The Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on Thursday, April 30 on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Enhanced Enforcement Program.

The Enhanced Enforcement Program identifies high risk employers by their past behavior and targets them for additional scrutiny. However, the U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General’s Office issued a report on April 1 that found the Bush administration did not properly enforce worker health and safety laws used to oversee employers with history of safety violations. It shows that over the last five years, since the program was established, the EEP has failed to effectively deter employers from putting workers’ lives at risk.

On Tuesday, March 31, the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing to examine green jobs and their role in our nation’s economic recovery. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act set aside $50 billion in grants and tax incentives to promote energy efficiency and the renewable energy sector. Congress also approved the Green Jobs Act in 2007, a program to help train American workers for jobs in the renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries.

The hearing will explore how family-friendly policies, such as grants to support state paid leave programs, paid leave, expansions to the Family and Medical Leave Act, and paid sick days make sound economic sense not only in good times, but during recessionary times as well.

This hearing examined whether the Department of Labor is doing enough to enforce U.S. child labor laws and will explore the impact of child labor on families.