“In an especially difficult economy, a responsive Department of Labor is essential to assisting and standing up for workers,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “Thanks to Secretary Solis, the Department of Labor is playing a central role in our nation’s economic recovery and laying the groundwork for a stronger middle class.”
More than seven million jobs have been cut over the past two years as the result of the financial collapse. From day one of the new Obama administration, Congress worked with the administration on a recovery plan to save the economy from total devastation. Economist from left to right agree that the Recovery Act added real growth to the economy and predicted that without these investments, more than a million more Americans would be out of work.
“While I came to lead the Department of Labor at a tumultuous and challenging time, I know that we have already made a real difference in the lives of America’s workers and their families,” said Solis. “We successfully implemented the Recovery Act and have seen how these investments have saved and created jobs in communities across the country.”
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act made historic investments in American workers and provided vital resources to families deal with the financial collapse. Among other things, the Department of Labor is responsible for administering increased unemployment benefits, health care premium support for laid off workers and significant investments made in workforce development programs including more than 300,000 summer youth jobs.
While the Department of Labor has been working on an ambitious agenda to promote economic recovery and train workers for the careers of the future, Solis’ department has also revamped agencies suffering from years of neglect.
“In a labor market where jobs are difficult to find and workers are glad to have the jobs they hold, it is too easy for workers to be exploited,” Solis continued. “We are strengthening our efforts to be vigilant in protecting the rights and safety of workers by hiring additional enforcement personnel and reviewing and improving our regulatory efforts.”
The Recovery Act and the department’s new priorities have allowed agencies to increase their capacity to protect workers’ health and safety, pay, and benefits after nearly a decade of cuts. For example, additional resources have allowed the department to hire an additional 250 investigators to ensure compliance with our nation’s wage and child labor laws.
“Especially in this economy, every dollar an employer steals from a worker is a dollar a family loses to pay for basic necessities,” Miller said.
Solis outlined five key priorities for her department:
(1) Significantly reduce fatalities resulting from the most common causes at workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and mining sites.
(2) Reduce the number of repeat violators of minimum wage, overtime, and workplace safety laws.
(3) Raise labor standards low-wage trading partners in order to create a more balanced playing field for American manufacturing employees. Create a program to help workers injured on the job return to work so that they can continue to be productive members of America’s workforce.
(4) Increase opportunities for America’s workers to acquire the skills and knowledge to succeed in a knowledge-based economy.
“The Department has outlined these high-priority goals to focus our agencies on the most critical needs affecting the safety, health, and economic security of workers,” Solis said.
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