Skip to main content

President Trump Announces New Pick For Labor Secretary


That did not take long, did it?  Less than twenty four hours after Andy Puzder withdrew as President Donald Trump's nominee for Labor Secretary, President Trump announced earlier today that he has chosen Alexander Acosta as his new nominee for the position.

For those unfamiliar with Acosta, he brings a great deal of experience to the table.  He is currently the Dean of the Florida International University College of Law.  However, he has also served as a law clerk to Judge Sam Alito (currently a member of the United States Supreme Court) back when Judge Alito was on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (1994 - 1995), as a member of the National Labor Relations Board (2002 - 2003), and as an Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush (2003).

For those looking for a nominee with a 'pro-employer' track record such as Puzder, this pick might be a bit of a disappointment.  On the other hand, for those looking for a nominee with a 'pro-employee' track record such as Tom Perez (President Obama's last Labor Secretary), this pick might be a bit of a disappointment.  With that being said, I would certainly expect Acosta to make decisions and take actions that are more employer friendly, given President Trump's apparent tendency to favor employers.  As well, President Trump might have wanted a nominee that was a 'safer' option and that could clear the Senate without too much of a fight (or at least less controversy and partisanship than other nominees over the past few weeks).

At this point, Acosta will be required to submit responsive documents and answer questionnaires before he has his confirmation hearing.  I would expect this nomination to likely move quicker than it took to get Puzder's confirmation process going.  Given that we are almost a month into the new administration and still have an acting Labor Secretary in place, I would think Republicans and President Trump are eager to get Acosta confirmed so that they can start implementing their policies.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more