Free Republic

Just months after being slimed by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Mitt Romney supporter and businessman Frank VanderSloot was informed that he was going to be audited not only by the Internal Revenue Service, but by the Labor Department as well. VanderSloot’s saga was told by columnist Kimberley Strassel in the Wall Street Journal last July. In April 2012, VanderSloot, who served as the national co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential finance committee, was one of eight Romney backers to be defamed as ”wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records” in a post on the Obama campaign’s website. The post, entitled “Behind the...

A national freeze on most new enrollments into the federally funded Job Corps training program will delay the efforts of low-income teenagers and young adults in Connecticut and around the country to get their lives on track. One group estimated that the freeze, in place until July, will affect about 250 Job Corps candidates in Connecticut. The U.S. Department of Labor suspended new enrollment Jan. 28, citing cost overruns that critics have blamed on mismanagement. Job Corps, which began in the early 1960s, is a free education and training program serving mostly high school dropouts. The program helps participants get...

I'm told that Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis will step aside soon, making her the five member of the administration to leave the cabinet (or announce her deparature) since the election. Only two of these departures -- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner -- are white and male. Lisa Jackson, who's leaving the EPA, is African-American, and Solis was the first Hispanic woman to take charge of Labor.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The damage caused by Hurricane Sandy sent U.S. jobless claims soaring by 78,000 in the week ended Nov. 10 to an 18-month high of 439,000, according to the latest government figures. A Labor Department official on Thursday said claims surged in the eastern parts of the country that laid in the path of the storm....

America’s rich are not interested in seeing their taxes go down, United States Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis claimed before a large crowd of college students in Washington DC late last month. “The Republicans in the Senate blocked a vote so we can tax the higher income people, who really don’t even want a tax break,” Solis said, speaking at the annual Campus Progress conference. Solis was referring to a piece of legislation Democrats have repeatedly brought up in the Senate this year that would ensure that income earned through capital gains would be taxed at least 30 percent. So...

In today's episode of "My Government Scares The Crap Out Of Me", let's take a look at the Department of Labor's "environmental justice" program. First, before we get started, I thought it would be really, really swell to hear from an expert on "environmental justice". So, without further ado, I bring you Chairman Obama's former "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones. Take it away, Vannie! *********************************** "Mother Jones: Can you briefly explain what 'environmental justice' means to you? Van Jones: Environmental justice is the movement to ensure that no community suffers disproportionate environmental burdens or goes without enjoying fair environmental benefits."...

This Report highlights for our stockholders some of the events taking place in Washington DC and the consequences of those developments on our profit picture this year. We believe this is an exciting time of opportunity for our sharpened pike business and believe our timely entry into the business of providing citizens with a means of demonstrating their displeasure with their government and our convenient locations in Washington, D.C. and around the country foretells a banner year for Acme and its stockholders.

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves. The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land. Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.” “Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read,...

Unrest is simmering in some quarters of the Washington news universe regarding changes in the way the Department of Labor (DOL) manages its pre-release media “lockups” on sensitive data like weekly jobless benefits and unemployment. For years, journalists participating in the lockups have shown up at DOL at the appointed time, then entered a limited-access area to receive the new data and prepare news stories for release as soon as official embargoes end. The system insures that major news organizations get the data as soon as possible and allows journalists covering the release get a jump on providing analyses and...

Government-financed political propaganda at the Department of Labor is causing discomfort for some employees. Signs posted in at least 20 DOL elevators depict Secretary Hilda Solis carrying a bullhorn and rallying alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Free Beacon has learned. Next to the pictures is a quote from Solis that reads in part: “We all march in our own way.” “Whether we take to the streets or simply do our work with integrity and commitment here at the U.S. Department of Labor… we are all marching toward the same goals: safe workplaces, fair pay, dignity of the job, secure...

Let’s establish this right out of the gate so as not to confuse issues: It is wrong when corporations use child labor. Forgetting the law for a moment, whether it is here in the U.S. or overseas, children are children, and corporations should not exploit children. Got it? With that said, this is not about corporations, this is about families and farms. More specifically, family farms and the overreach of the federal government. For centuries, even before there was Willie Nelson and FarmAid, farming throughout the world (including here in the United States) has largely been a family affair. That...

The Labor Department today announced that it had approved Trade Adjustment Assistance for the former employees of the bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra. That means all of the firm’s 1,100 ex-employees are eligible for federal aid packages, including job retraining and income assistance. The department has valued packages at about $13,000 a head.

It's not as if we haven't already learned what a failure Barack Obama's green-tech stimulus has been in creating jobs. Solyndra collapsed with over a half-billion in taxpayer money out the door, wiping out a thousand jobs with it. After spending $17.2 billion of the $38.6 billion allocated for green-jobs stimulation, the programs have created a total of just over 3500 jobs, for a price tag of $4.85 million each. Now the Inspector General at the Department of Labor has recommended the shutdown of a green-jobs training program that has only placed 15% of its participants: A $500 million green...

America’s Job Creators Are About To Be Sucker Punched & You Have Until Wednesday To Comment September 19th 2011   ·   You need to act before Wednesday. At a time when the Obama Administration is clamoring to save or create jobs, his Department of Labor is about to sucker punch America’s job creators with an unprecedented regulatory overreach—all to curry more favor with union bosses.On Wednesday, the public comment period will be closing on a Department of Labor proposal that the majority of America knows nothing about and even fewer understand. If enacted as drafted, the union cronies within the...

They're known derisively as "union busters." But the consultants who advise employers on how to avert union organizing or collective bargaining demands soon may have to reveal a good deal more about themselves and their operations. This past Tuesday, June 21, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), to the delight of labor officials, published a proposal in the Federal Register to expand the circumstances forcing companies to disclose information about their advisers. Because the rule change would not apply to union consultants, it appears to be motivated heavily by politics. The proposal, whose public comment period ends August 22, was...

The Daily Caller has obtained two photographs from inside the Department of Labor (DOL) elevators where Obama administration employees have again defaced photos equating gay rights with civil rights. A worker or group of workers in the DOL ripped off a portion of these posters that compared gay rights to African American civil rights.Pictured prominently on the poster is Bayard Rustin, an openly gay civil rights advocate and labor leader. Next to Rustin’s photo is a quote from him: “To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.” Underneath Rustin’s quote is a description of him:...

As the Department of Labor's top cop, Paul Tiao would have been uncomfortably close to the unions he would investigate. That's why he didn't get the job. Last Monday on May 9 President Obama withdrew Tiao's name from consideration as DOL Inspector General (IG) rather than subject him to a Senate Judiciary Committee grilling or install him via one-year recess appointment. Critics had noted that Tiao, though an experienced federal and state prosecutor and most recently special counsel to FBI Director Robert Mueller, was more an ethnic politician than an efficiency manager. More than a decade ago he co-founded...

  When Department of Labor Solicitor M. Patricia "Trisha" Smith testified at a Senate confirmation hearing more than a year and a half ago, her track record as New York State Commissioner of Labor, and her comments about it, prompted leading Republicans to postpone action for several months. Their fears in hindsight appear well-founded. An article appearing in last Friday's Wall Street Journal reported that DOL staff, under Smith's supervision, a couple months earlier had issued a draft "operating plan" to dramatically step up enforcement against private-sector employers likely to have committed unfair labor practices. The details of the...

  The abrupt departure by Andrew Stern this spring as president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), after 14 years on the job, blindsided a lot of observers. After all, he was a shadow cabinet member of the Obama administration. Reported ongoing federal investigations into two unrelated, and possibly illegal, financial arrangements may shed light on his motives. The Associated Press ran a story last Tuesday stating the FBI and the Department of Labor have been interviewing persons potentially knowledgeable about the possibility that Stern: 1) received unauthorized funds from a book he'd authored several years ago; and...

Yet more proof that the DOJ doesn't want whites and Asians, when they are the discriminated-against minority, to be protected under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. On July 13, the Department of Justice blew an opportunity to put to rest the issue of whether they are willing to enforce the Voting Rights Act in a race-neutral fashion by objecting to a request by a proven discriminator to further discriminate. I wrote about this pending request at Pajamas Media. At the time I noted: Bottom line, if this Justice Department was truly interested in enforcing the law in a...

Most Americans are in favor of enforcing the law, but the Obama administration only wants to enforce the laws they agree with. Why won't they enforce the law that says undocumented workers can't work or live here? In this video ad, Obama's DOL Secretary Hilda L. Solis says, "Every worker in America has the right to be paid fairly whether documented or not"... The ad displays a telephone number which Solis touts as "free and confidential." The video is here.

Article at Link: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100424/NEWS03/4240368/-1/rss

On December 7th, the entirety of the Department's semiannual agenda was made available online at www.dol.gov/asp/regs/agenda.htm and at www.regulations.gov. The regulatory agenda is a listing of all the regulations the Department of Labor expects to have under active consideration for promulgation, proposal, or review during the coming one-year period. Live Q&A Sessions We will host a series of live Q&A sessions with our leadership to answer your questions about our regulatory agenda: View the Replay - Secretary SolisView the Replay - Occupational Safety and Health AdministrationTuesday, 9 a.m. EST - Office of Labor Management StandardsTuesday, 10:30 a.m. EST - Wage...

The federal minimum wage is set to increase later this month as the job market shows signs of further decay. The federal minimum wage will go to $7.25 an hour on July 24 from its current level of $6.55, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The impact will be felt in 29 states, and many of them plan to match the federal minimum when it goes through.

Michael Vick is in the home stretch of his prison sentence, getting ready to head to home confinement and then hopefully return to the NFL so he can earn some cash to pay off creditors as part of his bankruptcy plan. But if the U.S. Department of Labor's complaint has any validity, Vick is dumber than we thought. Yes, he's even dumber than a person who would flush tens of millions of dollars worth of NFL salaries and endorsement deals down the toilet to operate an illegal dog-fighting ring. CNBC reports that "The U.S. Department of Labor filed complaints Wednesday...

WASHINGTON (AP) — California Rep. Hilda Solis won confirmation Tuesday as President Barack Obama's labor secretary, giving the agency a decidedly pro-worker tilt after years of business-friendly leadership under the Bush administration. The 80-17 vote ended more than a month of delays prompted by GOP concerns over Solis' work for a pro-union organization, and later, revelations about her husband's unpaid taxes. But Democrats said Solis had put to rest any questions and called her a powerful advocate for working families.

The Labor DepartmentÂ’s official unemployment rate hit 7.6% in January, and its jump from 4.9% a year earlier marks the largest annual increase in the unemployment rate since 1975. But the governmentÂ’s broader measure of unemployment hit a more stunning level: 13.9%, up from 13.5% in December. The figure, which largely accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or canÂ’t find full-time jobs, is the highest since the Labor Department started the data series in 1994. How does the government calculate two unemployment rates? The widely followed figure is based on people who do not have a job,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama pledged on Friday to repeal labor laws enacted under his Republican predecessor George W. Bush that unions have long contended favored employers over workers. Obama, who won significant backing from trade unions in his Democratic presidential campaign, said there could not be a strong middle class, the focus of his economic recovery plan, without a strong labor movement. "I believe we have to reverse many of the policies toward organized labor that we have seen over the past eight years, policies with which I have sharply disagreed," Obama told a gathering at the White...

U.S. employers slashed payrolls by 524,000 in December, driving the unemployment rate to its highest level in almost 16 years, a government report showed on Friday, suggesting that the year-long recession was deepening. The Labor Department said the national unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent in December, the highest level since January 1993.

"Earlier today, Americans for Limited Government announced that it had formally asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to launch an immediate investigation into a well-orchestrated plan by top union officials, environmentalists, and political interest groups to raid worker pension funds in order to push the green agenda."

President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the Labor Department has close ties to U.S. communist and socialist organizations and has sent representatives to functions organized by national parties for both ideologies. The pick of Rep. Hilda L. Solis, D-Calif., a Congressional Hispanic Caucus leader considered to be one of the most reliably pro-union voices in the House, was hailed as a victory by communist and socialist leaders...... An article this past weekend in the Communist Party USA's People's Weekly World Newspaper welcomed Solis and quoted known socialist leaders calling her a "great choice" and an "outstanding" selection with "a life-long...

The U.S. Labor Department said Friday it is investigating possible wage violations by a Maryland-based pool-management firm that abruptly closed last week, leaving hundreds of lifeguards — including many European students — unpaid. Kensington-based Century Pool Management provided summertime lifeguards for 600 pools in Maryland, northern Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, according to the company's Web site.

There is no denying that the job market is weak. The Department of Labor has reported that 432,000 people filed for unemployment benefits in the past week - making this the fifth straight week that jobless claims topped the 400,000 mark. And so far this year, there has been a loss of 463,000 jobs. Yet, some are starting to see light at the end of the tunnel on the job front. Economists at the University of Michigan said in a report released yesterday that 900,000 jobs will be added next year and that 2.6 million more will be created in...

State and local governments are in a budget crisis. But you wouldn't know it from public payrolls. They've added 338,000 employees since a credit crunch began taking a toll on the economy a year ago, far more than the 195,000 in the prior 12 months, according to Labor Department data. The hiring binge comes even as states grapple with budget deficits totaling $48 billion in fiscal year 2009, which started July 1. Private-sector employers have shed 418,000 jobs in the past year amid fears that the economy was headed for a recession.

The Labor Department’s seven-year effort to improve financial reporting and disclosure by unions could come to a screeching halt once President Bush leaves office. Sen. Barack Obama’s support for ending federal oversight of the Teamsters is the clearest indication yet of how a Democratic administration would treat labor unions. Both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton wooed the Teamsters in hopes of securing its coveted endorsement. But only Obama went so far as to say that government oversight had “run its course.” The union endorsed Obama in February. Since then, Obama’s ties to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa have grown stronger....

U.S. employers hired workers at a middling pace in November, according to a report that did little to ease fears among some analysts that economic growth is close to stalling. The Labor Department reported that employment at nonfarm businesses rose by 94,000 jobs in November. That followed revised increases of 170,000 in October and 44,000 in September; those gains were initially estimated at 166,000 and 96,000, respectively. The unemployment rate stayed at 4.7% for the third-consecutive month. Service industries such as health care, leisure and hospitality picked up jobs. But businesses related to the housing bust -- including construction, mortgage...

(CNN) – Bill Clinton's former Secretary of Labor issued a blistering criticism of the former president's wife on Monday, accusing her of "not telling the truth" on Social Security and taking marching orders from her top pollster. Reich, who has not endorsed a candidate but has written glowingly of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in recent months, ripped Hillary Clinton for saying Sunday that Iowa voters will have a choice "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk." "I don’t get it," Reich wrote on his blog. "If there’s anyone in the race whose history shows unique...

Health care, education and financial services--if you're looking for work in the coming decades, these are the fields to get into. What to avoid? The usual suspects. According to the projections by the U.S. government, manufacturing jobs are expected to decline by more than 5% by 2014 as production moves overseas. Same goes for textile workers, such as sewing machine operators, who will see a 36% drop in employment. Technology will kill off more office positions, such as file clerks. They'll see a 36% drop in their ranks by 2014. Digital cameras will zap the manual photo processing industry by...

When Congress comes back from its August recess in September, one of the quiet controversies lurking in the wings will move to center stage as Democrats resume their campaign to slash funding for the Office of Labor Management Standards in the Department of Labor. While this may sound like typical Washington insiders baseball, the function and operations of OLMS are anything but inconsequential — monitoring the financial disclosure compliance of labor unions. Because OLMS has been the Bush administration's chief tool for ramping up union financial accountability standards, it appeared in the Democrats' crosshairs even before their new majority in...

The Office of Labor Management Standards, the federal government’s union watchdog agency, has recouped more than $100 million for American workers since 2001. But the increased oversight on unions hasn’t gone over well with liberals in Congress, who are trying to slash the agency’s budget for next year. Last month, pro-labor Democrats in the House successfully fought back a Republican-led challenge to restore $2 million to the agency’s budget. The Senate will take up the bill when Congress returns from its August recess. The liberals’ revolt against the Department of Labor agency comes on the heels of an increased crackdown...

PORT HUDSON, La. - A literacy test used to screen Georgia-Pacific Corp. applicants discriminated against blacks because blacks were far more likely than whites to fail the test, the federal Labor Department said. Utility workers at a paper mill don't need to read well, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Georgia Pacific disagrees, but has stopped using the nationally standardized Test of Adult Basic Education's literacy exam and will pay $749,076 in back pay and interest to 399 black people who applied over the past two years, spokeswoman Patty Prats-Swanson said Wednesday. "We may not agree but we have...

Although Yates County farmer Maureen Marshall hires her immigrant workers through the state's Department of Labor, her farm has been raided by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement twice in the past 10 years. “We document everyone and do everything above the law but we have a system that's broken,” Marshall said. Marshall and other members of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigrant Reform have been pushing for a guest worker program reform for more than a decade. This year, she thought that at last the U.S. Congress was close to passing legislation that could help farmers across the nation. “We've been working...

June 21, 2007 (Computerworld) -- WASHINGTON -- That explosive H-1B YouTube video offering advice on how to hire foreign workers instead of Americans has gotten the attention of U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa), and Rep. Lamar Smith, (R-Texas), who called it evidence of abuse of the visa program. Both men want a federal investigation and are seeking answers from the law firm that posted the original video on YouTube. In a letter to U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Grassley and Smith characterized the video as "exposing the blatant disregard for American workers and deliberate attempt to bring in...

The Talk Shows Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and his Democratic challenger, state treasurer Robert Casey. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and his primary challenger, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey; actress and animal rights activist Bo Derek. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Rep. Christopher Shays,...

Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means "Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation." Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation...

WASHINGTON (AP) The Labor Department says employers added 128,000 jobs in August, pushing the national unemployment rate down a notch to 4.7 percent.

DENVER – A Saudi Arabian couple accused of keeping an Indonesian woman as a virtual slave have agreed to pay her $64,000 in back wages, according to a court document. If approved by the court, the deal filed Tuesday in federal court would settle a lawsuit by the Labor Department against Homaidan Al-Turki and Sarah Khonaizan and avoid a federal trial. State and federal charges alleged the couple required the woman to cook, clean and care for the couple's five children in suburban Aurora for little or no pay from 2000 to 2004. Prosecutors have also alleged that Al-Turki sexually...

HONOLULU -- The number of people employed in Hawaii grew by 24,400, or 4 percent, during the 12-month period ending in January, according to state figures released Friday. Department of Labor and Industrial Relations director Nelson B. Befitel said Hawaii has now posted the lowest unemployment rate in the nation for the last 21 straight months. The islands' seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January was 2.4 -- the lowest since January 1991. The rate stands in comparison to the 3 percent posted for Hawaii in January 2005. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted employment rate dropped from 5.2 percent in January 2005...

U.S. Department of Labor Awards $4.9 Million in Grants To Improve English Language Skills in the Workplace Grants Will Train Workers in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York and Texas WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor today announced five grants totaling more than $4.9 million to improve English language skills in the workplace. The grants will train approximately 4,400 individuals in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York and Texas. “To succeed in the workplace, workers must know how to communicate in English,” said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. “These $4.9 million in English skills training grants will help thousands of...

Nine counties in the Rochester and Finger Lakes region will receive $37 million dollars to help diversify the economy, and move beyond its reliance on the struggling manufacturing sector. Rochester was one of thirteen regions selected nationally for the new Workforce Innovation Regional Economic Development -- or W.I.R.E.D. initiative. The area will get $15 million over three years from the Department of Labor. Another $22 million has been pledged by twenty one local partners, including the Greater Rochester Enterprise, Monroe County, U of R and RIT. The money will be used to attract companies and to train workers in several...