Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on the
House Vote to Repeal the Ergonomics Standard

March 7, 2001

To anybody who cares about the issues facing working men and women, it should be alarming that a worker health and safety rule was overturned by Congress today for the first time in OSHA's 30-year history. And to anybody who cares about our democracy, it should be equally alarming that this deed was done with only a few hours of debate in each chamber over just two days—and over the voices of workers representing millions who have suffered from injuries on the job.

A Republican leadership juggernaut in the House resorted to arm-twisting and steamroller tactics to assure a majority to crush the ergonomics standard and deliver for their big business backers. In doing so, they wiped out a 10-year effort to establish protections for workers who suffer from crippling and disabling injuries. Surely this legislative efficiency could have been put to better purpose.

But the voices of injured workers were not heard in the halls of Congress. They were drowned out by the predatory demands of corporate greed. These demands have also dominated decision- making in the White House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Not in recent memory have big business interests hostile to the concerns of working families held such sway with our President and the U.S. Congress.

Coming at the beginning of the 107th Congress, the vote today clearly defines the battleground for the struggles between working families and those who oppose us over the next two years. We will redouble our efforts to speak for working men and women in those struggles—to win advances and defeat rollbacks in gains previously won. And we will be relentless in shining a spotlight on the actions of this Congress: no member who votes to abandon the people who elected him or her should expect the votes of working families in upcoming elections.