Quick: Who’s the secretary of labor? You probably couldn’t have told me before you saw the headline on this article. And that’s a problem this Labor Day, nearly 18 months after Marty Walsh was confirmed as labor secretary to the most pro-labor president since Harry Truman.
I wish I could tell you that Walsh is one of those guys who likes to work quietly, out of the spotlight, because he can get more done that way, but the blunt truth is that Walsh hasn’t gotten all that much done at the Labor Department.
The Labor Department is supposed to issue a proposed regulation raising the wage ceiling under which virtually every employee qualifies for overtime pay. That isn’t out. It’s supposed to issue an add-on to a weak Trump-era regulation protecting investors from self-dealing by brokers who handle their retirement accounts. That isn’t out. It’s supposed to issue a proposed regulation extending to miners worker protections from airborne silica that the Obama administration enacted in a 2016 regulation. That isn’t out. It’s supposed to issue a proposed regulation barring employers from misclassifying employees as independent contractors. That isn’t out. It’s supposed to issue a regulation to update and strengthen protections under the Davis-Bacon Act requiring federal projects to pay prevailing wages (i.e., union scale). That isn’t out, though in this case there is a proposal, and the final rule is expected soon.
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