(The following article was distributed by Press Associates Inc. on December 22.)
WASHINGTON — Labor will use Congress’ month-long recess to resume and increase its campaign against President George W. Bush’s plan to cut the eligibility of at least 8 million workers for overtime pay.
Unionists got a new chance to campaign when Senate Democratic Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D, and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., blocked a huge spending measure for half of the government on Dec. 9. That left the bill in limbo until Jan. 20.
The bill funds the Labor Department and other agencies, but it doesn’t have a section, passed by both the GOP-run House and the GOP-run Senate, to keep workers eligible for overtime pay.
That section bans the agency from spending money on Bush’s plan, but Bush forced Congress to obey him and dump it. With the bill stalled, labor can campaign to restore the section.
The delay also left the Labor Department free to sift through more than 80,000 comments on Bush’s plan, consider them and then issue a final rule imposing it during the first quarter of 2004, a spokesman said.
Senate Republicans tried to jam the money bill through without a vote, but one objection would stop it. The House passed the bill on Dec. 8, then quit for the year.
Bush “wants to shelve the 40-hour workweek and deny workers extra income in uncertain economic times in order to please big business,” AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said. “During the recess, workers will intensify their campaign to defeat the spending bill by contacting” lawmakers “and urging them to reconsider” the overtime issue, he added.