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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR The President’s 2009 Budget will: • Protect workers’ wages, benefits, health and safety, and union member rights; • Improve job training and trade adjustment assistance programs to train more people and help displaced workers find jobs more quickly; • Help returning servicemembers transition back into the civilian workforce; • Safeguard workers’ pensions; and • Support efforts to modernize and improve the temporary foreign labor certification process. Protecting Workers • Enforces labor laws. Protects workers’ wages, benefits, and working conditions. ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ Protects the health and safety of the Nation’s 350,000 miners through the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Enforces workplace safety and health standards through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Investigates wage and hour violations in low-wage industries that employ the most vulnerable workers. Ensures union financial integrity and transparency. Improving Job Training and Trade Adjustment Assistance Programs • Trains workers more effectively. Increases significantly the number of workers trained—while saving taxpayer dollars—by reforming the Department’s job training grant programs. The reforms: ¡ ¡ ¡ Consolidate several similar programs and cut Federal red tape and unnecessary overhead. Create Career Advancement Accounts—worker-directed accounts that help workers develop their skills and compete for 21st Century jobs. Propose a State match, which will better integrate Federal and State workforce investment resources. • Helps workers transition. Gives trade-impacted workers the help they need to transition to new jobs with good wages through reforms to the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. 87 88 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Supporting Returning Servicemembers • Helps Veterans transition. Provides job-search assistance and related services to separating service members and their spouses through the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service and the Employment and Training Administration. Safeguarding Workers Pensions • Improves retirement security. Implements the Pension Protection Act of 2006 reforms. • Strengthens the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Restores the solvency of the pension insurance system and avoids a future taxpayer bailout by raising the premiums companies pay to PBGC, which protects the defined-benefit pension plans of 44 million Americans. Improving the Foreign Labor Certification Process • Modernizes the temporary foreign labor certification process. Helps employers find the talent they need while protecting the rights of U.S. workers. Major Savings and Reforms • Terminates or reduces 10 programs representing more than $1.4 billion, including: ¡ Employment Service State Grants, which provide services that duplicate those provided under the Workforce Investment Act programs. ¡ Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker program, which duplicates other Federal programs and is insufficiently focused on employment and training. ¡ Office of Disability Employment Policy’s grant program, which duplicates other grant-making programs. • Proposes legislation that would reduce improper payments of unemployment insurance by $3.6 billion and recover almost $200 million in delinquent taxes over 10 years. Since 2001, the Department of Labor has: • Provided leadership in the effort to strengthen the pension system to ensure that Americans have a secure retirement. • Posted the strongest-ever worker protection enforcement results. • Revised outdated regulations to better protect workers by strengthening overtime protections for more than 6.7 million workers and improving the transparency of labor union finances. • Modernized the permanent foreign labor certification program and eliminated the chronic backlog, which stood at 363,000 applicants at the beginning of the Administration. • Published the first-ever regulations explaining the reemployment rights and protections for our National Guard, Reserve, and active duty servicemembers serving in the Global War on Terror and elsewhere around the world. THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 89 • Implemented innovative programs to enhance America’s competitiveness through the High Growth Job Training Initiative, Community-Based Job Training Grants, and Workforce Innovation in Regional and Economic Development initiative. Department of Labor (Dollar amounts in millions) Estimate 2007 Actual Spending Discretionary Budget Authority: Training and Employment Services 1 Existing law ........................................................................................................ Legislative proposal ........................................................................................ Unemployment Insurance Administration .................................................... Employment Service/One-Stop Career Centers 1 Existing law ........................................................................................................ Legislative proposal ........................................................................................ Office of Job Corps .............................................................................................. Community Service Employment for Older Americans .......................... Bureau of Labor Statistics ................................................................................. Occupational Safety and Health Administration ........................................ Mine Safety and Health Administration ........................................................ Employment Standards Administration ........................................................ Employee Benefits Security Administration ................................................ Veterans’ Employment and Training .............................................................. Departmental Management .............................................................................. Bureau of International Labor Affairs ............................................................ Office of Disability Employment Policy ......................................................... All other .................................................................................................................... Total, Discretionary budget authority ................................................................. 2008 2009 3,552 — 2,508 3,295 — 2,464 3,061 50 2,636 820 — 1,607 484 548 487 302 421 149 223 226 73 28 259 11,687 790 — 1,598 522 544 486 334 421 139 228 211 81 27 260 11,400 69 50 1,565 350 593 502 332 438 148 238 148 15 12 405 10,512 ............... 8 — — Total, Discretionary outlays ................................................................................... 11,671 11,610 12,225 32,576 34,760 37,352 777 — 834 — 911 6 457 — 332 — 202 395 Memorandum: Budget authority from enacted supplementals Mandatory Outlays: Unemployment Insurance Benefits ................................................................ Trade Adjustment Assistance Existing law ........................................................................................................ Legislative proposal ........................................................................................ Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation 2 Existing law ........................................................................................................ Legislative proposal ........................................................................................ 90 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Department of Labor—Continued (Dollar amounts in millions) Estimate 2007 Actual Black Lung Benefits Program 3 Existing law ........................................................................................................ Legislative proposal ........................................................................................ Federal Employees’ Compensation Act Existing law ........................................................................................................ Legislative proposal ........................................................................................ Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.......................................................................................................................... All other .................................................................................................................... Total, Mandatory outlays ........................................................................................ Total, Outlays .............................................................................................................. Major Savings, Discretionary Terminations .................................................................................................................... Reductions ....................................................................................................................... 1 2 3 2008 2009 1,355 — 1,344 — 1,324 2,288 111 — 200 — 160 10 1,137 526 35,887 1,109 522 38,057 1,050 496 41,988 47,558 49,667 54,213 Number of Programs 2009 Savings 4 6 111 1,318 2009 reflects the Administration’s proposal to merge four grant programs and create Career Advancement Accounts. Net mandatory outlays are negative when offsetting collections exceed outlays. 2009 reflects the Black Lung debt refinancing, which includes a one-time payment to the Treasury. There is no Government-wide budgetary effect until 2014, when the excise tax rates would be extended.