Securing America's Future Act of 2018

Jun. 21, 2018 | H.R. 4760

The FY 2019 Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor HHS) Appropriations bill, reflects a misguided and dangerous approach to funding programs that serve millions of working Americans. Despite the increase of $18 billion for non-defense discretionary programs in FY 2019, there is no increase in the Labor HHS allocation over FY 2018. The bill would reduce funding for the Department of Labor (DOL) by $289 million, including a rescission of $200 million from the Dislocated Worker training program. The bill cuts DOL’s Wage and Hour Division by $2 million, reduces the current funding for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by almost $13 million, and guts DOL’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) by $68 million (a reduction of 78.5 percent). ILAB does critical work to fight child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking and to enforce the labor rights commitments in our trade agreements. The proposed reduction in funding for ILAB would significantly undermine its capacity to help other countries improve their labor standards. The bill also targets worker safety programs, reducing funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by $7.5 million and funding for the Mine Safety and Health Administration by $6 million. These cuts would occur at a time when the OSHA inspection staff is already at near record low levels and mining deaths are on the rise. The bill eliminates OSHA’s Susan Harwood training grants, which have trained over a million workers in hazardous industries, while it increases funding for employer compliance assistance. These cuts to worker safety and health programs will result in increased disease, injuries, and deaths on the job. While the bill provides for a modest increase in funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, it would cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid operations and block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The bill failed to pass the House on June 21, 2018.