Henry Bonilla: “the American worker makes up the lifeblood of our economy and we can all agree in this Chamber that our utmost concern…”

“the American worker makes up the lifeblood of our economy and we can all agree in this Chamber that our utmost concern is their safety and well-being in the workplace. Every employer in America understands that it is to their advantage and the employee's advantage to keep workers healthy and happy on the job. In fact, we should all be celebrating today here that because of the safety measures that have been taken in the private sector. Working with some folks in OSHA, we have dropped employee injuries by 17 percent. The number of injuries dropped by 17 percent since 1995 because of the changes that employers have made in the workplace. There is no crisis at hand. Let us be honest about what we are debating here. We are debating a power grab by a government agency and by America's big labor unions who are trying to get a stranglehold on America's businesses both small and large. The debate we have here today is about the rush to promulgate and to write a rule dealing with repetitive stress injuries, with ergonomics, something that would be far more dangerous to the American worker if it is written too fast versus waiting for sound science to guide them versus having political science guide them.”