Appearing U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su introduces President Biden throughout a ceremony Monday on the Division of Labor. Biden signed a proclamation to determine the Frances Perkins Nationwide Monument in Maine.
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Kevin Dietsch/Getty Pictures North America
President Biden joined employees’ advocates on the U.S. Labor Division this week to designate a brand new nationwide monument in honor of FDR’s long-serving labor secretary, Frances Perkins, who famously established the minimal wage, the 40-hour work week, a ban on youngster labor, and myriad different protections.
The gathering was additionally an opportunity for the labor group to have fun one other considered one of their fierce advocates: Biden’s performing secretary of labor, Julie Su.
“[She] has led the Division of Labor in a means that Secretary Perkins can be rattling pleased with,” mentioned AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler in her introduction to Su. “She has taken the struggle to anybody who tries to take advantage of working folks. She has stood with our unions. She has turned DOL into a real home of labor.”
And but, Su’s legacy will probably be marked with an asterisk. For regardless of all of the labor wins that the Biden administration can declare, getting Su confirmed as labor secretary is not amongst them.
“It ought to have occurred two years in the past,” mentioned Shuler in an interview, including that Su, like her predecessor Perkins, is considerably of an unsung hero.
“That is typically how girls leaders find yourself in our historical past books — that their work is commonly behind the scenes. It is not acknowledged and appreciated prefer it needs to be.”
However even now, because the Biden period attracts to an in depth, Su’s staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill have not given up.
“I am doing the whole lot I can to get Julie Su confirmed as Secretary of Labor earlier than President Biden leaves workplace,” Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth wrote in an announcement to NPR. “It will symbolize lengthy overdue recognition of the unimaginable work she’s completed for years — with out the title she so clearly deserves.”
A protracted look forward to affirmation
Though Su was confirmed as deputy labor secretary alongside occasion traces in 2021, a number of senators who supported Su then weren’t on board along with her main the Labor Division upon the departure of Marty Walsh, who was seen as extra average, in early 2023.
By July of that yr, Republicans started stating the irony.
“Julie Su has now waited longer for affirmation by a senate of the identical occasion because the president than any earlier cupboard nominee on report,” mentioned Senate Republican Chief Mitch McConnell in flooring remarks.
It did not seem to matter to Su. As performing secretary, she led the division by an formidable agenda of rulemaking and enforcement, all whereas partaking in a collection of high-profile labor fights — on behalf of autoworkers, healthcare workers, flight attendants and longshoremen.
As Deputy Labor Secretary, Julie Su takes orders as she is educated to serve tables throughout a Be taught About Employee Experiences occasion on the Skal restaurant in Brooklyn on April 11, 2022 in New York Metropolis.
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“Secretary of Labor Julie Su has been terrific,” Harold Daggett, the president of the Worldwide Longshoremen’s Affiliation, mentioned on Fox Information in the course of the East Coast dockworkers’ strike in October. “She’s pulling down doorways. She’s making an attempt to cease this. She’s making an attempt to get us to … the place we will have truthful negotiations.”
Daggett referred to as off the strike two days later, after the 2 sides reached a deal on wages that gave dockworkers a 62% pay enhance over six years.
In an interview this week, Su mentioned the dearth of a affirmation vote didn’t maintain her again. Underneath her management, the Labor Division has collected over $1 billion for employees who skilled wage theft and issued new guidelines defending farm employees and miners. On January 13, one other rule requiring development corporations to supply security tools that correctly suits employees is about to take impact.
“For development employees who’re girls, that is going to assist save their lives,” says Su.
A final-minute affirmation push
Nonetheless, Su’s lack of affirmation has given Republicans a possibility to problem her about it on an ongoing foundation, as Biden and Republican officers have clashed over a federal regulation that usually limits how lengthy an official can serve in an performing capability.
“You at the moment are the longest serving performing secretary since earlier than the U.S. Civil Conflict — a report that was greatest left unbroken,” mentioned Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina when Su testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Might 1.
Missouri Rep. Eric Burlison selected sharper phrases, calling Su an “illegitimate secretary,” whereas Rep. Kevin Kiley of California referred to as on her to resign.
“This has gotten ridiculous. You have shattered all information as an unconfirmed nominee clinging to energy,” mentioned Kiley. “I believe each cheap individual this is aware of that it is flawed.”
The feedback piqued Su’s allies on Capitol Hill, together with Duckworth and Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. In latest weeks, they have been making an attempt to drum up the votes for her affirmation.
Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer poses for a photograph with Julie Su on the U.S. Capitol on March 28, 2023, shortly after she assumed the function of Appearing Labor Secretary.
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Simply final week, the Senate voted down the reconfirmation of Lauren McFerran, the Democratic chair of the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, primarily guaranteeing that President-elect Donald Trump could have a Republican majority on the five-member board quickly after he takes workplace. Impartial Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joined Republicans in voting no.
However in her assertion to NPR, Duckworth indicated that she had secured 50 votes for Su, writing “it will be a disgrace if the Senate failed to substantiate her now that we’ve got the votes.”
If that is the case, the problem now could be getting flooring time for a vote — really, no less than two votes. Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer would wish to schedule a procedural vote and permit time for debate earlier than a affirmation vote could possibly be held. Schumer’s workplace has not responded to questions on whether or not he plans to do this.
The Senate is scheduled to adjourn on Dec. 20, with a brand new Senate sworn in early subsequent yr.
What’s subsequent for the Labor Division
Of larger concern to Su in the meanwhile is what comes subsequent for the Labor Division. A federal rule aimed at protecting workers from excessive heat stays open for public remark. Su doubts the rule will probably be completed below the subsequent administration.
“It is unconscionable. Staff are dying in development, in farm work, additionally in indoor jobs as a result of it is too scorching,” she says. “Completely preventable.”
Su says she has exchanged messages with Trump’s nominee to succeed her on the Labor Division, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a congresswoman from Oregon who misplaced her reelection bid final month.
Though a lot has been product of Chavez-DeRemer’s assist for the PRO Act, a invoice aimed toward making it simpler for employees to unionize, it is unclear the place she stands on many different insurance policies prioritized by the Biden administration, together with expanding overtime protections to hundreds of thousands extra employees and limiting who might be categorized as an impartial contractor.
If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer will probably be serving a president who has been hostile toward unions and who campaigned on a promise of reducing laws — at the same time as he gained the assist of enormous swaths of working-class voters and union members with guarantees of prosperity.
Su can also be holding these folks in thoughts.
“Our hope is that for the issues that we have been in a position to get completed, that they are in a position to final in order that working folks really feel the advantages. And for the issues we weren’t in a position to get completed, that the [Trump] administration does construct on that basis,” she says.
“We will see how a lot the said dedication to employees is actually true.”
