Joe Baca: “I rise in opposition of all four of the OSHA bills under consideration today. Republicans are trying to say that our…”

“I rise in opposition of all four of the OSHA bills under consideration today. Republicans are trying to say that our country's laws are the cause for the off-shoring of American jobs. This is not only untrue, but it's shameless to accuse the few protections that exist for our nation's workers as the cause for their jobs being shipped overseas. While the Republican Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is busy writing an FSC/ETI tax cut bill that will give tax breaks to companies that move to China or India, his Republican colleagues try to confuse people on the reasons why jobs are leaving main street and being sent to mainland China. The face is that we are losing jobs because of the failed policies of this administration. The compassionate conservatism of this administration has cost us 3 million jobs. Please end the compassion! President Bush's top economic advisor has even proudly said that sending American jobs overseas is a good thing. Well, I for one will not let them confuse the issue. We cannot let Republicans say that the way to ease the competitive disadvantage to third world countries like China or Brazil is to adopt their labor standards. That type of thinking would take boys and girls out of the classroom and into the coal mine. These four anti-worker safety bills would substantially weaken worker health and safety laws and hurt our workers.”