Public Employee Press

The World of Work
By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Unions applaud Obama’s choice for labor secretary

Workers’ rights and protections will be more vigorously enforced by President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the U.S. Labor Dept., eight-year Congress member Hilda L. Solis of California.

The daughter of Latino immigrants with union jobs, Solis had a 97 percent pro-worker voting record in Congress, where she supported legislation to make union organizing easier, pushed to raise the minimum wage and criticized free-trade agreements. She wants to improve job training for military veterans and the unemployed.

Gerald W. McEntee, president of DC 37’s parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said she “understands that America’s economy needs to work for everybody, not just the captains of industry.”

AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said Solis “will return the Labor Department to its core missions of defending workers’ basic rights,” a welcome change after eight years of lax enforcement of overtime, minimum wage and child labor laws under the Bush administration.