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OPA News Release: [03/15/2005]
Contact Name: Jane Norris or Stephanie Cathcart
Phone Number: 202-693-4676
Release Number: 05-0428-NAT
Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao Emphasizes More Resources for Protecting Workers, Job Training Initiatives in President’s Budget
WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao
today told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that President Bush's new
budget request includes additional resources for protecting workers' health,
safety, pay benefits and union dues, as well as providing for new job training
reforms to make federal-state training programs more flexible and effective.
“The President's budget will enable the department to build on its record-setting
enforcement of our worker protection laws,” Secretary Elaine L. Chao said
in testimony before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services and Education. “This budget will help us implement
new training initiatives and reform the workforce investment system to serve
more people and achieve even better results.”
“The department will continue to enhance worker safety and health and protect
workers' pay, retirement and health benefits,” Chao continued. “We will take
further steps to strengthen the reemployment rights of veterans and will
seek to increase access to quality health benefits for workers and their
families through initiatives such as association health plans.”
Chao pointed out that the President's FY 2006 budget builds on this Administration's
strong record of protecting workers by increasing resources for each of the
department's principal enforcement agencies. Highlights of the enforcement
record show:
- Worker fatalities have fallen to record lows over the past four years.
Fatalities in mining operations have dropped to the lowest point since
records have been kept. Since 2001, Hispanic workplace fatalities have
been reduced by 11.6 percent.
- In FY 2004, EBSA achieved more than $3
billion in monetary results for workers' retirement and health plans—a
121 percent increase over the previous year.
- In FY 2004, more than 265,000
workers received nearly $200 million in back wages—including overtime—as
a result of the Wage and Hour Division's enforcement operations.
Chao also noted this Administration's accomplishments in providing job training
programs, including:
- introducing a job training program for members of the armed services
wounded in the War on Terror;
- implementing the President's Community College initiative which helps
workers enhance their skills, connect with employers and find good jobs,
and
- launching, in FY 2004, the High Growth Job Training Initiative focused
on helping workers train for and find jobs in sectors of the economy
that are fast growing and experiencing a shortage of workers.
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