Labor Department Budget Strengthens Worker Protection Enforcement
The Obama administration today unveiled its plan to fulfill a promise to make America’s workplaces safer and protect workers’ rights.
During the Labor Department’s first-ever online discussion about its budget, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the department’s fiscal year 2010 budget, which totals $104.5 billion, will:
- Promote a “green” economic recovery;
- Begin to restore worker protection programs;
- Ensure that programs are transparent and accountable; and
- Promote diversity and stakeholder inclusion in every aspect of the department’s work.
As an example of the importance of worker protections, the budget allocates $1.7 billion in discretionary funds for worker-protection programs, a 10 percent increase from the prior year’s budget.
Wage and Hour Division Gets New Leader
Earlier this week, President Obama announced he intends to nominate Lorelei Boylan as administrator for the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and Thomasina Rogers as chairwoman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
The practices of the Wage and Hour Division under the Bush administration have come under fire recently. Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying the division, which is supposed to enforce minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws, had not enforced the laws, leaving low-income workers vulnerable to wage theft.
