How is that possible for people on both sides of the aisle to even vote for or contemplate . I really dont understand that. If that is naive as my distinguished colleague from california suggests then perhaps we should all go back to being naive and fight for the rights that make this country great. That is not what is in this bill. I thank the gentleman from illinois and i strongly support it. Would the gentle lady yield . Id be happy to yield. Is there anything that you know of under u. S. Law that would be any different than whats in this bill . In other words, if i go to a job to work lets say in a field theres nothing that stops me from having to pay my own cost of getting to that job. Thats where i keep not understanding why that provision keeps getting referred to as though it will cause below minimum wage. And yet that provision seems to be in question. If in fact we are talking about on the actual from your reporting place to the field, for example, if thats not understood to be an employer responsibility im certainly happy to make sure this bill would ensure that it would be. Getting to your initial place, in other words, showing up where the bus is at the field, my understanding is that the u. S. Citizens that show up there today or the undocumented workers that show up here today, they do that at their own expense. Would is gentleman yield . I would be happy to yield to the gentle lady. This bill exempts the workers from the standards act. If youre an American Worker you cannot have your required health care, transportation cost, uniform, equipment deducted from your salary so it goes below the minimum wage. Under this bill you could do that to imMigrant Workers. So theres a profound difference i thank the gentle lady for yielding. We had an opportunity to vote for an amendment that would not reduce the wages. I can only assume you do want to change the standards we have for all other workers in this country. Right now youre asking for an exemption to that. I want to be very clear thats what the bill does. Our amendments have consistently tried to put forward ways to make this bill a little bit better. Your side has consistently tu turned those down. I yield back. All those in favor respond. Court vote is requested and the clerk will call the role. Mr. Smith . Mr. Shavett . Mr. King votes no. Mr. Franks . Mr. Gomert . Mr. Jordan . Mr. Poe . Mr. Moreno. . Mr. Moreno votes no. Mr. Labrador, mr. Collins votes no. Mr. Buck votes no. Mr. Rat cliff . Mr. Johnson votes no. Mr. Bigs votes no. Miss handle votes no. Mr. Koe hen cohen votes yes. Mr. Richmond . Mr. Jeffreys . L. Rat cliff . Mr. Rat cliff votes no. Has every member voted who wishes to vote . The clerk will report. And amendment is not agreed to. I have an amendment at the desk. The clerk will report the amendment. Amendment to the aamendment page 18. The amendment is considered as read and the gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. This amendment is similar to the amendment offered by my friend from new york, but it is targeted to a specific industry. Now, i was a strong supporter of mr. Nadlers broader, but i want to bring attention to the issue as it relates to logging. The median pay or logging workers last year was 37,590 a year, an average of 18. 07 an hour. It is predicted to be on the downside, 3,800 decline from the current roughly 55,000 jobs in the united states, which causes me to wonder quite a bit about the provisions in this bill that go from a temporary Seasonal Program or agriculture to a year round Permanent Program more than agriculture including logging, manufacturing, Food Processing and the like. These logging jobs are when i talked to some of the members that represent logging areas, what they are saying is they dont have a shortage of loggers, they have a shortage of logs for their loggers to log so we are actually in this bill making it easy to pay a very low amount per pour in an area where theres not a shortage, where the pay is such so you can achieve or aspire a middle class lifestyle based on your logging job. Its one of those jobs where you have to work hard with a high school diploma. You can support yourself and your family. Why we would want to bring in who knows how many hundreds of thousands potentially workers to displace americans is on me. Now, as was mentioned earlier on mr. Nadlers amendment the protections in the bill dont actual work. The actual wage level paid by the employer on page 18, let me pose this scenario. You logging company x in texas. They have no employees because they were set up a a shell to go hi higher. It was to log in washington state. That would be quite easy to do under this bill, so good luck to the american loggers in washington when that happens. Or you create logger job a in the scale of a through c and you one employee and you paid that employee pursuant to the provision where you to offer the employee on page 16 what youre offering u. S. H2c workers. Thats certainly quite a lot less than the 18. 69 an hour by logging Equipment Operators or the forest and conservation workers at 15 an hour or the law greater in scalers at 18. 34 an hour. So i just dont think what we are doing here is right. I think that the loggers of america will take great offense at being displaced by under paid poorly treated and really oh presso oh opressed and i yield back the balance of my time. Having a legal and probably work force means employers will have to compete to attract the most reliable and skilled labor. The bill gives farmers and ranchers to set the employment on their operations while requiring they do fulfill the promts they offer to guest workers. They will be drawn to the employers offering the Wages Benefits and working conditions. We do not need to go back to a system that is similar to the so called adverse wage rachlt for that reason i oppose the amendment. Strike the last word. Time is recognized for five minutes. I just listened carefully to what you just said. You said you want to give employers the ability to hire Foreign Workers at a mutually agreeable wage rate. What you did not say is that we did not want to undercut existing wages. And meeting at least the minimum wage requirement may very well and will often be and in this case will be much lower than the wages that the employers are paying American Workers. So this provision in the absence of the amendment seems specifically designed to undercut american wages so that the cutters are getting 18 an hour will now get 8. 34 an hour. It may be mutually agreeable. The fact is mutually agreeable those who with only earn 3 in the foreign country but can undercut earning 15 or 16 or 17 is frankly an on noxious result. We should not be designing a bill to undercut the wages of existing wonchers and undercut american wages. My amendment earlier, it would simply say you cant pay less than the rate of pay but that being paid to American Workers. If we are not saying that youre saying this is a bill designed to underket american and if the gentle lady eels amendment was not passed this bill is simply a bill to rebus hearne wages. The only reference in the bill is not to the prevailing wage in the area. I yield back. All those in favor respond by s saying the clerk will call the roll. No. Mr. Good lab votes no. Mr. Sensenburner sloets no. Mr. Isa votes no. Mr. King votes no. Mr. Franks . Mr. Jordan . Mr. Poe . Mr. Moreno, mr. Gauty . Mr. Farnthoeld . No mr. Sanchez . Yours truly mr. Gates votes no. Mr. Johnson of louisiana. Mr. Johnson votes no. Mr. Ruterford votes no. Mr. Cohen . Mr. Johnson of georgia . M mr. Gutierrez . Mr. Jeffreys . L. Lieu. Mr. Snyder . Mr. Snyder votes i. Mr. Poe votes no. Mr. Yates . The general it man from south carolina. Mr. Labrador votes no. Has every member voted who wishes to vote . Clerk will report. I would like to call the beast of burden act which we are considering today. Mine was i thought there were values that unified us as americans. One was that if we are going to bring in an immigrant work force of effectively 21st century servants who will act as beasts of burden for the rest of us and we will pay them a sub minimum wage, before you start deducting for the cost of their tools and uniforms and cost of health insurance, at the very least you should give them a bed to sleep in. One of the few is the requirement they provide who are laboring on their farms. This is extremely important given the shortage of uncrowded affordable for farm workers. Foreign Migrant Workers face the task of arranging for temporary housing in Rural Communities with limited or no access to Bank Accounts to credit to Language Skills and under this bill even to family, spouses and other family members who are banned from coming along. Many farm workers will end up in terrible substandard conditions but certainly living in squaller under terms of this legislation. The conditions in which farm workers live, in case you dont really care about the farm workers themgselves but also fo food safety. Farm workers who do not have basic access to sanitation need cannot report to work with clean clothing and clean hands. Many farm workers will report sick with diseases given substandard conditions they will be forced into. Mr. Chairman, all that my amendment does is to propose that the current protections that are in the program for workers, which is the requirement that employers provide housing for agricultural guest workers. We would restore the room at the end for workers who have come here for no other reason, no other purpose than to come and work on the farms to pick the strawberries and to pick the vegetables and fruits we depend on. If we will have cheap labor immigration lets give these people are place to sleep in. Thanks. Recognize themselves in opposition to the amendment. This is a problem with the current h2a program that adds tremendous cost to this issue because if Seasonal Workers that has to provide housing to farmers. That farmer has to provide housing. Thats why you get into this overregulation by the department of labor. They cant afford to maintain very effective housing for a few weeks out of a year that somebody will be occupying it. It is much better addressed through the premarket, the laborers will be able to demand wages that will allow them to find the housing that they want thats affordable and i think that is much better than this requirement. Some of them, if they move from place to place may have a Motor Vehicle that an rv or something that they live in. Theres lots of different ways people meet their needs for housing and for the government to be prescribing this as discouraged millions of people from having the opportunity to participate in a Workable Program like the h2rc will be. It doesnt use the program that mandates this. R obviously they found housing when they work illegally. It is better that they work legally and i must oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman . First the gentlewoman from california. I have to strike the last word. I would like to speak in favor of this amendment. If you take a look just think back to the rural areas in your state and think about how much rental housing is available in those rural areas and youll come to grips with the fact that oftentimes especially in rural areas rental housing is not very abundant for is it affordable. Usually landlords are going to want a longterm commitment rather than some kind of short term two week seasonal period. So you end up with farm workers who are sleeping by the side of the road without sanitation. Its not a healthy situation. The current law requires the provision of housing to h2ra an h2b proponents. I think we would be well advised to take a look at how we could make this work better. If you take a look at the associations that exist under this program if pit ever becomes law the associations would be able to keep them continuously employed. Youre talking about permanent workers with no housing. It may be that we could provide a role for those associations and the provision of housing. But to say that the market is going to work is not the case. We are talking about people who will be earning below the federal minimum wage, to go out and pay a premium for a shortterm rental. Its not going to happen. So i do think this is a good amendment because it keeps us where we are today without creating the problems that would exist. They are real. We all know about the listeria withdraw. I remember it wasnt from lack of housing because california has a very aggressive Housing Program there was basically a bunk for men and another bunk for women. When it comes to the program there is usually trailers and the employers are also in trailers. These workers already find their way in an rv or car or whatever it might be. Two questions, does that put real burdens on the Housing Market . Poor immigrant ts are being loaded up in apartment buildings or many are being packed in because they are paying for the rest of the day working. Thats one problem. If some of the housing already exists well undercut one that exists is there anything to stop an employer from saying we have this makeshift bunk. Is there anything that would stop them from saying well rent you the space and make a further deduction from your constantly shrinking weight . It allows for deductions but for housing. When we talk about the Food Industry you would have the phenomenon you would describe. I think that the amendment you offered is the right thing do. It is the status quo and it may be that we could improve this. I know years ago there were funding for farm worker housing that actually did happen. Really everybody is better off not only the farmers, farm workers, the neighbors of these farms dont want homeless farm workers sleeping by the side of the road either and finally the consumer who wants Healthy Products because theres adequate sanitation. I endorse it. I thank you for offering it. I yield back mr. Chairman. All those in favor respond by sayi saying i. Mr. Goodlap . No. Mr. Sensenburner . Mr. Smith . Mr. King . Mr. King votes no. Mr. Franks votes no. Mr. Jordan . Mr. Poe . Mr. Moreno. Mr. Labrador . Mr. Labrador votes no. Mr. Collins . Mr. Collins votes no. Mr. Buck . Mr. Buck votes no. Mr. Gates votes no. Before members leave i would advise them immediately after this vote series well rueturn o continue the markup. Mr. Bigs . Mr. Ruterford votes no. Miss handle votes no. Has every member voted that wishes to vote . The clerk will report. Eight members voted 17 voted no. And the amendment is not agreed to. The committee will stand in recess until immediately after this series of votes. And live in morning he is here with virginia senator mark warner. If confirmed mr. Dimmers would lead that oversees the russia investigation thats headed by the fbi. He is assistant General Council at boeing