Julie Su Will Be An Excellent Deputy Secretary of Labor
PUBLISHED IN SPANISH IN LA OPINION (CLICK HERE TO READ)
Working people in the United States have faced a deadly assault by wealthy corporate interests and anti-worker politicians, with devastating effects: income inequality, erosion of the middle class, and workers seeking to improve their lives face an uphill battle when it comes to organizing and forming unions.
We need government officials who have experience in empowering marginalized workers and believe in pursuing justice for the common good of our nation. California Labor Secretary Julie Su is such a person, and I applaud President Biden’s selection for our nation’s next Deputy U.S. Labor Secretary. In partnership with U.S. Labor Secretary nominee Marty Walsh, Su can reverse the Trump administration’s anti-worker agenda and fulfill the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) mission of serving the nation’s workers.
A case in point is how the DOL will address the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers and their families. Under Su’s leadership, Cal-OSHA instituted on-the-job protections for workers affected by COVID-19 and her agency launched a statewide initiative to educate workers and employers in high risk industries about how to maintain healthy and safe workplaces. It is imperative that any recovery plan support and empower workers, especially workers of color who comprise a majority of the U.S. workforce in industries such as warehousing, meatpacking, truck driving, manufacturing, and sanitation. Su has the leadership experience and track record to tackle COVID-19 and other critically important issues on the federal level.
Su has always been a champion for working families. After 17 years as an attorney for vulnerable workers at a nonprofit civil rights organization, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, she began her decade of service in government.
First as California Labor Commissioner, Secretary Su brought clear vision and the ability to translate that vision into reality, rolling up her sleeves and working hands-on with her staff to uncover and diagnose problems and address them. She instituted new technology and cultivated strategic partnerships. She worked with the legislature to strengthen state laws, in order to enforce up-the-chain responsibility for wage theft and enhance the ability of workers to enforce wage judgments. She took her experience representing workers in claims before the Labor Commissioner and systematically put in place much needed improvements — training staff, streamlining procedures, and making the claims process more accessible for workers and more efficient and fair for all.
Under her leadership, the Labor Commissioner’s office heard almost 1,000 individual claims brought by truck drivers at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Despite tremendous pressure brought by the companies to reject these cases and arguments stating that these cases were too complex and too difficult for the Labor Commissioner’s office, Su insisted on giving drivers what they were entitled to under the law — a chance to be heard. She also transformed the way the Labor Commissioner’s office conducts field investigations and addresses retaliation against workers. Her strategic enforcement was good for employers and employees, and eliminated random scatter-shot inspections, focusing instead on bad actors and citations that put wages into workers’ pockets.
Secretary Su’s efficacy in making government work brought her to the attention of Governor Gavin Newsom, who appointed her California Labor Secretary in 2019. In this position, under her leadership, the Public Employment Relations Board presided over the first childcare bargaining effort allowing 40,000 childcare workers to unionize. She launched and expanded innovative workforce development programs to connect people to good jobs, expand apprenticeships, align education and training with employer needs, and invest in communities that face the greatest barriers to employment. And she worked with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor to launch a pilot program to connect homeless and precariously housed people to quality jobs with training.
But what makes Su different is not just her many accomplishments, policy chops, or management skills. What stands out to me is embodied in this interaction at an event I attended a few years ago. After Su gave a speech, a few port truck drivers approached her to introduce themselves. They thanked her for giving them a chance to be heard. She responded with gratitude, in Spanish, acknowledging their humanity and strength. Indeed, throughout her career, Su’s leadership has not only empowered some of California’s most vulnerable workers, including immigrants, women, and people of color, but as I have personally witnessed, she also genuinely cares about and connects with working people.
Julie Su is a strong leader with vision. She has a proven track record of improving how government functions to fulfill its mission and to ensure that those changes endure. She also won’t back off from the complex and difficult — instead, she finds solutions to these challenges as the only way to make government truly work for those who are usually left out. With her decades of experience fighting for and prioritizing working families, I am confident that as Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor, Su will continue to empower and defend workers throughout our nation so that they can exercise their rights and win dignity and respect in their workplaces.
Bio: Ron Herrera is the President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and International Vice President for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
