Democrats Put ‘Labor’ Back in Labor Committee

One of the first acts by Democrats when they took control of Congress on Jan. 4 was to restore the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to its original name, the Committee on Education and Labor. A symbolic move, and nowhere as important as pending legislation on the minimum wage and prescription drugs, the name change signifies the resurgence of labor unions and their allies in the 110 th Congress.

‘Labor’ was dropped from the committee’s official name in 1995, when the Republicans took over Congress in 2005. The committee’s name was changed again in 1997 to the Committee on Education and the Workforce by then chairman Rep. William Gooding (R-PA). Like many house committees under Republican leadership, the Education and Workforce Committee was guided by an anti-labor animus and failed to respond to the many of the issues facing workers during the past 12 years.

The new chairman, George Miller (D-CA), is a key sponsor of the recently passed House Minimum Wage legislation and held “virtual” hearings during the last session of Congress that allowed hundreds of workers to testify about the impact of lost and reduced pensions at bankrupt auto companies and airlines.

AFL-CIO Labor 2006 Website

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The need for jobs, good jobs and the benefits that should accompany them - quality health care and retirement security have reached crisis levels in the United States. Jobs are disappearing from the American economy at an alarming rate. Since 2001, America has lost 3.1 million private-sector jobs. Long-term unemployment is at its highest level in a decade.

Action Alert: Raise The Minimum Wage
April 4, 2006 - In the past nine years, workers making the minimum wage haven’t gotten a single raise. Not one. And while the wage of $5.15 an hour has stayed the same, its value has dropped precipitously, putting workers further and further behind.  Read on and take ACTION!