Legislative — 5

Overtime
The Bush administration along with corporate American continued its attack on working families by its attempt to take away up to 8 million workers’ right to overtime pay.

Earlier in 2003, the two chambers voted in favor of adding an overtime pay guarantee amendment (“the Harkin Amendment”) to the DOL spending bill. That amendment would have blocked DOL from implementing changes in regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. But the Bush administration vowed to veto the bill if the overtime pay guarantee remained and the GOP leaders stripped it from the bill. Congress still has time to prevent the overtime-eliminating regulation from the DOL from taking effect by adding a provision that includes an overtime pay guarantee.

Unemployment Insurance
In March 2002, a temporary program of extended unemployment benefits was created by Congress. This new law, called the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensations (TEUC) program was created to address the problem of long-term (longer than 26 weeks) unemployment, which is getting worse, not better. Last November, the number of long-term unemployed increased by 19,000 to more than 2 million. The percentage of unemployed who have been jobless for longer than 26 weeks is now at a 20 year high—23.7 percent. The TEUC program provides up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits.

There have been repeated attempts by Democratic lawmakers to extend unemployment benefits to those who have exhausted their 26-week state unemployment claim and 13-week federal TEUC extension. Unfortunately, conservatives in both the House and Senate have been unwilling to cooperate. Only workers in a few high unemployment states qualify for an additional benefit. This benefit, known as TEUC-X, provides unemployed workers in high unemployment states with a 26-week federal extension instead of the basic 13-week extension. In a high unemployment state, an unemployed worker could draw a total of 52 weeks of benefits, if necessary.

The initial TEUC program expired December 31, 2002. On January 9, 2003, having allowed the program to end, Congress and the President enacted another federal law continuing TEUC for five months, until May 31, 2003. On May 28, 2003, the TEUC program was continued to December 31, 2003, and in a stunning example of uncompassionate conservatism, the President and GOP leaders in Congress allowed the program to expire right before the holidays leaving 90,000 dislocated workers families without federal aid. The IAM urged the President and members of Congress to reauthorize and expand the TEUC program in order to prevent more untold hardships for the nation’s jobless families.

74 percent of the wages earned by men. This is not a significant improvement.

At one time employers considered men the breadwinners of a family. If women worked, employers many times considered their income as supplemental income for the family. This is no longer the case. Today women comprise 46 percent of the work force and will account for 48 percent of the labor force by 2005. Women’s wages have become an essential component of family income and, in some cases, the sole support of families. Additionally, because of the declining value of men’s wages over the last two decades it has become nearly impossible to support a family on one income. The disparity in the wage gap does not end here. Several years ago it was noted that women and people of color earned less than white men even when they had the same educational backgrounds, and in some cases, white men outpaced better educated women and people of color.