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Washington, D.C.—The Bush administration’s proposal to cut more than half-a-billion dollars from the Labor Department’s fiscal 2002 budget for discretionary programs “clearly is a move in the wrong direction,” the leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said that given the administration’s “apparent misguided views on worker safety and health, it has become the responsibility of Congress” to enforce laws designed to make America’s workplaces safe.

President Bush has proposed a cut of $564 million in the Labor

Department’s budget for discretionary programs, including reductions in full-time-equivalent positions in such key operations as the Employment Standards Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“Coming, as it does, on the heels of this administration’s hurried repeal of OSHA’s ergonomics standards” Kelley said, “the proposed budget for the Labor Department is further proof that, despite its rhetoric, worker health and safety is taking a back seat in the Bush administration.”

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has said her department’s emphasis will be on assisting business in complying with laws, rather than on enforcement.

“That simply is not enough,” the NTEU leader said. “In the real world of work, this administration’s unwillingness to focus on enforcement of health and safety laws will result in untold numbers of real people suffering real injuries with significant economic consequences to the nation.”

NTEU represents some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.