U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that President Bush's new budget request includes additional resources for protecting workers' health, safety, pay benefits and union dues, as well as providing for new job training reforms to make federal-state training programs more flexible and effective.

"The President's budget will enable the department to build on its record-setting enforcement of our worker protection laws," Secretary Elaine L. Chao said in testimony before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. "This budget will help us implement new training initiatives and reform the workforce investment system to serve more people and achieve even better results."

Chao pointed out that the President's FY 2006 budget builds on this Administration's strong record of protecting workers by increasing resources for each of the department's principal enforcement agencies. Highlights of the enforcement record show:

* Worker fatalities have fallen to record lows over the past four years. Fatalities in mining operations have dropped to the lowest point since records have been kept. Since 2001, Hispanic workplace fatalities have been reduced by 11.6 percent.

* In FY 2004, EBSA achieved more than $3 billion in monetary results for workers' retirement and health plans—a 121 percent increase over the previous year.

* In FY 2004, more than 265,000 workers received nearly $200 million in back wages—including overtime—as a result of the Wage and Hour Division's enforcement operations.