Simply over a yr in the past, the White Home suffered an embarrassing defeat when three Democratic senators voted in opposition to advancing President Biden’s choose to run a key labor company, dealing a blow to the administration’s pro-labor agenda.
On Thursday, the administration and Senate Democrats tried to make sure that historical past wouldn’t repeat itself, solely this time the stakes have been even greater.
The event was the Senate affirmation listening to of Julie Su, who has served as acting labor secretary since March 11 and is Mr. Biden’s option to fill the job completely.
As with final yr’s affirmation battle, over the federal government’s prime enforcer of minimal wage and extra time legal guidelines, Ms. Su’s nomination represents a broader battle over office regulation, with enterprise teams chafing in opposition to Mr. Biden’s push to strengthen unions and improve staff’ rights and advantages.
And as soon as once more, there are indicators that the administration could fall quick, with no less than two Democrats and an unbiased wavering over whether or not to help Ms. Su. A vote of the Senate Committee on Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions is scheduled for next week.
In her testimony earlier than the committee on Thursday, Ms. Su largely related herself with the file of her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh — whom some Republicans and enterprise teams have held up as pragmatic, and whom Ms. Su served as deputy.
She mentioned she would search employers’ recommendation on enhancing employee security, and described the reverence she gained for small enterprise homeowners after watching her immigrant dad and mom function a dry cleaner and a pizza franchise.
Democrats argue that Ms. Su, who has robust backing from labor unions, can be a robust employee advocate and enforcer of provisions just like the minimal wage, security laws and restrictions on baby labor, in addition to the proper to affix unions.
“You want by way of a bully pulpit a secretary of labor who makes clear that she goes to face with working households, and she or he is ready to make use of the powers of the workplace to tackle company pursuits,” Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont unbiased who heads the labor committee, mentioned in an interview on Wednesday.
If confirmed, Ms. Su can be prone to lead the Biden administration’s effort to increase extra time pay for salaried staff. The administration is predicted to suggest a rule considerably elevating the wage threshold — at present about $35,500 — under which most staff routinely qualify for extra time.
These questioning the deserves of Ms. Su’s nomination have cited her file as California labor secretary and her help for the state’s labor laws to recommend that she is a risk to sure industries.
When Senator Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, the committee’s rating Republican, pressed on the listening to for assurances that she wouldn’t pursue laws that would hurt the franchise enterprise mannequin, Ms. Su reminded him that her dad and mom had been franchise homeowners and prompt that their companies “have been the explanation my sister and I have been capable of go to school.”
The Flex Affiliation, a commerce group representing a number of outstanding gig economic system corporations, has referred to as consideration to her help for a California measure that will have successfully categorized gig staff as staff, requiring corporations like Uber and DoorDash to pay them a minimal wage and extra time and to contribute to unemployment insurance coverage. (The regulation was later scaled again by a poll measure.)
The group circulated an electronic mail on Wednesday expressing concern that Ms. Su “doesn’t respect” that classifying gig staff as staff might trigger many to lose entry to such work.
Some labor consultants have disputed this declare, and a rule being finalized by the Labor Division on the best way to classify staff takes a distinct strategy from the California measure. However Kristin Sharp, the Flex Affiliation’s chief government, mentioned that the labor secretary would have discretion over the best way to perform the brand new rule and that “we wish to guarantee that particular person is goal in his or her views of nontraditional work.” The group has not taken an official stand on Ms. Su’s nomination.
Different enterprise teams have cited what they are saying is Ms. Su’s help for a California regulation organising a council to subject well being and security laws for fast-food eating places and create an industry-specific minimal wage.
“She has supported insurance policies that instantly assault our mannequin,” mentioned Matthew Haller, president of the Worldwide Franchise Affiliation, alluding to the fast-food measure. A poll measure subsequent yr will permit voters to determine whether or not to nullify the regulation. It’s unclear from a video the teams level to that she has particularly supported the regulation.
And Republicans and a wide range of enterprise teams have highlighted accusations that California issued billions in fraudulent unemployment insurance coverage claims whereas she was the state’s labor secretary in 2020. On the listening to, Mr. Cassidy recounted a report of a rapper securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent funds in California and boasting about it on a video.
Ms. Su has conceded that numerous claims have been improper. Mr. Sanders identified that the overpayments mirrored options of a federal program that the state merely administered, and that different states paid out a far greater proportion of fraudulent claims.
In latest weeks, a coalition of enterprise teams has erected billboards and run advertisements vital of Ms. Su within the house states of probably decisive senators, equivalent to Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Jon Tester of Montana, all of whom have to this point shunned backing her nomination.
The hassle is harking back to a business-backed marketing campaign in opposition to David Weil, whom Mr. Biden tapped to move the Labor Division’s Wage and Hour Division in 2021, and who had led the company in the course of the Obama administration. That nomination died on the Senate floor final yr after Mr. Manchin, Ms. Sinema and a 3rd Democratic senator, Mark Kelly of Arizona, declined to help him. (Ms. Sinema has since turn out to be an unbiased.)
Mr. Weil and his backers lamented the muted response from progressive teams on his behalf. This time, labor unions and different supporters are making a extra decided push. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, Liz Shuler, introduced on Wednesday {that a} coalition of unions would make a “six-figure purchase” of advertisements backing Ms. Su in states like Arizona and West Virginia and would urge native union members to contact their senators.
The United Mine Staff of America, which is influential in Mr. Manchin’s house state and sat out the battle over Mr. Weil, endorsed Ms. Su final week.
Emilie Simons, a spokeswoman for the president, mentioned that the White Home felt assured about Ms. Su’s affirmation and that it was working exhausting for each vote. She mentioned that Ms. Su had provided to fulfill with each senator on the labor committee and that she had met with senators from each events.
At a Senate Democratic lunch on Tuesday, Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, considered one of many extra reasonable Democrats on the labor committee, spoke up on Ms. Su’s behalf, noting her work on increasing apprenticeships as deputy secretary.
Mr. Hickenlooper mentioned in an interview that he had watched Mr. Tester, his undecided colleague from Montana, as he delivered his remarks and that he was “hopeful that we’ll get him.”
However Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema could also be tougher to wrangle, in accordance with veterans of such nomination fights. Mr. Manchin, who’s up for re-election subsequent yr in a Republican-leaning state, has but to fulfill with Ms. Su. Ms. Sinema is prone to face a problem from a labor-backed candidate in her re-election bid, giving her little incentive to accommodate unions.
Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Staff of America who advises a number of unions and has helped safe the nomination of many pro-labor officers through the years, mentioned that producing fashionable help for Ms. Su in Arizona and West Virginia may assist her trigger with Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema.
However, he added, “I feel there’s good cause to be apprehensive about each of them.”
Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.
