Party of “No” (no leaders-no ideas-no morals) Blocks Obama's Department of Labor Appointee

by Tracy Kurowski

Nine months has passed since the start of the Obama administration, and Republicans continue to block the appointment of M. Patricia Smith as Labor Department Solicitor, the nation’s top cop prosecuting labor law violations.

M. Patricia Smith was nominated for Labor Department Solicitor in the spring, and her confirmation hearing was held last May. Yet, after the Senate HELP Committee finally voted to approve her nomination on October 7, Republican Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming (the country’s least populous state) filed a procedural motion to put a hold on her nomination and delay the appointment.

At a time when wage theft among low-wage workers is rampant, this is no fluff appointment. On September 2, 2009, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,” the largest survey of low-wage workers ever conduced was released, revealing widespread abuse of low – wage workers. Twenty-six percent of those surveyed reported they were not paid the minimum wage, while seventy-six percent said they were not paid overtime wage as required by law.

The study also found that sixty-eight percent of those surveyed reported at least one pay-related violation had occurred in the previous week.  Women – especially minorities – were far more likely to suffer minimum wage violations, and African Americans had a violation rate triple that of white workers. Worker compensation law violations were also common as was employer retaliation when workers complained or reported the abuse.

Though the report focused on large urban areas of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the investigation into child labor and other labor law violations at the Agriprocessors Plant in Postville in 2008, proves that Iowa is not immune to such practices.

To address these types of abuses against the working poor, as New York State’s labor commissioner, Smith implemented New York Wage Watch, a program designed to work with labor unions and groups advocating on behalf of low-wage immigrants, to help uncover wage and hour violations. As a consequence, New York State increased its recovery of wage underpayments by thirty-seven percent. It also increased its collection of fines against wage law violators by twenty percent.

Smith executed her job so well that she received accolades from Kenneth Adams, president of the Business Council of New York State, the state’s leading business group. Adams wrote to the Senate HELP Committee in support of Smith’s nomination saying that Smith’s work enforcing labor laws in New York State was “thorough, fair and judicious.”

Compare that to former President Bush’s Labor Secretary Elaine Chao who referred to affirmative action and minimum wage laws as a hindrance to “free enterprise.”  Under Chao’s initiative, the Labor Department focused on “compliance assistance” and other voluntary reporting requirements for companies, instead of actual labor law enforcement. The modus operandi of the Department of Labor for the subsequent eight years had been to let the fox guard the hen house.

Which brings us back to Smith and rampant wage violations.  

Bush used a recess appointment to bypass the Senate’s blockage of Eugene Scalia (yes – that Scalia’s son) as Labor Solicitor in January 2002. Scalia was best known for fighting workplace injury cases on behalf of employers, referring to repetitive motion injuries, a well documented and often highly debilitating form of injury, as a myth invented by doctors.

If the Senate cannot muster the sixty votes necessary to override Senator Enzi’s hold, I would think that Obama would take a play from Bush’s book and make the recess appointment. When workers are suffering high unemployment, wage cuts and continued layoffs, wage law violations in this country must be prosecuted.

Tracy
Kurowski is currently AFL-CIO Community Services Liaison at the United
Way of the Quad City Area. She has been active in the labor movement
for ten years, first as a member of AFSCME 3506, when she taught adult
education classes at the City Colleges of Chicago. She moved to the
Quad Cities in 2007 where she worked as political coordinator with the
Quad City Federation of Labor, and as a caseworker for Congressman
Bruce Braley from 2007 – 2009.

Tracy Kurowski writes a labor update every Monday on Blog for Iowa