{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/workforce-protections-ranking-member-omar-remarks-hearing-president-trumps", "Workforce Protections Ranking Member Omar Remarks at Hearing on President Trump\u2019s Deregulatory Agenda at the Department of Labor", "2026-09-02", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "House", "MN", "Ilhan Omar", "O000173", "omar.house.gov", "omar", "https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Ranking Member Ilhan Omar (MN-05) delivered the following opening statement at today\u2019s Workforce Protections Subcommittee hearing entitled, \u201cLess Red Tape, More Opportunity: Unleashing American Workers and Job Creators.\u201d\n\n\u201cThank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.\n\n\u201cMy Republican colleagues love to talk about getting rid of red tape, but let\u2019s look at what they actually want to get rid of: it is the light at a construction site; it is the respirator a worker wears to protect themselves from asbestos exposure; it is an inspector looking at a mine and simply asking a coal operator whether the roof is going to hold.\n\n\u201cEvery one of these commonsense rules is on the books because a worker was hurt or killed on the job. And this country decided it would not let it happen again.\n\n\u201cBut now the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans are trying to repeal them.\n\n\u201cThey have also fired staff across the Department of Labor and weakened important safety agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.\n\n\u201cThe attacks on workplace protections have made it harder to hold bad employ[ers] accountable, and harder for workers to trust that someone has their back.\n\n\u201cNow, 2025 was a very good year for President Trump personally.\n\n\u201cAccording to his own federal disclosure forms, Trump received 2.2 billion dollars in income after returning to the White House.\n\n\u201cLet me put that in perspective: the median American worker would have to work over forty-three thousand years to earn what President Trump made in a single year in office. Forty-three thousand years.\n\n\u201cWhile working families were falling further behind on their bills, the man in the Oval Office is cashing in. And Congressional Republicans are just looking the other way.\n\n\u201cWorse, they actually added red tape of their own to the very programs all of these families need to survive.\n\n\u201cIn the year since this Republican Congress passed the \u2018Big Ugly Bill,\u2019 more than eight million Americans have lost their health coverage and more than four million lost food assistance.\n\n\u201cRepublicans know they don\u2019t have a good economic record to run on. But let\u2019s be clear about the plan they are offering to the American people: it is more red tape [and] hardship for you, and less of it for their corporate beneficiaries.\n\n\u201cInstead of crafting an agenda that helps working people with the cost of living, Committee Republicans have consistently chosen to take the wrong priorities.\n\n\u201cThey have chosen to make labor cheap.\n\n\u201cThat is what their bills would do: making it easier for an employer to treat a worker like an independent contractor instead of a full-time employee; letting employers off the hook for wage theft; and making overtime cheaper and worth less for the workers putting in the time.\n\n\u201cAnd they have chosen to make jobs more dangerous.\n\n\u201cJust last month, Committee Republicans voted to block OSHA from ever issuing any standard [protecting] workers from extreme heat \u2013 in one of the hottest summers in our country\u2019s history.\n\n\u201cJust as troubling is what they have chosen not to do. This Committee has held zero hearings on issues that working people in my district and across the country care about most: not one hearing on raising the minimum wage; not one hearing on addressing the violence in the workplace; and not one hearing on our child labor laws, even as this Administration announced a plan to weaken them for 14-year-olds.\n\n\u201cMr. Chair, every worker in America deserves to come home safe at the end of the day. That should be one of the most basic obligations we have to our constituents.\n\n\u201cWorking families are not asking for much. They are asking for a fair shot, an honest wage, and a safe workplace.\n\n\u201cBut this Congress, and this Administration, are failing to meet the moment.\n\n\u201cStripping away labor protections will not unleash anything good.\n\n\u201cIt will just move the cost of doing business onto the bodies and livelihoods of working-class people who do the real work that powers this economy.\n\n\u201cWorking Americans deserve a government that works for them, not corporate interests.\n\n\u201cThank you, and I yield back.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-03T09:29:33Z", "2026-09-03T09:31:32Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/workforce-protections-ranking-member-omar-remarks-hearing-president-trumps"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.453820314258337, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}