Portside

The union leader turned labor secretary has taken a hands-on approach rarely seen from sitting cabinet members.

The pending rulemakings involve legal questions that are frequently tested in Dept. of Labor investigations and in class actions pitting plaintiff’s attorneys and unions against management: contractor status, joint employment and tipped wages.

“There’s a litany of things the Trump administration has done that we have to undo,” said Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), who serves on the House Education and Labor Committee and is a top contender for labor secretary in the Biden administrtation.

Bernie Sanders is reportedly making a bid to be the secretary of labor in a potential Biden administration. That’s good news. The labor secretary has broad latitude to raise worker standards — and Bernie could use the bully pulpit.

Activists called it a “No Labor Day” event, as they unveiled a report Monday finding appalling diversity statistics within apprenticeship programs run by Illinois trade unions.

A U.S. District judge ruled Thursday that U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta committed a crime in 2007

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that under the Trump administration’s proposed rule, employers would pocket nearly $6 billion in tips earned by tipped workers each year.

The wage gap between men and women in the U.S. shrunk drastically in the 1980s and early 1990s, as women joined the workforce in increasing numbers and earned degrees at higher rates, but the gap has remained relatively stagnant since the mid- to late 1990s. There's one major detriment to financial equality that women can't seem to shake: motherhood.

What was intended to be a rule protecting workers’ rights has been stopped from taking effect by a judge’s order that was solely focused on the rights of union-busters.