going to be completed in 2001. Why can we not wait until then? OSHA instead wants to rush forward and eliminate thousands of jobs and cost us billions of dollars while failing to assure the prevention of one single injury. Some single industry estimates go as high as 18 to $30 billion of cost. It is going to cost our businesses money. That means you, the consumer, the taxpayer, you are not only going to pay taxes, you are going to pay higher costs on everything you do. Let me just tell my colleagues something. When I was down at Homestead Air Force Base as commander, we had a little platform out on every level in a three-story barracks that our men lived in. OSHA came in and said you have to put a rail around there so when the guys get out there to clean the windows, they will not fall off. And furthermore, they have to have a hook to hook on that rail to make sure that if they do fall off, they will not fall and hurt themselves. Now, that is your government at work. Let me tell you what happened. A hurricane came through and destroyed that base totally. It does not anymore exist. So we got rid of the OSHA requirement in that way. Mr. Speaker, we need water here pretty bad. I hope we get a hurricane and just push OSHA out to sea. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Klink). (Mr. KLINK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is very plain to me that this rule should not be on the floor and this bill should not be on the floor. This is probably the biggest health and safety vote that we will see this year if not this Congress. The impact that ergonomic injuries have had on workers will touch every part of the family of labor. If this is such a big organized labor deal as some of the speakers have talked about, then that tool of organized labor, Elizabeth Dole, back in 1990 when she was Secretary of Labor, and I do not think anyone has ever accused her of being that closely aligned with organized labor, but her comment was that these injuries, and this is a direct quote, ``one of the Nation's most debilitating across-the-board worker safety and health illnesses of the 1990s.'' Ms. Dole was right then and she is right today. Business has to recognize the need to incorporate a new philosophy. We have to be able to adjust the way we manufacture, to adjust our equipment rather than asking workers to adjust their bodies to the way we manufacture. If we do that, the workers will be healthier and they will miss fewer days of work; workers' comp costs are going to go down, productivity would be higher, jobs would be secure and, yes, profit margins for our companies would go up. Let us look at the figures in 1997. There were 620,459 lost workdays due to workplace ergonomic injuries. These injuries were overexertion, repetitive motion, carpal tunnel syndrome, back injuries. This represents 34 percent, over one-third, of all the workdays that were lost by injured workers were due to ergonomic injuries. There has been some discussion on the other side about what this might cost the employers of this Nation. Someone threw out the figure of $4 billion. I do not know if that is true, I do not know if it is an exaggerated figure, but these ergonomic injuries each year cost business and workers between 15 and $20 billion. We ought to take a look at what Red Wing Shoes did. Here is an example of a company that modified its work stations. This was not an inexpensive thing for them to do. It cost them money. But at Red Wing, they reduced their workers' comp costs by 75 percent over a 4-year period. There was also some discussion on the other side about the fact that studies have not been done yet. The fact is the studies have been done. If you take a look at the NIOSH report it says, and I am quoting here, NIOSH director Dr. Linda Rosenstock, it found strong evidence of its association between musculoskeletal disorders and work factors such as heavy lifting. Then we go to this bill, H.R. 987, in the ``Findings'' section, you quoted exactly the opposite. You say that there is insufficient evidence to assess the level of risk that workers have from repetitive motion. {time} 1815 When the finding section of their own bill is exactly opposite of the finding that is actually in the study, no wonder they brought a cockeyed bill to the floor, because they do not know how to read the findings. Whoops, I am sorry. What was it Gilda Radner said? Excuse me. My colleagues have got to read the finding section. NIOSH has found that in fact repetitive motion does cause injuries. We have seen it; we have heard the stories. People who injure themselves on the job through ergonomic problems, they cannot comb their children's hair, cannot wash dishes, cannot sweep the floors at home. This bill should go down; the rule should go down. In fact, we should not even be here. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume just to make out a simple point that House Resolution 271 is a modified and open, fair rule for consideration of H.R. 987. The rule provides for the debate and amendments on this measure to consume up to three full hours. It is an extremely fair rule, and given the amount of work that Congress is needed to do to complete its work this week, there will be ample time to have great debate on the merits of the legislation. But I remind my colleagues my view is we have a fair and open rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. (Mr. GOODLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that everybody understands exactly what we are doing today. No one is saying that we are here to say that there will not be any ergonomic regulations in the future. In fact, I am sure there will be, but it seems to me, if there are going to be, then we should have the best scientific knowledge we possibly can so we do it right because we may just do the opposite of what we should be doing to try to help the people who we are trying to help. I would point out very quickly to my colleague from Pennsylvania that the NIOSH study also said additional research would be very, very valuable, and that is what it is all about. That is what it is all about; that is what the discussion is all about. We said in legislation, agreed by the President and by the Congress, that we would spend up to almost a million dollars of taxpayers' money to get the kind of scientific knowledge that we need in order to make sure what regulations are promulgated, that they are done properly, that they are done to help. That is all this legislation says: Get the study, colleagues asked for the study, they are willing to pay taxpayers' dollars for the study, get the study, use it, and then write the regulations that go with it. As my colleagues know, we have had 2 years of hearings where we have heard, if nothing else, a lot of inconclusive evidence, a lot of people who are not positively sure what the cause is and are not positively sure how to solve the problem. That is why we are asking the National Academy of Sciences to help us, help us determine what the problem is, help us determine what the direction is that we should be going. We had one of the finest back surgeons, one of the most prominent back surgeons in the country who said after years of his study and years of his dealing with the issue he found that in many instances it is not physical factors like how often you lift or how often you bend. In fact, he said that it is in many instances nonphysical factors, just stress in life, not enjoying one's job, and I think we can all relate [[Page H6907]] to that. Get down low enough, boy, people can have aches and pains. We all go through that process. And so here is a back surgeon, a prominent back surgeon who made that statement. So again, all the hearings that we have had, there is so much indecision as to what is the proper way to go, what do we specifically know and how do we handle the issue? And so all we say is, wait, get the study. We are paying almost a million bucks for it, and then see whether you can promulgate regulations that will truly help the men and women that we are trying to help. So no one is here trying to prevent forever ergonomic regulations. We are here saying let us do it right, let us get the scientific evidence first, and then proceed. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, today we vote on legislation to block OSHA from protecting America's working men and women from workplace injuries and illnesses caused by ergonomic-related issues. My colleagues have the figures, but they bear repeating. Each year more than 2 million workers suffer these injures, more than 640,000 workers lose time at work, and each year this costs the economy $15 to $20 billion in worker compensation, an overall $60 billion, all things considered. I oppose this legislation and support workplace protection for American workers. What is ergonomics? What is that word? What does it mean? Ergonomics and what are ergonomic-related injuries? Ergonomics is the science of adapting the workplace to the physical needs of the workers such as giving telephone headsets to telephone operators to avoid cradling the phone to reduce neck and shoulder pain, a work place that is poorly adapted to workers' causes, ergonomics injuries. One type of injury, repetitive motion injuries frequently mentioned here, is caused when a worker repeats a specific motion hundreds or thousands of times. For example, secretaries and office workers who type all day at their computer keyboards often suffer wrist and arm injuries. Similarly, America's poultry workers who cut up and sliced up the chicken parts for our meals repeat the same cutting and slicing motion hundreds of time an hour each day as they cut up thousands of chickens for our meals. The cumulative stress of these repetitive motions cause secretaries, poultry workers, and other workers to suffer health problems. But I want to get personal about this, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about one particular poultry worker. Betty Yvonne Green. Betty worked as a chicken fillet puller for seven years. Her job required her to use her thumbs to separate the fillet from the bone, cut the tips off the fillet with scissors and then place the product in a tub. Betty performed this task 16 to 17 times a minute for 2\1/2\ hours straight without a break. In 1984, Betty began to feel pain in her right arm and reported it to her supervisor, the directors of personnel and the plant manager. They all told her there was nothing wrong and she would have to live with this problem. Management felt her pain did not warrant medical assistance, and nothing was to be done until Betty went to her personal physician. Betty's doctor found that both her rotator cuffs had been torn and required surgery. She went back to work after both surgeries, but was unable to continue to do her fillet job. She worked some light duty, but to no avail. Betty was terminated by the company for what they said was excessive absenteeism. She was denied unemployment and only received workers compensation after retaining an attorney. On behalf of Betty Yvonne Green and many, many workers throughout this country who deserve our respect, in fact deserve our protection, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this so-called Workplace Preservation Act. Indeed it should be called the Workplace Persecution Act because that is exactly what it does to the American worker. We can study this thing to death. Of course we are always open to more science, but we have to also know when we have enough science to proceed and learn many more ways that we can do better in the workplace, but not to deny, not to deny what has been fully documented by NIOSH, which has been fully documented by the National Academy of Sciences as a relationship between repetitive motion and ergonomic disease. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham). (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) says that the Democrats are for working people, for working men and women, but yet every piece of legislation that they had out of here in support are against 90 percent of the working people. But if it is for the union bosses, they will support it. In 1993, they put the highest tax on the American people possible and increased the tax on middle- income workers, and this year they are trying to stop tax relief for those same workers. Salting for the unions where the unions go in and just destroy a small business, not even looking to overtake that business. That is wrong, but yet our union brothers over here support it. Davis-Bacon, that increases inflation 15 to 35 percent of construction for school buildings, but yet will they waive for the children? No, they will support the unions. Now we are asking for a scientific study, and I would say that even Republicans, we need to go one step further because when colleagues say based on science you need to look at who pays for the science. Is it the Republican groups or the Democrat groups, and people need an individual peer review to be fair, a nonpartisan independent review. Sometimes that does not exist, and I will give into that and we need that. As my colleagues know, in the office the people that work with computers all the times, they have carpel tunnel. There is good scientific basis that we need to help those people and provide the pads and make sure there is rotation and lights, and we have some pretty good science on it. But the problem is our colleagues want to go in without a study or agenda instead of science, and we are saying, no, let us back it up with the science to show so there will not be a big input on it, and I brought up yesterday www.dsa/usa. Democrat Socialists of America, progressive caucus, has a 12 point agenda: government control of health care, government control of education, government control of private property, and guess what? Union over small business and cut military by half, by 50 percent, and it is to support the union. That is their working men and women, but not the 90 percent of the people that have all of the other jobs. My colleagues should put their mouth and money where their rhetoric is. Support the people, the working men and women. Who is for this? The union bosses. Who is against it? Chamber, NFIB, every small business group out there because they know that the only thing that my colleagues are focusing on is the union bosses who give them their campaign finance money. Admit it. Why do they fight against 90 percent of the small businesses and workers every single bill that we have? They do not support the networking men and women in this country; they only support the union members. As my colleagues know, I take a look at the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) who gets up here and says, Oh, the poor lady in the red dress, not again, and he talks about the working men and women and the class warfare, only the rich versus the poor. Well, cut out the rhetoric. Do things based on science; the environmentalists, the same thing. We want environmental changes. Do my colleagues think we want bad environment, the Republicans over the Democrats? We just want it based on good science, and then we want a peer review. The same thing with ergonomics. We want a good science and peer review so they do not destroy the 90 percent of the jobs that are out there in favor of their union bosses. And that is what we are asking, Mr. Speaker. We are tired and tired and tired of the Democrats' rhetoric trying [[Page H6908]] to make points for the year 2000 where they get their campaign money, and that is what they support. If colleagues really support the working men and women, support the Republican position on this. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson). Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and this bill, and I would hope that we could cut back a little bit on the rhetoric. First of all, people need to understand this talk about this study. There is no study that is going on. All that is happening is it is going to be a compilation of a bunch of studies that have already been done. So we need to get that clear. Second thing I think that people need to understand is that it would help if somebody would have talked to the people in the department that are actually working on this. {time} 1830 I have met with Secretary Jeffers more than once and talked to him about this proposed rule that they are looking at. They have been working on it a long time. There is a lot of science that has gone into this. I do not think a lot of people that are talking on this floor have actually looked into what this is about. This only applies to manufacturing and manual lifting businesses, where 60 percent of these injuries take place. If you do not have an injury, this is not going to apply to you. It only applies when you have an injury where there is ergonomics involved, and at that point, you have to come up with a way to deal with it. If you have got a situation where it is only one injury and you are a small employer, they have something called a quick fix where you can go in and work on this without having to put a plan together. So they have listened to small business, they have tried to make this workable, and if anybody sat down and read this, they would understand that. The other thing is that businesses that have gone out and actually worked on this have found it to be cost effective. It saves money for their company, and it is good for their employees. This afternoon I talked to 3M. They have an ergonomist on their staff. That person has saved them money. It is better for the company and better for the workers. This is something that clearly works. So I hope that people will focus on what is really going on here. Back in October of 1998, then appropriations Chairman Livingston and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) sent a letter to Alexis Herman saying we are funding this NAS study and it is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics. Well, it looks to me today like what is going on here is delay, and is contrary to what was said. So I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this bill. Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) the Chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.) Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time, and I assure him I will reserve time for my friend from Louisiana and will not fill out the entire hour here. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and congratulate my friend from Buffalo for his super management. We have an expression that we have been trying our doggonedest to successfully implement around here in the 106th Congress, and we call it regular order. We try to, as much as possible, follow regular order. Frankly, that is exactly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) is trying to do with this legislation. We authorized $1 million for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with some sort of finding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proceeds with implementation of its regulations on ergonomics. The fact of the matter is, nothing, as has been said by several of my colleagues, nothing prevents them from moving ahead. But what we are saying is get every bit of information you possibly can so that you come up with good public policy. Now, that will be unique for OSHA in the eyes of many, because a number of us have been very critical of the fact that regulations that they over the years have imposed have been extraordinarily costly to the private sector, and, in turn, to the consumers of this country. But, obviously we are all wanting to deal with the problems of stress-related repetitive actions that people take in their work, so all we are saying is let us do it right. This is a very fair and balanced rule which allows for a free-flowing debate, while at the same time recognizing that most of my colleagues with whom I have spoken over the last few days want us to complete our work by the end of this week so we can go home for August. This rule allows us to have a debate and do it in a fair way, and also get this, and I hope the rest of our work, done. So I urge support of the rule. Mr. FROST. 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. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I listened intently to my friend from New York, a member of the Committee on Rules who spoke about this rule a few minutes ago, and I wanted to make several points about the rule. We are operating here under the facade that this will give, as the chairman of the Committee on Rules just said, a free-flowing and open debate about worker safety. I want to point something out: There are many of us who believe that OSHA is understaffed, that OSHA does not have enough inspectors to go find workplace violations and do something about them. But, if I am not mistaken, and my friend from the Committee on Rules can correct me, an amendment that would add inspectors to OSHA's inspection force would be ruled out of order because it is not germane. There are many of us who are concerned about sick building syndrome, about people going to work, day after day, in buildings where the heating and air conditioning systems do not work properly and they cannot breathe properly and their asthma is aggravated or their other breathing related disabilities are aggravated, and many of us believe OSHA should do something about that. An amendment that would address that problem would be out of order because it would not be germane. In fact, it is almost impossible to think of any amendment that could be offered under this bill that would do anything other than kill this regulation or delay this regulation that would be germane. So let us get the record straight here. There are dozens of important worker safety issues that confront this country. None of them, none of them, are in order for debate under this rule on the floor. The only thing we can do is either accept or reject this attempt to delay, and I think ultimately defeat, the new ergonomic standard by OSHA. So let us be very clear about this, that this is an open rule in form only. Every other consideration in worker safety is not in order. That is why the rule should be defeated. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Crowley. (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to my good friend from Buffalo, New York, a fellow New Yorker, to this rule and to, even more importantly, to H.R. 987, the Workforce Preservation Act. Injuries resulting from workplace stress and strain have long been studied. We cannot continue to needlessly put off a standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the belief that ergonomically unsafe conditions result in repetitive strain injuries, also called RSIs. Approximately 700,000 serious workplace injuries result from ergonomically unsafe working conditions. This [[Page H6909]] accounts for 31 percent of all injuries and illnesses involving lost workdays. The cost of these lost workdays has been estimated to be between $15 and 20 billion. Now, these are not made-up injuries, they are not fantasies in workers' minds. These are real injuries, not only costing billions of dollars, but destroying people's everyday lives, people who can no longer work in their chosen professions, no longer cook at home, no longer play the guitar, no longer ride their bicycles even, and even no longer picking up their little children. That is what we are talking about here. I cannot understand how my colleagues could want to delay the implementation of a standard that would not only reduce pain and suffering but save the business community of this country billions of dollars each year. I applaud last year's appropriation funding of the National Academy of Sciences study of ergonomic injuries. However, that is no reason to delay the implementation of a highly researched and needed OSHA standard. Stand up for working Americans, stand up for healthy workplaces. Vote against this rule, H.R. 987, to help prevent thousands of injuries and save employers up to $20 billion a year. Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey). Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and to the bill. Like many of my colleagues, I feel as if I am in a time warp. Last year when the latest NAS scientific review was funded, there was an agreement that this study should not and would not block or delay a proposed rule on e