America's Talking - Biden’s Labor Secretary Nominee Passes Committee, Faces Senate Fight

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

The U.S. Senate HELP Committee on Wednesday voted to send President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Labor to the Senate for consideration. The lawmakers voted in favor of Julie Su, who served as deputy secretary for the Department of Justice under the Biden administration. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulam, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Casey Harper, Washington D.C.'s Bureau Chiefs. Surprise, surprise. He's joining me again today. Been a busy week in the capital city, Casey. You know, a member of Joe Biden, President Joe Biden's cabinet, one that you don't really hear much about from the labor department. Joe Biden has nominated a candidate to be his labor secretary. Surprise, surprise. There's a little bit of controversy about it. covered it this week? Tell us about it. Yeah, I'm glad you wanted us to talk about this story because I think it's really important. So Julie Sue is Biden's nominee to lead the Labor Department. So of course, Labor Department handles things like employers, unions, how employees are treated, union negotiations, what kind of roles they have. And so the Senate help committee on Wednesday voted to send Biden's

nominee Julie Sue to the Senate for consideration. So it's coming against the interesting backdrop of something that we've been talking about, which is the debate over the debt ceiling, you know, all these congressional battles are intertwined because the goodwill can be eroded. If Biden puts his heels in on, you know, the debt ceiling battle and says, I'm not negotiating. And then malignes Republicans and says it's their fault and all the stuff. And then he says, oh, by the way, can you get my nominee through? It's like, well, hey, you know what? How about no? Because, you know, you kind of a rate, you took some of the goodwill. So these things all are interconnected. But you my asking, what's so controversial about Julie Sue? Well, she's, she's been working in the labor

department as under the secretary since 2021. So she has been confirmed once for a lesser role. But really, her record in California is what has raised a lot of questions. So, you know, Dan, you and I have talked in the past about the pro act. Yeah, why don't you refresh our readers' minds? Because that hasn't been front of the news recently. Certainly when President Joe Biden first took office, lots of talk about the pro acts. I want Let's just refresh our listeners of minds. Yeah, I mean, the Pro Act, as all these bills are, is huge and tons of money. It doesn't, but the big thing that's important to know about it is that it essentially will ban contract workers.

So it was things like, you know, things like being Uber or if you're, you know, your teenage daughter wants to help out the local yogurt shop for $500 a month with their Instagram. No, that's illegal. It's banning that kind of thing. When any kind of contract labor where you want to have a side hustle, which would become really popular. among millennials and Gen Z would really be outlawed by some of the things that Democrats are pushing pro-act and related legislation. But that, you know, for obvious reasons, maybe it has become really controversial. It didn't really get steam. But what we've seen, and this is why I think this nominee is important, is that often when Biden is and some of these more modern Democrats can't

pass legislatively, some of their agenda, they just go through the regulatory means, right? So you saw that with, you know, student loan cancellation, for example, there's not the political well to do that. Trump, or Biden just issues an edict to forgive student loans. And I think we could be seeing something similar here. The unions really support the Pro Act because contract workers can't, don't really pay union dues and they, they don't help the unions make money and negotiate or collectively bargain. So unions are very much against all this contract work, this gig economy as is called, which is really growing in popularity. And Sue, Julie Sue, when she was in California, supported basically measures to put the local state, the state equivalent, not exactly, but the state, the comparable

state measures in place that would be like the Pro Act to limit these contract workers. And so the question is, could this be a way that Democrats are trying to work around Congress and through regulatory means put in place restrictions on what has become really common now, driving for Uber. You know, we use, you know, we use freelance riders, Dan. I mean, many most contract workers that we'll deal with. As you mentioned, we, what we have about 30 full-time employees that are actual employees of the Center Square. But we also contract with freelance journalists. And all of the freelance journalists I talk to, they want to be freelance journalists because they can set their own hours. If you're a full-time employee of the Center Square, you know this. We have daily meetings throughout

the course of the day. When we're done recording this, we have a staff-wide meeting. A lot of these contract. They're not interested in the meetings and the administrative stuff. They just want to do the work. No, you're absolutely right, though. The union Democrat argument on this is you're taking advantage of workers. But my experience has been the same as yours. It's been that people want the freedom and flexibility. They want to have four different employers and they can work for them when they want and they don't have to ask off vacation days. If they just want to take a Tuesday off, they just don't do anything, right? They have that flexibility, especially, you know, maybe a stay-at-home mom wants to do something part-time but be flexible, go to soccer practice, or someone who's older, kind of retired,

but wants to pick up a little bit of work. It allows freedom and flexibility to do the kind of things you're talking about. Let's bring this back to Julie Sue then, Casey, as she's been advanced to the full Senate, the Senate does have a very slight Democratic majority. I mean, what do you expect there? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the crystal wall here. I mean, I don't, honestly, I don't know what to expect. It's really contra, it's a split thing. It's hard because the Senate did confirm her already. So some of these senators, might have to change their votes and vote against her. So they voted for her to be in the Department of Labor and then vote against her to lead it.

So I think that's going to be hard for some of them to swallow. But I do know that there's some consternation, some hesitation from some of the moderate Democrats and Republicans about this nominee. Just because Julie Sue is seen as a more far left pick because of her. When she's from California, right, I mean, California is kind of known for more liberal labor laws. And so she's seen as a more liberal pick. It might be too much to stomach. I put it at a 60-40 that she gets through, but that's really anybody's guest at this point. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at the center at square.com or Casey Harper.

I'm Dan McAulip. Please subscribe. Thank you for listening.