Healthcare-HWF, 1991-1992

Congressman Fawell served on the Education and Labor Committee for the entirety of his years as a member of Congress. (The committee was officially titled the Committee on Education and Labor from 1985-1994, named the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities from 1995-1996 and then the Committee on Education and the Workforce from 1997-1998, but for ease of use was referred to as the Education and Labor Committee.) Within the Education and Labor Committee, Congressman Fawell served on and chaired from 1995-1998 the subcommittee that dealt with labor and management relations (alternately called the Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations from 1987-1994 and the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations from 1995-1998). Congressman Fawell also served on the Subcommittee on Labor Standards, which in 1993 changed its name to the Subcommittee on Labor Standards, Occupational Health and Safety. Major topics represented in the Education and Labor Committee: Labor Files include: Age Discrimination in Employment Act, civil rights, congressional accountability, Davis-Bacon Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, National Labor Relations Act and National Labor Relations Board, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Healthcare and Pensions are two topics that include large quantities of information, the bulk of which pertain to the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act (ERISA), which was passed by Congress in 1974 to protect employee rights in employer-provided benefit plans (which often included both pension and healthcare programs). The files contain memoranda and notes; newspaper and journal articles; analysis and reactions by organizations, corporations, committee staff, and Congressman Fawell's staff; bills and committee reports; "Dear Colleague" letters sent to and received from other members of Congress; and hearing testimonies. Some files are separated strictly by topic, while some are separated by the type of records. Occasionally, cross-references were written on the front of folders referring the researcher to another set of files within the series that also contain information of interest. These cross-references were not intended to replace researcher examination of other interrelated topics. For example, a researcher interested in ERISA legislation needs to look under both Healthcare and Pensions in order to ensure complete coverage of that topic. Specifically, because ERISA statutes govern all benefit plans including healthcare and pensions, the Education and Labor Committee held hearing and markups of both H. R. 1602 (which modified Title 1, pertaining to healthcare plans) and H. R. 2782 (which modified the rest of ERISA, pertaining to pension plans) together. Since the two bills were inseparable in this case, a decision was made to keep the dual topic files with the largest segment under "Healthcare-Employee Retirement Income Security Act-Preemption of State Laws-ERISA Amendments (H. R. 1602)," with cross-references on the folders to those titled "Pensions-Employee Retirement Income Security Act-Preemption of State Laws-ERISA Amendments (H. R. 2782)." For researcher ease, the bill numbers as assigned at the time of filing are included in parentheses following the title of the bill in the container list. Also, if a bill or topic was generally referred to by an alternate name, that name is also included in parentheses. For example, the Health Security Act was commonly called the Clinton Healthcare Plan and this information has been included in the folder title: "Healthcare-Health Security Act (H. R. 3600) (Clinton Healthcare Plan)." General summaries of all labor legislation related to a particular Congress were filed at the beginning of that series. Another set of general summaries which pertained to only Education and Labor Committee topics were separated into a small series of records titled "RG 4-Education and Labor Committee Files." These summaries were not separated into individual topics, although often staff copied pages pertaining to a specific subject and placed copies in the appropriate file. The Education and Labor Committee: Labor Files were received as two separate series: Congressman Fawell's files and staff files. An alphabetical arrangement scheme was imposed on the records, and the two series were merged. The provenance of the collection was maintained through the folder title entry "-HWF" or "-Staff" to indicate whether the individual file was used or annotated by Congressman Fawell or one (or many) of his staff members.