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Tom Daschle on Jobs


Make America an opportunity society

Rather than a society that restricts its rewards to a privileged few, we need an opportunity society that allows all Americans to succeed. Our opportunity society has at its foundation good jobs, a solid education and quality health care that is affordable and available. Our first challenge is to strengthen the economy-the right way. The true test of America's economic recovery is not measured simply in quarterly profit reports; it's measured in jobs.

To make up for the 3 million private-sector jobs that have been lost on the president's watch, the economy would have to create 226,000 jobs a month through the end of his term. Last month, the economy created only 1,000 new jobs. That's not good enough.

Source: Democratic Response to the 2004 State of the Union address Jan 20, 2004

Voted NO on repealing Clinton's ergonomic rules on repetitive stress.

Vote to pass a resolution to give no enforcement authority to ergonomics rules submitted by the Labor Department during the Clinton Administration. These rules would force businesses to take steps to prevent work-related repetitive stress disorders
Bill S J Res 6 ; vote number 2001-15 on Mar 6, 2001

Voted NO on killing an increase in the minimum wage.

The Kennedy (D-MA) Amdt would have increased the minimum wage by $1 an hour over two years, to $5.65 an hour beginning Jan. 1, 2001. The Kennedy Amdt would have also provided $9.5 billion in tax cuts over five years.
Status: Motion to Table Agreed to Y)50; N)48; NV)2
Reference: Motion to table Kennedy Amdt #2751; Bill S. 625 ; vote number 1999-356 on Nov 9, 1999

Voted NO on allowing workers to choose between overtime & comp-time.

This bill would have allowed workers to choose between overtime and compensatory time.
Status: Cloture Motion Rejected Y)53; N)47
Reference: Motion to invoke cloture on a Committee amdt to S. 4; Bill S. 4 ; vote number 1997-68 on May 15, 1997

Voted NO on replacing farm price supports.

Replaces farm price supports with seven years of annual fixed payments.
Status: Bill Passed Y)64; N)32; NV)4
Reference: Agriculture Market Transition Act of 1996; Bill S. 1541 ; vote number 1996-19 on Feb 7, 1996

Protect overtime pay protections.

Daschle signed a letter from 43 Senators to the Secretary of Labor

To: Labor Secretary Elaine Chao

Dear Secretary Chao:

We write to express our serious concerns about the Department's proposed regulation on white collar exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act. These sweeping changes could eliminate overtime pay protections for millions of American workers.

We urge you not to implement this new regulation that will end overtime protections for those currently eligible. Under current law, the FLSA discourages employers from scheduling overtime by making overtime more expensive. According to a GAO study, employees exempt from overtime pay are twice as likely to work overtime as those covered by the protections. Our citizens are working longer hours than ever before – longer than in any other industrial nation. At least one in five employees now has a work week that exceeds 50 hours. Protecting the 40-hour work week is vital to balancing work responsibilities and family needs. It is certainly not family friendly to require employees to work more hours for less pay.

Overtime protections clearly make an immense difference in preserving the 40-hour work week. Millions of employees depend on overtime pay to make ends meet and pay their bills for housing, food, and health care. Overtime pay often constitutes 20-25% of their wages. These workers will face an unfair reduction in their take-home pay if they can no longer receive their overtime pay.

We urge you not to go forward with any regulation that denies overtime pay protections to any of America's currently eligible hard-working men and women.

Source: Letter from 43 Senators to the Secretary of Labor 03-SEN4 on Jun 30, 2003

Rated 85% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-labor voting record.

Daschle scores 85% by the AFL-CIO on labor issues

As the federation of America’s unions, the AFL-CIO includes more than 13 million of America’s workers in 60 member unions working in virtually every part of the economy. The mission of the AFL-CIO is to improve the lives of working families to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation. To accomplish this mission we will build and change the American labor movement.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.

Source: AFL-CIO website 03n-AFLCIO on Dec 31, 2003

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