On September 26, the House of Representatives approved final bipartisan legislation to strengthen protections and support for America’s runaway and homeless children. The measure, the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act (S.2982), builds on legislation authored by Rep. John Yarmuth, which the House overwhelmingly passed on June 9, 2008. It now heads to the President’s desk for his signature.
The bill reauthorizes the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. Among other
things, it would significantly improve the quality of services
available to help disconnected youth and would expand access to those
programs – so that fewer runaway and homeless children are turned away
from shelters. More than a million children experience homelessness
each year; in many cases these children flee because of situations of
abuse and neglect. Studies show that runaway and homeless youth are at
greater risk of behavioral and mental health problems.
In
addition, the bill would also increase transparency at the Department
of Health and Human Services and provide funding for local community
programs that help homeless and runaway youth. In 2005, these programs
served more than 500,000 homeless and runaway children.
“We
must protect our nation’s most vulnerable children, especially those
who have been pushed out and are living on the streets. This
legislation will give them the physical shelter and emotional support
they need to start rebuilding their lives. I commend Rep. Yarmuth for
his leadership and dedication to providing runaway and homeless
children across the country with the attention, stability, and hope
they deserve.” -- Chairman George Miller
“This
legislation will bring us significantly closer to ensuring that, in
America, no child ever has to grow up without a home. For more than a
million children each year, this legislation could mean the difference
between continuing to live on the streets without hope and finding a
path to successful adulthood.” -- Rep. Yarmuth
“I
would like to congratulate Rep. Yarmuth on this bill and commend him
for his commitment to helping our nation’s runaway and homeless youth.
It is crucial that we do everything in our power to help the thousands
of vulnerable young people in this country that are without a home.
The programs that are reauthorized in this bill will give runaway and
homeless children a real chance at getting a new start in life and help
them get on track to a better future.” -- Rep. Carolyn McCarthy,
chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Healthy Families and
Communities
Stronger protections in federal law are needed to ensure that companies deliver on their promise to provide health care to retired workers,
witnesses told the full committee today. With insurance premiums skyrocketing and companies looking to cut expenses, an increasing number of companies have been rolling back or eliminating promised retiree health benefits. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the share of large firms offering retiree health coverage fell by half between 1988 and 2005, from 66 percent to 33 percent.
“Through the years, millions of workers have retired believing that
they would be provided with the health care benefits that they were
promised by their employer, benefits that they earned. What many of
those workers found was their former employer eventually made a
cost-cutting decision to renege on that promise and cut or reduce those
health care benefits,” said Rep. John Tierney.
One of those
companies was Raytheon Missile Systems, a defense contractor. Despite
guaranteeing lifetime heath coverage to its retirees in the 1990s, in
2004 the company notified retirees that they would be have to pay
several hundred dollars a month to continue coverage. “Retirees have
been forced to sell a large part of their retirement dreams in order to
afford the premiums they now have to pay,” said David Lillie, a
Raytheon retiree. “More than a few retirees have had to mortgage their
homes that were paid off in order to pay medical expenses that were not
covered under a cheaper insurance plan.”
Employees have few
protections when trying to prevent employers from shrinking or
eliminating health benefits. Employer-sponsored health insurance for
both retirees and current employees is voluntary. If an employer
chooses to provide these benefits, employers are generally allowed to
modify or terminate benefits, as long as they disclose it in the fine
print. “The law is hostile to reasonable employee expectations about
retiree health benefits – expectations created by the employer and from
which the employer benefited in terms of increased employee loyalty and
productivity,” said Norman Stein, a University of Alabama law professor
and pension expert at the Pension Rights Center. “We know that in a
real work environment, rather than the imagined work environment
conjured up by the judge, employees tend to believe communications –
oral and written – that they receive from their managers.”
The
trend of scaling back or canceling promised health benefits accelerated
in the 1990s when, as a result of an accounting rule change, companies
were forced to disclose future health care obligations as a part of
their balance sheet. By rolling back promised benefits, companies could
result in a healthier bottom line to shareholders.
Historically,
employer-sponsored retirement health benefits have been an essential
source of health care coverage for retired workers and were a common
benefit among larger institutions. As a part of their compensation
package, loyal and dedicated employees were promised health benefits
when they retired. “When most of the current retirees were in the
workforce, larger American companies universally offered retiree health
care to their employees and retirees as an incentive to retain trained
employees,” said C. William Jones, chairman of ProtectSeniors.org, an
advocacy group founded to protect retiree health care. “The workers
accepted the IOU for retirement health care and other benefits in
exchange for lower wages, and fewer vacations and holidays.”
Ensuring better access to treatment for people suffering from mental illness, the House of Representatives today passed the
Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (H.R. 6983) by a vote of 376 to 47.
The bill requires group health insurance plans that cover mental and
addiction health benefits to put those benefits on equal footing with
physical ailments. Private health insurers generally provide less
coverage for mental illnesses than for other medical conditions. H.R.
6983 prohibits employer group health plans from imposing limitations on
coverage for mental illnesses that they do not impose on physical
illnesses. For example, the legislation would require that group health
plans offer the same terms for deductibles, limits on hospital stays
and outpatient visits, and co-payments. The measure will allow
employers to offer more comprehensive mental health coverage without
significant additional cost, while significantly reducing out-of-pocket
costs for plan participants.
Some states already have strong
requirements for the coverage and treatment of mental illness. H.R.
6983 would not affect state laws that offer stronger consumer
protections.
The bill is named after the late Sen. Paul
Wellstone (D-MN) and current Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), both longtime
advocate of mental health awareness and parity.
"Today,
approximately forty-four million Americans suffer from mental illness,
but only one-third receive treatment. One reason is that private health
insurers generally provide less coverage for mental illnesses and
substance abuse than for other medical conditions. This bill is an
important step towards ending the stigma attached to mental illness and
providing fair coverage to those in need.” -- Chairman George Miller
The U.S. Department of Labor is failing to effectively enforce the nation’s child labor laws,
witnesses told the Workforce Protection Subcommittee today. According to a study by the National Consumers League, the number of child labor investigations decreased dramatically during the Bush administration: The number of child labor investigations conducted by the Labor Department in 2006 was at the lowest in at least a decade. Meanwhile, research by the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, a coalition of migrant and seasonal agricultural nonprofit and public agencies, indicates that approximately 400,000 children under the age of 18 work in the fields to help support their families. While there are numerous restrictions on what dangerous job functions underage workers may perform, there are few protections if those children happen to work in agriculture. Agricultural child labor rules have remained largely unchanged since signed into law in 1938. At that time, a quarter of all American lived on farms and the majority of the agricultural work was performed on the family farm. Unlike counterparts in other industries, minors working in agriculture are still permitted to log in more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay.
“Children at age 12 [are] not
allowed to work making copies in an air-conditioned office or cleaning
floors at a local store. Yet today in America, children can legally
work in harsh conditions out in the farm fields for wages sometimes
below minimum wage. Exploitation of children, regardless if it’s done
legally or illegally, needs to stop today.” -- Norma Flores, a former
migrant farmer who began working when she was 12 years old.
“Unfortunately,
all the laws and labor protections in the world won’t help if we do not
adequately enforce our child labor laws. It is clear that the Bush
administration is not focused on enforcing the laws already on the
books.” -- Rep. Lynn Woolsey, chair of the Workforce Protections
Subcommittee.
“Much
more can and must be done to better protect our young people from
hazards and dangers they confront in the workplace. Child labor law is
no longer a high priority for the Department of Labor.” -- Sally
Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League.
On Wednesday, September 17, the Workforce Protections Subcommittee will hold a hearing examining the Department of Labor's last-minute proposal that would dramatically weaken future workplace health standards and further slow their enactment. The department has allowed only 30 days for comment on the proposal and will not hold public hearings.
"Secret Rule: Impact of the Department of Labor’s Worker Health Risk Assessment Proposal"
Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 10:00 a.m. EDT
Chairman George Miller sent a letter Friday to Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe, asking his government to address concerns that Colombia has failed to adequately address the nearly 2,700 murders of labor union leaders in his country. President Uribe will meet with Miller and other members of Congress this week in Washington.
“Our two ally nations should work together to help Colombia improve its
labor laws, decrease the ongoing violence, and finally put an end to
the impunity enjoyed by those who have perpetrated thousands of
anti-labor killings,” Chairman Miller wrote. “These challenges have
taken on heightened significance this year as the violence in Colombia
has escalated over 2007 levels.”
According to the Escuela
Nacional Sindical, an independent Colombian think-tank, nearly 2,700
Colombian union leaders or union members have been murdered since
1986. The overwhelming majority of these killings remain
uninvestigated by the Colombian Attorney General’s Office. In
addition, ENS statistics show that so far this year, more union leaders
have been assassinated than during all of 2007.
Last year
Congress approved $39 million to assist the Colombian government in
improving the rule of law and human rights. This funding included $5
million for Colombian prosecutors to address the backlog of murder
investigations. However, the Bush administration has delayed the
distribution of these funds.
“Many members of Congress are very
disappointed that the Bush administration has not transferred the funds
that we appropriated last year to the Colombian Attorney General’s
Office,” said Chairman Miller. “If the Bush administration had not
created these inexplicable delays, the Government of Colombia could
have already hired even more investigators and prosecutors, and
Colombia might by now be several steps closer to creating an effective
and sustainable system of justice to address the grave problem of
anti-labor violence.”
Chairman Miller traveled to Bogotá
earlier this year to meet with Colombian government officials, judges,
prosecutors, human rights advocates and labor union leaders. Since then
the committee’s staff have continued to conduct additional fact-finding
on Colombia’s efforts to improve its judicial system and the need for
further labor law reforms.
“One advantage stemming from our
Congress’ decision to postpone the vote regarding the proposed Colombia
Free Trade Agreement is that it has given my colleagues and me
additional time needed to assess whether or not Colombia has in fact
created an effective and sustainable system of justice to combat
anti-labor violence,” wrote Chairman Miller. “I hope that this ongoing
fact-finding work will allow Congress to provide helpful
recommendations to the next administration in the United States over
how we can further strengthen our nation’s relationship with Colombia
in such a way that promotes increased trade and higher labor
standards.”
Congress delayed the consideration of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement in April.
Dr. Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert testifies
on September 9, 2008.
The administration should do more to improve academic standards for schoolchildren who attend Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools,
witnesses told the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education at a hearing on Tuesday. Specifically, they said the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Education must work more closely with tribal organizations to develop accountability systems under the No Child Left Behind Act. The federal government provides elementary and secondary education and educational assistance to Indian children directly through federally-funded schools or through assistance to public schools. Ninety percent of Indian students attend public schools operated by local school districts. However, 10 percent attend BIE schools, which are schools funded by the Department of the Interior. BIE schools are subject to NCLB with limited exceptions.
"Our success
in the 21st century economy is directly tied to our ability to produce
a high quality labor force. And that ability is, of course, directly
tied to our ability to meet the challenge of providing every child –
including every Indian child – with a world-class education. We must
ensure that Indian tribes – which are sovereign entities who best
understand their children’s needs – are full partners in that process."
-- Subcommittee Chairman Dale Kildee.
"Recognizing
and validating the cultural, social and linguistic needs of American
Indians is critical to guaranteeing the continuity of their
communities... We believe with good faith collaboration that we can
provide our children with an education that honors their Native
identities while simultaneously preparing them for successful futures
by providing them with opportunities to incorporate into the curriculum
their rich cultural heritages, languages, and traditions." -- Dr.
Willard Sakiestewa Gilbert, President of the National Indian Education
Association (NIEA), who testified that the BIE should expand upon the
culturally based instruction currently taking place in Indian schools
by promoting stronger integration of Native culture and languages into
the curriculum.
"The
frustration with this situation is NCLB provides opportunities for
tribes to have a significant voice on assessing the quality of
education for their children and making changes to their educational
programs based on those assessments... The manner in which the BIE has
chosen to implement NCLB has left tribes with no voice in educating
their own children." -- Ted Hamilton, Executive Director of the Oceti
Sakowin Education Consortium, who testified about the need to develop
strong accountability systems tailored to BIE schools under NCLB.