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OPA News Release: [02/07/2005]
Contact Name: Jane Norris or Yvonne Ralsky
Phone Number: 202-693-4676
Release Number: 05-0216-NAT

Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao Unveils FY 2006 Budget

More Resources for Protecting Workers, Job Training Innovations

WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao today outlined the President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2006 budget for the Department of Labor. The President's budget provides added resources for enforcement and compliance assistance to protect workers' health, safety, pay, benefits and union dues. The budget also proposes new job training reforms to make federal-state training programs more flexible and effective. The budget also calls for passage of Association Health Plan legislation and other legislative initiatives related to the Department's agencies and programs.

“This budget strengthens our ability to protect workers and prepare them for good jobs in the 21^st century economy,” said Secretary Chao. “Additional resources will enable us to continue our record-breaking enforcement of worker protection laws, and innovative job training measures will put valuable training options directly in the hands of workers.”

Details of the Department's FY 2006 budget include the following:

Worker Safety, Health & Child Labor

The Department will spend $747.5 million to protect workers' safety and health. The FY 2006 increase of $4.2 million for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) will enable these agencies to build on last year's health and safety milestones. In 2004, OSHA inspections exceeded its aggressive targets by nearly 4%, and mining industry fatalities fell to an all-time low. Work-related fatalities among Hispanics, which had been rising for several years, have been reduced by over 11% since 2001, due in part to an intensive compliance assistance focus on these workers and their employers.

The FY 2006 budget recommends that Congress increase civil penalties for child labor law violations that result in the death or serious injury of a youth, nearly quintupling them to $50,000 from the current $11,000; it proposes that civil penalties for repeat and willful violations rise to $100,000. The budget also calls for substantially increasing the fine for egregious mine safety violations to $200,000 from $60,000.

Workers Rights: Pay, Benefits & Union Dues

Back wages collections by the Wage and Hour Division totaled nearly $200 million, for 265,000 workers, in FY 2004. The Department also guaranteed overtime pay protection for 6.7 million workers through its new Overtime Security rule, and the FY 2006 budget will ensure sufficient resources to enforce the stronger standards on behalf of eligible workers, increasing the budget of the Wage and Hour Division by $2.9 million.

The FY 2006 budget includes the Administration's new pension security proposal as well as a $5.8 million increase for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to protect the health benefits and retirement savings of workers. Last year, EBSA secured more than $3 billion on behalf of workers' health and retirement plans – a 121% increase over the previous year. The FY 2006 budget also re-proposes Association Health Plans, which would help small businesses join together and purchase affordable health benefits for workers. More information on the Administration's new pension security measures may be found on EBSA's website, www.dol.gov/ebsa.

Protection of union members' dues and rights will be enhanced by a $7.1 million increase for the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), rebuilding the agency after deep cuts in the agency during the previous decade.

Veterans' Re-Employment Rights & Assistance

The Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) is allocated $224.3 million in the FY 2006 budget to continue ensuring that veterans returning home are re-employed with the same seniority, status, pay and benefits they had when they were deployed. The Department recently initiated a rulemaking to strengthen and clarify veterans' rights and employers' responsibilities under USERRA, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The budget also supports job training to help veterans qualify for good civilian jobs. The budget also calls for a $1.5 million increase to help homeless veterans find work and integrate into society, and other purposes.

Job Training Innovations

The FY 2006 budget includes the Administration's new job training reform proposal to consolidate four major Department of Labor programs and allow states to add consolidated grant resources from other federal job training and employment programs. This reform is designed to create greater state flexibility in exchange for increased accountability in preparing people to find and keep good jobs with growing wages.

The FY2006 budget transfers the $59.7 million YouthBuild program, which targets training to 16-24 year olds for construction jobs, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Department of Labor. The second year of the President's four year Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative is budgeted for $75 million, with $35 million allocated to the Department of Labor, $25 million to HUD and $15 million to the Department of Justice. These reforms, along with a $250 million community college job training initiative, will offer flexible, effective training options to more workers than before.

The balance of the Department's FY 2006 budget is comprised of benefits payments, including unemployment insurance and workers' compensation. Under the President's budget, total Department of Labor budget authority (discretionary and mandatory) for FY 2006 would be $54.5 billion, up from $50.7 billion in FY 2005.

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