By the time you read this, Alexander Acosta, the 45th President’s nominee for Secretary of Labor, is likely to have been confirmed by the full Senate. He got narrow approval from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions by a 12-11 party line vote. I don’t blame the Democrats for opposing the Acosta nomination. In his televised hearing, he was as slippery as Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, dancing around questions and so exasperating Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) that she said, “This has really been frustrating. You have dodged every one of my questions. None of these were trick questions.”
Warren tried to pin Acosta down on overtime rules. Presently, workers who earn more than $23,660 do not qualify for time and a half, or overtime, pay. Someone who earns that little money is earning just over $11 an hour. They hardly qualify as “executives”. President Obama proposed that the ceiling be doubled, so that anyone earning under $47,320 could collect overtime. Four million more workers would have overtime protection. Acosta said he would take the lead from his boss, the 45th President, but indicated that the ceiling should be less than $47,000. He prefers something in the $33,000 range.
Will you stand up for workers, Elizabeth Warren asked him? That’s the purpose of the Labor Department. We have so many government departments who take care of corporations, but only the Labor Department takes care of the little person. Their regulations on occupational safety and health, pay fairness, and discrimination protect workers when employers are indifferent to their safety and welfare. But the 45th President’s “budget lite” proposes a 21 percent cut in the Department of Labor budget. It would eliminate some job training programs, including the Senior Community Service Employment Program, close Job Corps Centers, eliminate parts of the Office of Disability Employment Policy, and eliminate the Occupational Safety and Health Administration “unproven training grants”. This “America First” budget is disgraceful in its frequent use of words like “ineffective”, “unproven”, “inefficient”, and “eliminate”, as if there has been any study done, in the scant 60 days of this Administration, to prove inefficiency.
Indeed, while we weren’t paying much attention, 45 signed legislation that took away occupational safety protections for those working for federal contractors. President Obama required companies competing for federal contracts to disclose and fix safety violations, but the Senate voted to revoke the Fair Pay and Safe Workplace Rule. Some Republicans said it “wasn’t fair” that companies with workplace violations couldn’t get federal contracts. They would prefer that contractors who exploit and endanger their workers be allowed to bid on federal contracts without fixing their deficiencies. They want to reward contractors who exploit and endanger their workers.
Acosta doesn’t have the baggage that restaurant executive Andrew Puzder, did. 45’s first nominee for Secretary of Labor was such a hot mess that he withdrew from consideration. Acosta is a lifelong public servant and now dean of Florida International University’s law school, and chairman of the board of the US Century Bank. He has been confirmed by the Senate for other positions, including the National Labor Relations Board and Assistant US Attorney, and he is likely to be confirmed this time around.
Despite the fact that Acosta will be only the first Hispanic on the Trump cabinet, and the fact that his background – Harvard undergraduate and law degrees – seems impeccable, he is likely to be nothing but a disappointment for workers. Not only will he likely do less for overtime than President Obama required, but he will likely also limit rules that limit worker exposure to cancer-causing substances, and require financial advisors to work in the best interest of their clients. Essentially, he has indicated he will follow 45’s lead, and Trump is notoriously anti-regulation.
Acosta had to offer an apology for past behavior. As Assistant Attorney General, he had an employee who described conservatives as “real” Americans. The rest of us, apparently, are “commies and pinkos”. Never should have happened, he told the Senate committee. While the apology was appropriate, what, really, does he think of liberals? Will it affect his ability to enforce labor laws?
At least Acosta, unlike his boss, has enough integrity to apologize when he is wrong. But his shillyshallying testimony suggests that he doesn’t have many opinions of his own, only Trump’s. He doesn’t have a problem with the 45th President’s plans to shrink the Labor Department and he might support elimination of the Women’s Bureau. Acosta is bad news wrapped up in a slick package. His confirmation is a blow to working people.
