Committee on Education and Workforce
More on Committee on Education and Workforce
June 27, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which found that public-sector unions cannot collect “fair share fees” for the services they are legally required to provide workers. “Today, the Supreme Court’s conservatives once again used dubious legal reasoning to achieve a partisan objective. The Court’s ruling in Janus ignores four decades of precedent and now rigs the rules against teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other public-sector workers who are fighting for fair wages and decent working conditions. Using the First Amendment as a weapon, the Court has effectively required unions to provide an array of services to non-union members, while simultaneously prohibiting unions from charging a fee for those services.
June 21, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) released the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s proposal to merge the departments of Labor and Education. “The Trump administration’s plan to reorganize the federal government is a hastily concocted proposal that uses the false promise of ‘streamlining’ to cut investments in our future. There is no evidence that merging the Departments of Labor and Education would strengthen the performance of these agencies or produce better outcomes for students and workers.
June 19, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Education and the Workforce Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03), Ways and Means Ranking Member Richard Neal (MA-01), and Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) issued the following statement after the Department of Labor finalized a rule to rollback health coverage protections by expanding association health plans. "The administration’s rule expanding the use of association health plans is yet another attack on Americans’ access to affordable health care. By allowing the sale of junk plans, the rule will remove younger, healthier individuals from insurance pools, which will drive up the cost of coverage for all other Americans.
June 13, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate HELP Committee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA), and House Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA), introduced legislation as part of their economic agenda, “A Better Deal.” As the income inequality gap reaches the highest levels since the Great Depression, many middle class families are finding it increasingly difficult to achieve basic economic security. To help address rising inequality and related challenges in obtaining a quality education, safe housing, sustainable work, and a secure retirement, the Democrats’ legislation would strengthen workers’ freedom to join unions and negotiate collectively to win better pay and conditions, stiffen penalties on corporations, protect workers’ right to strike, streamline procedures to secure worker freedoms, and protect the integrity of union elections.
June 8, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Education and the Workforce Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03), Ways and Means Ranking Member Richard Neal (MA-01), and Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) issued the following statement after the Department of Justice told a federal court that it will not defend the key patient protections in Affordable Care Act. The brief, filed yesterday in Texas v United States, breaks with the Department’s longstanding tradition of defending laws enacted by Congress regardless of whether it supports the underlying policies. “The Justice Department’s refusal to defend the Affordable Care Act in federal court is a stunning attack on the rule of law, the stability of our health care system, and Americans’ access to affordable health care.
June 7, 2018
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, 6 months ago, Congress passed a tax cut that cost almost $2 trillion that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy. Today, the Republicans are asking struggling children and families to foot the bill.
Nearly half of the $15 billion in cuts in the Trump-GOP recessions package targets the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. While $7 billion may be a rounding error in the corporate tax cut, eliminating this funding from CHIP will jeopardize its ability to ensure access to healthcare for the children and families who depend on the program every year.
June 4, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03), Committee on Education and the Workforce and Ranking Member Richard Neal (MA-01), Committee on Ways and Means issued the following statements after the release of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report titled, “Black Lung Benefits Program: Options for Improving Trust Fund Finances.” The Members requested the report to investigate the solvency of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund given the impending sunset of the coal tax rate at the end of this year, which would reduce the rate by 55 percent.
June 1, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 223,000 jobs in May, with the unemployment rate at 3.8 percent. “The latest jobs report shows that while the employment numbers remain stable, workers are still not getting a fair return on their work. Despite a tightening job market, wage growth remains stubbornly sluggish. Today’s report shows that while unemployment dropped to 3.8 percent, wages grew by a disappointing annual rate of 2.7 percent in May. This imbalance strongly suggests there are structural problems in the economy that disadvantage American workers.
May 23, 2018
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
As the Representative of Hampton Roads, Virginia, I support the significant increase in Navy shipbuilding in the NDAA. But while we consider national defense, we must also consider school construction.
Yesterday, U.S. banks reported $56 billion in first quarter profits. At the same time, our teachers are being forced to go on strike for a living wage and adequate funding for our public schools. But when the majority pushed its tax bill through Congress, it was the banks, not teachers and not the schools, that received the biggest benefit.
H.R. 2475, the Rebuild America's Schools Act, would be a step forward in correcting our priorities by investing desperately needed funding into our public school infrastructure. This $100 billion proposal, which is barely 5 percent of what was spent on the tax cut for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, would go towards repairing crumbling public school buildings to ensure that every student has access to safe, healthy, and high-quality learning facilities.
May 21, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) released the following statement after the Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis. “The National Labor Relations Act guarantees workers the right to collectively stand together to improve their wages and working conditions. However, today the Supreme Court ignored the plain text of the law and held that employers may force workers into signing arbitration agreements that waive the right to pursue work-related claims together. By undermining the right of workers to collectively seek recourse for wage theft, discrimination, and other workplace violations, the Court’s conservative bloc has rolled back a key provision of the National Labor Relations Act.