Press Release: Advance Text of Remarks Prepared for the AFL-CIO Convention

I welcome this opportunity to call to the attention of organized labor the accomplishments of this Administration on behalf of the American worker. The record is one of solid achievement compiled with careful regard to the needs of labor and to the economic and social needs of this Nation.

One of the really distressing discoveries this Administration made when we examined the needs of the American worker was the safety record of our work force. Work-related accidents and illnesses kill some 14,000 Americans every year. We found that occupational safety laws were inadequate, that workmen's compensation was inadequate, and that temporary disability insurance at both State and Federal levels was inadequate. This was entirely unacceptable. It was clear that steps had to be taken quickly to remedy this situation, and we took those steps.

In August of 1969, the Secretary of Labor submitted to the Congress the Occupational Safety and Health Act. That bill was passed late last year and went into effect April 28. Among other things, it sets up a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to do research in the area of safety standards. Funding for research under the health proposals in this legislation has been increased by 75 percent.

The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which I signed in December 1969, establishes dust and safety standards for miners, provides more intensive inspection of mines, and provides compensation for workers suffering from black lung.

In March of 1970, we proposed legislation to improve benefits payable under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. The Congress has not yet acted in that matter.

We have given the American worker the first comprehensive job safety and health legislation in this Nation's history. This is a solid record. We intend to build on it.

We have pushed through the Congress the most extensive improvement in unemployment compensation in the history of this program. These reforms, which I signed in August 1970, added nearly 5 million workers to the unemployment insurance system. They increased minimum benefit levels, and they provide for an extended period of eligibility whenever a percentage of workers covered are unemployed for an extended period of time. This is a solid achievement of value to the American worker.

I know, however, that the American worker doesn't want compensation, he wants work. In order to provide increased employment, I reorganized the Manpower Administration in the Department of Labor and signed into law the Emergency Employment Act in July 197 1. This legislation provides funding for a hundred and twenty-five thousand jobs. That figure alone speaks for the merit of this legislation and its value to the worker.

In other areas, we have taken very strong steps to cope with the problem of seasonality in the construction business using the vast potential in Federal construction needs to stabilize this industry, to provide year-round income, and so to eliminate the inflationary labor costs that were necessary to enable construction workers to survive in off-season downtime.

This Administration has provided a much more definitive basis for Federal employee representation rights and for grievance and dispute-settling mechanisms. At the same time, it is fair and accurate to say that we have interfered less in collective bargaining than any Administration in the last 10 years.

These are just some of the steps we have taken to compile a positive record of achievement on behalf of American labor. They demonstrate that we have more in common in terms of goals for the American workingman than we have in conflict.

We are moving in a positive way, and I know there is far more to be done before we can feel fully confident that the circumstances of the American worker today are what they ought to be in a Nation with our economic capacities and our social standards.

I am concerned, for example, by the injustices which American workers suffer through the loss of pension benefits for which they have contributed money throughout their work lives. It is unfair that men and women should move toward retirement, work to protect their retirement, and then have that protection stripped away. This inequity must and will be remedied.

It is not reasonable or responsible to make national policy in a way that sees the American labor force as somehow distinct from the larger American society. It is an integral part of that society, and in all policy formulation it must be treated as an integral part of that society.

In August, as the first step in the implementation of a new economic program, I directed a wage-price freeze aimed at halting the dangerous inflationary pressures which were threatening the dollar--and I mean everybody's dollar--the laborer's, the businessman's, the banker's, and the international dollar. The freeze was not directed against labor; it did not affect labor alone, it affected all segments of the economy, and it was an action which was in perfect harmony with previous demands by many labor leaders to establish wage-price controls.

At the end of that first phase of the new economic program, I think we can fairly evaluate the effect of what was undertaken then.

We sought to check the rise in prices. The Wholesale Price Index dropped 0.3 percent in September. It dropped another 0.1 percent last month.

We tabulated 3,885 prices in the five largest U.S. cities. Eighty-seven percent of the prices tabulated showed no change from August to September. Less than 8 percent showed an increase, and almost 6 percent actually declined.

The price freeze was successful. That means the consumer, including 60 million American wage earners, benefited.
What about employment?

Since June total employment has increased by 1 .4 million jobs; from September to October employment increased by more than 300,000 jobs. In the category of married men, which is a very critical component of the total unemployment figures, the percentage unemployed has dropped to 3 percent--the lowest in a year.

New interest rates, housing starts, and retail sales all reflect similar success for this policy, but the price index and the employment index are of greatest interest to labor. We can legitimately say that they reflect the benefits of the wage-price freeze to labor. To put it another way-the only thing that went up during the freeze was jobs. For those who have maintained that the freeze was intended as a plum to business, let me point out that corporate profits declined during the freeze.

The new economic program has demonstrated its promise of economic progress for all Americans. The past record of the Nixon Administration on behalf of labor reflects a sincere concern for the best interests of labor--not because such a record is politically useful, but because whatever serves the best interests of labor serves the best interests of America, and whether or not that is politically useful, it is absolutely essential to the progress and the well-being of this Nation in the last third of this century.

With these credentials, I am asking the support of organized labor; I am asking the support of the AFL-CIO for the critical second phase of this effort to restore economic stability to this Nation.

In the months ahead we will have disagreements on the direction of Phase 2. But there are mechanisms established to resolve those disagreements. They will insure a fair resolution of the differences and disputes which may arise. What there can be no disagreement about is the need to provide more jobs for more Americans; the need to provide a dollar that doesn't decrease in value every time you get a pay raise; the need to increase production-and production did increase during Phase 1 of the new economic program; the need to increase trade with other nations of the world and stop subsidizing foreign industry with American jobs; and the need, generally, to establish a sound and stable economic base which will give us prosperity in the time of peace that we are working so hard to achieve and which now seems so nearly within our grasp.

We do not differ on these objectives. We do disagree on some aspects of the means by which we hope to achieve these objectives. But if we work together to resolve these disagreements, we can have what this Nation has not seen for 15 years-prosperity in peacetime. I am confident that we can achieve it together. I ask you to join together with us in the effort to achieve it, and I pledge to you that we will come out of this phase of the new economic program into a period of sustained prosperity that will repay many times over any immediate sacrifices that any segment of the American work force is called upon to make.