President Biden’s nomination of David Weil as head of the Labor Department’s all-important Wage and Hour Division died on April 7 when Weil voluntarily withdrew his name from consideration.
From Weil’s vantage point, the confirmation process following his June 3 nomination had been long, drawn-out and wholly dispiriting.
Having earlier served in the job during the Obama administration, Weil came under ferocious attack by business interests and Republicans from the start, because they knew of his commitment to enforcing the labor laws on the books and the court rulings that have upheld them.
The principal reason they didn’t want me in this role is that I had a record of enforcing the law.
— David Weil
At the end, his abandonment by three Senate Democrats sealed his fate. “I could see there was no pathway” to confirmation, Weil told me recently.
The public announcement of Weil’s withdrawal came the day that Ketanji Brown Jackson won confirmation to the Supreme Court, so it went almost unnoticed.
But it deserved to be more widely marked, because the loss of his nomination points to a greater setback for many battles for worker rights — among them the fight for fair pay and the right to unionize, and efforts against wage theft and workplace discrimination.
Moreover, Weil’s loss was a blow for Biden, who is certainly the most pro-labor president in decades, perhaps ever.
Weil was superbly qualified to resume leadership of the Wage and Hour Division. He’s an expert in labor law...
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