Department of Labor
| Mon Dec. 22, 2008 5:58 PM PST
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR....Victor Davis Hanson is unhappy with Barack Obama's choice to head the Department of Labor:
I'm sure that the labor secretary nominee Hilda Solis is a bright and savvy politican. But a labor secretary is supposed to reflect some balance between labor and management, one that seeks to hammer out compromises in the best interests of the nation. Her record, however, is exclusively pro-union without exception or doubt.
Maybe my memory is just getting fuzzy as I get old, but I sure don't remember very much conservative concern with "balance between labor and management" when George Bush chose Mitch McConnell's wife to be Secretary of Labor eight years ago. Do you?
Let's see. Before her appointment, Elaine Chao spent four years as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. She campaigned tirelessly with McConnell against the Employee Free Choice Act. Her choice to head up OSHA was a partner at one of the best known union-busting lawfirms in the country. Under her watch the NLRB reclassified 8 million workers as "supervisors," primarily in an attempt to throw a wrench in unionizing efforts. New overtime rules wiped out time-and-a-half for 6 million workers. The probability of union organizers being fired went up by more than half.
Now, that's about what I'd expect from an administration that's exclusively pro-business without exception or doubt. But after eight years of that, it's a little rich to complain when a liberal president nominates a Secretary of Labor who's actually pro-labor. Less whining, please.
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Comments
Kevin, the reclassification of so many employees as supervisors was a result of the Supreme Court's decision in the Yeshiva University case. It was the Supreme Court, not the NLRB or the DOL, that took the lead. The rest of your criticisms of Chao's leadership are accurate.
Submitted by Steve Balboni (not verified) on Mon Dec. 22, 2008 6:47 PM PST.
Let's not forget whom Bush named as Solicitor General for the Dept of Labor - Eugene Scalia.
Kevin, can we please start using proper terminology and refer to the current administration as "pro-management", not "pro-business"? If nothing else, the past eight years have shown where their loyalties lie, and when the interests of business and management conflict, which they choose.
Well, I guess that's why they call position the "Secretary of Labor and Management" right?
Oh wait. They don't. Because it isn't, and hasn't been for almost 100 years. Ever since they, you know, split it up from the Commerce dept.
Dimwit.
I'd assume that there is a decent number of people who could fulfill the profile Hanson is describing, but he didn't name any. Surely, if it's tradition, he could even skate by if he named only those who met this requirement in the past. Once again, he didn't do that.
Perhaps I'm going to asssume that Victor Davis Hanson is full of shit.
Submitted by A Solis backgrounder (not verified) on Mon Dec. 22, 2008 9:08 PM PST.
It looks like about 3/4 of Hansen's post concerns Solis' inability to understand the fundamental concept of citizenship, with only 1/4 or less involving the topic cited in the post. I know some topics are too hot for Kevin Drum to discuss, but I'd normally expect him to ignore such posts rather than risking sending his visitors to something with the truth.
See my name's link for much more on Solis from the Too Hot for Kevin Drum perspective.
Submitted by Legacy on Mon Dec. 22, 2008 9:27 PM PST.
Henry: Yeah, but I assume she had a lot of input into Bush's NLRB appointees.
Bruce: I'm thinking of the Kentucky River cases that NLRB decided in 2006. I've never heard of the Yeshiva case, but Google tells me it was decided in 1980, so it's not what I'm thinking of here.
A Solis: I'll take my chances on that. I assume my readers are able to keep themselves from being polluted too badly by VDH's scribblings.
Kevin is right about Kentucky River -- Yeshiva is pretty much limited to the facts of the case and the peculiar position of university faculty in governance of the institution in many universities.
But someone else was correct to point out that this was the province of the NLRB not the DOL -- they are totally separate (yet worthless) agencies.
Mrs. Mitch has been an unrelenting enemy of working people since assuming her position. The DOL exists now only to harrass unions. It does an incredibly poor job of enforcing laws or protecting workers.
I am really looking forward to Hilda Solis as Sec. of Labor. What an amazing difference it will be.
Don't worry wingers. We will have an approach as balanced as that of Bush, but far more competent in execution. Your party has failed, there are a legion of documented excesses on the part of capital, and we need someone invested in actually protecting the rights of workers. Elections have consequences.
So let's address VDH's point: is the Secretary of Labor supposed to protect all workers, or just those who are here legally? Should she allow employers to expose undocumented workers to chemicals that produce diseases such as bronchiolitis obliterans (think about that name for a second before you look it up)? Should she enforce minimum wage and overtime rules when it comes to undocumented workers?
The last administration gave us its answer: ignore those workers until it became time to show "toughness," at which point it sent in ICE to round up anyone who "looked immigrant." Yeah some managers get indicted, but they're still here; the workers got shipped out immediately unless they were lucky enough to live in or near a big city with an active immigrants rights advocacy network.
I think improving working conditions for the most easily exploited of workers would make it more likely that the citizens that illegals are supposed to be stealing jobs from will want to steal 'em back. Waving the "illegal alien" bloody shirt is how the management class distracts voters from the fact that business likesillegal's cheap labor and the downward pull it exerts on the status of other workers.
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