Keith Sonderling is now officially the US Secretary of Labor, and employers, naturally, might have questions for what that means for the workplace. The Senate confirmed him on September 30, cementing the role he has been serving in for the past several months. What does this mean for the Department of Labor? Fisher Phillips’ Government Relations Practice Group has put together four predictions on what we expect from Sonderling in the months to come.
Get Up to Speed
Sonderling is no stranger to the world of labor and employment policy. Before his roles in the current Trump administration, he worked as a management-side labor attorney, a commissioner and vice chair at the EEOC, and acting administrator of the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Wage and Hour Division. He had been serving as Deputy Secretary of Labor since March 2025, and took over as acting leader of the department in April 2026 when former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned.
Sonderling’s nomination to serve as Secretary of Labor was cheered by the business community, which supports his emphasis on compliance assistance, voluntary correction, and regulatory simplification. However, the Trump DOL has also beefed up enforcement in other areas, particularly when it comes to cracking down on potential fraud in the work-based immigration and visa system. Overall, under Sonderling, DOL is likely to be more receptive to employers that take documented, good-faith compliance steps and voluntarily correct issues....
A Wixom, Michigan, business accused of making false statements to obtain a loan has agreed to pay a settlement of just over $1.5 million after it was sued by the federal government, according to th...