Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) submitted the following statement for the record at this morning’s HELP Committee hearing for the nomination of Secretary of Labor-Designate Hilda Solis:

Thank you, Chairman Kennedy and Ranking Member Enzi, for this opportunity today. Thank you, Congresswoman Solis, for the time you will take today to answer our questions and discuss the vital work that goes on at the Department of Labor. You have long dedicated yourself to ensuring the rights of workers in California and across the country, and I look forward to working with you at the helm of the Labor Department.

We all know that these are tough economic times. Today, unemployment is rising. Incomes are stagnating – while at the same time the cost of health care, housing, education, and even groceries are skyrocketing. In my home state, we’ve seen unemployment rise from 4.8% in January 2008 to 6.6% this past November. That translates into over 36,000 more people in Connecticut who cannot find jobs.

That makes the role for which you are nominated, Congresswoman, more essential than ever. The Department of Labor enforces laws and regulations dealing with fair wages and hours, job training, workplace safety and health standards, unemployment, and family and medical leave – each absolutely essential to a productive, healthy workforce and economy.

Unfortunately, over the last eight years, many of us have watched the Department of Labor with concern as its focus moved away from the protection of employees and focused more effort on protecting employers and denying workers their right to organize. I do not view this as the Department’s role – I know you don’t either, Congresswoman Solis. And it certainly wasn’t the intention of those who created this department who wrote, and I quote, that "The purpose of the Department of Labor shall be to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment."

Looking at some of the decisions of the current Administration and National Labor Relations Board—such as the outrageous overtime pay rules and the Kentucky River decision that stripped tens of thousands of workers of their right to organize—I find it hard to believe that they were made with this charter in mind. And so, I look forward to revisiting and hopefully reversing many of those policies. At this moment, it is absolutely vital that this department recommit itself to protecting the rights of workers.

In addition to the new direction I hope you will take the Department, I would like to touch on a few specific issues of importance. The first is the Family and Medical Leave Act, which marks its 16th anniversary next month. FMLA was as hard-fought a victory as any I have seen or been a part of in my 34 years in the Congress. Since becoming law, FMLA has helped over 60 million workers take time off to care for a newborn or adopted baby, help a parent through an illness, or get better themselves, knowing that their job will be there for them when they return. FMLA has also benefited business. With lower turnover and a boost to morale, 90% of employers told the Department of Labor in 2000 that the law had a neutral or positive effect on profits.

However, far too many employees are still ineligible for FMLA’s important benefits, and three out of four workers who are eligible do not take leave because they cannot afford the loss of income. That is why, in my view, paid leave is the next necessary step in protecting workers and businesses. No one should be forced in a time of crisis to make the impossible choice between work and family. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Labor Department to make accessible and affordable leave a reality for more Americans – including those in our military – and I have several concerns about the recent rules regulating these provisions.

One of the most important functions of the Department of Labor is its job placement and training programs – never more so than today. I have seen at home in Connecticut how One-Stop Career Centers can help people get back on their feet. However, we need to make sure that these centers have the resources they need to serve everyone who needs help.

Congresswoman Solis, I am particularly encouraged about your advocacy for green job training. Like you, I strongly believe that the creation of good-paying, green collar jobs is critical to both our economic and energy security. My state is home to a number of exciting green energy companies, including world leaders in hydrogen fuel cell manufacturers.

I am very hopeful that, with you at its helm, the Department of Labor will develop training programs within Job Corps and elsewhere to help create a new generation of professionals – not simply ready to build these technologies, but to install, repair and maintain them. It’s essential that our mechanics, electricians, plumbers, and construction workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies.

Over these last eight years, I have grown deeply concerned about the direction the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has taken. In my view, OSHA has fallen far short in its responsibility to protect workers, both by its failure to issue regulations to protect against new hazards and by its failure to adequately enforce regulations already on the books. OSHA’s budget for enforcement actions has been cut severely. Indeed, where OSHA inspections in 2000 covered 2 million workers, in 2007 they covered just 1.4 million, a 30 percent decrease.

OSHA has ignored well-documented hazards posed by materials such as combustible dust, diacetyl, silica, beryllium, and others and failed to protect the tens of millions of workers at risk from ergonomic hazards. In 2007, over 330,000 people suffered job-related musculoskeletal injuries severe enough that they had to miss work. Yet, OSHA proposed new rules this fall that would actually add an extra step to the process of making new safety regulations and mandate flawed risk assessment procedures that have been discredited by the scientific community. I look forward to working with you to restore OSHA to its mission of protecting all American workers.

These are but some of the many challenges that face the Department of Labor – others include modernizing unemployment insurance and preventing wage theft, which results in as many as two or three million workers not being paid minimum wage and millions more being denied overtime pay.

Mr. Chairman and Congresswoman Solis, I thank you again for your time today. I am confident that you are up to the task and look forward to working together to make workers and workers’ rights a priority in this new Administration.

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