Go ahead and Su[e]: The Deputy Takes the Lead at DOL

“I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.”

– Jack Benny (accepting an Emmy)

For those of you that don’t know, Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh is leaving his job this month to become the player rep for the hockey player’s union (go figure) and presumably to make some real money. Yesterday, Deputy Secretary of Labor Julie Su was nominated by the President to fill Walsh’s shoes. She had been pushed for the top jo at the start of the administration, and now under pressure from Asian American interests in the Democratic party who are unhappy about the lack of cabinet level representation, Biden has naturally turned to Ms. Su for the top position.

There can be little doubt now she is qualified. She just spent two years in the second position. She is a Harvard Law educated attorney, worked as public interest lawyer doing wage and hour law, was the head of California Governor Jerry Brown’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DSLE”) and then was Governor Gavin Newsom’s Secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency.

Ms. Su is not the first female Secretary of Labor. That distinction belongs to Frances Perkins who was the first Secretary of the Department. Nor is she the first Asian-descent Secretary of Labor. That distinction belongs to Elaine Chou who served under President George W. Bush. But she thought to be one of the more pro-union nominees to the office, and she has curried favor with organized labor to get where she is. In 2021 she was confirmed as Deputy in a largely partisan vote of 50-47 in the Senate.

Her Republican critics worry about her alleged pro-labor bias, and her role in pushing new independent contractor rules which they claim are unfriendly to the gig economy. Senator Bill Cassidy, the ranking Republican on the Senate Labor Committee, and not one of the “crazies”,  says Ms. Su bears responsibility for poor oversight of the California Unemployment Insurance Office when it was plagued by fraudulent unemployment claims during the pandemic. Wikipedia, my source for all human knowledge, says there was (at least to me) an astonishing  up to 31 billion dollars in fraudulent claims paid during her watch. We will see where that leads in the Senate hearings.

My thoughts on what her nomination brings is that it is likely to be more continuity. Ms. Lu was already number two. She likely will be the acting Secretary during the nomination process. And given the Senate partisan composition, I would expect her to be confirmed. She has been through the fire once already. From her background, she has an independent knowledge base about wage and hour law, unlike many labor secretaries in the past. And her prior experience in the People’s Republic of California enforcing the state’s rather draconian wage and hour law, leads me to expect she will be a forceful proponent for vigorous wage and hour enforcement.