Confirmation Hearings Today on Solis for Labor Secretary
As Congress holds confirmation hearings on the nomination of Hilda Solis as secretary of labor this morning, we will get our first extended look at how she plans to return the U.S. Department of Labor to its primary mission of protecting the lives, wages and rights of working people.
Solis, a four-term U.S. House member from California’s 32nd District, was tapped last month by President-elect Barack Obama to be his secretary of labor. As today’s hearings before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee get under way, we will bring you updates.
As Obama said repeatedly throughout the campaign, the Bush administration and outgoing Labor Secretary Elaine Chao spent eight years attacking workers’ rights, strong workplace health and safety rules and unions while they carried the water for Big Business. Obama summed up the Chao regime this way:
Remember, this is supposed to be the Department Labor, not the Department of Management.
Wall Street Execs Get Grinch of the Year for Scrooging Workers
So many potential Grinches, but only one top Grinch spot to fill. So voters in the Jobs with Justice (JwJ) ninth annual Grinch of Year contest picked the entire lot of Wall Street executives whose unchecked corporate greed led to our nation’s economic disaster.
Each December, voters in the Grinch of the Year contest tap the CEO, corporation or politician who has done the most to “scrooge” workers. This year, in addition to greed-first CEOs, the field of Grinch candidates included anti-worker corporate lobbyist Richard Berman and soon to be out-of-office Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Popular write-in candidates included Blue Diamond Growers, American Airlines, United Airlines and that perennial favorite and 2002 winner, George W. Bush.
Over the years, especially under the Bush administration, the bank chiefs, hedge fund sorcerers and stock traders successfully lobbied for deregulation of the financial industry and, in turn, made record profits. But at a price. Millions of Americans lost good jobs and the nation’s economy is in the worst shape it’s been since the Depression. Now that the bottom has fallen out of the market, Wall Street is sending the bill to working people—the very ones who have been forced out of their homes, out of their jobs, out of their health care and out of their pensions by Wall Street’s greed.
Topping Bush’s List: A Rule Making It Harder to Regulate Toxic Substances
The nation’s voters may have cast their ballots overwhelmingly for change Nov. 4, but the Bush administration’s drive to weaken worker safety laws and reward its corporate friends is far from dead.
In November, we reported on the Bush administration’s last-minute assault on the public with a slew of end-of-term, no congressional-approval-needed regulations that could roll back or weaken rules on job safety, family leave, airline safety and pollution.
