Tom Harkin: “As I pursue this issue about women being affected, face it, most nurses are women. That is the way it is. They will be…”

“As I pursue this issue about women being affected, face it, most nurses are women. That is the way it is. They will be greatly affected. Another figure we ought to look at--and I ask the Senator for his thoughts on this--in 1975, women who had children under the age of 3 made up only 34 percent of our workforce; today that is 60.2 percent. Over 60 percent of women with children under the age of 3 are now in the workforce. I ask the Senator, is it true that these women--maybe not all but most of them--have to have daycare, some childcare, for their children? So now, these women who are paying a lot for childcare, if they do not have to be paid overtime under the proposed changes the Bush administration wants to make, would be forced to work overtime. Does that not mean they would have to pay even more for childcare than what they are paying now, yet they would not get one nickel more in their income to help pay for it? Is this not also what would happen to women under the proposed changes in the overtime proposal?”