The U.S. Department of Labor enters the Biden administration’s second calendar year with several vacancies in its leadership ranks and an intensifying confirmation battle over the pick to be the nation’s top wage-hour regulator.
Five members of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh‘s high command were confirmed last year, in addition to an independent inspector general, but seven Senate-confirmed positions remain vacant, including posts leading crucial enforcement agencies.
Nominations are pending in the Senate for all but one of those posts, raising the possibility that Walsh’s leadership team could be almost fully complete in coming months. But Senate confirmations are almost always a drawn-out affair, and prolonged delays could frustrate Walsh’s ability to execute on an agenda aimed at helping workers and boosting pandemic economic recovery, former agency officials and legal observers said.
“It’s not just a political exercise where we’ve got some empty chairs,” said John Pallasch, who ran DOL’s Employment and Training Administration during the Trump administration. “It actually has real-world impact on people who are waiting for those services, who need those services.”
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