Senate Confirmation Battles Impede Labor Law Enforcement
Written by Bruce Goldstein Wednesday, 13 January 2010 11:59
At the end of the first session of this Congress, the Senate returned to the White House the nomination of M. Patricia Smith to be Solicitor of Labor; it declined to allow the nomination to be carried over into the second session, which began this month. If President Obama wishes the Senate to consider her for the position, the President must re-nominate her. As the Washington Post reported, “The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved her nomination in October, but Republicans put a hold on her confirmation vote as they questioned whether she testified truthfully about a New York program to root out companies that do not pay proper wages.” Effective labor law enforcement is a not an interest of some in the Senate.
We do not yet know what the White House will do.
Earlier, the nominee for the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Administration – who also was from the New York labor department – withdrew her name due to the long delay in Senate consideration.
The absence of leadership on labor law enforcement at the Department of Labor subjects farmworkers and other low-wage workers to widespread violations of their rights and undermines the efforts that law-abiding employer make to comply with and exceed the law.
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced upon her arrival that "there is a new Sheriff in town," but she has been deprived her chief deputies, and worekrs are suffering for it.
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