In a relatively bipartisan vote of 68 to 29, the United States Senate on March 22 confirmed President Biden’s nomination of former Boston, MA, Mayor Marty Walsh to be the next Secretary of Labor. Mr. Walsh was subsequently sworn into office by Vice President Kamala Harris in a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., on March 23. Secretary Walsh, a one-time local union official, now takes over from Acting Secretary Al Stewart, who had been serving in that role pending confirmation of a new Labor Secretary.
The two-month wait for Secretary Walsh to assume the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) top leadership position, however, has not deterred the agency from already taking several formal actions to reverse course on priorities DOL initiated during the Trump Administration, including beginning the process to rescind important wage and hour regulations and revising the scheduling list used by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. These efforts are only likely to intensify now that Secretary Walsh has been sworn into office.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.