Labor Dept. Accused of Straying From Enforcement

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113001900.html

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 1, 2008; Page A02

The next labor secretary will be taking charge of an agency widely criticized for walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety.

"My view is that this is a deeply troubled department," said Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who has written several reports critical of the agency's operation under the Bush administration. "As bad as the personnel situation may be in many departments, I think it tends to be worse in the Labor Department than in most places. "I think you've got people embedded there who are philosophically hostile to the mission of the agency."

There are few federal agencies where the ideological differences separating many Democrats and Republicans play out more plainly. Labor is one of the government's largest regulatory enforcement agencies, overseeing issues from overtime payments and pension regulations to workplace safety and training programs. The agency has a total budget of $50.4 billion and 16,800 employees.

Many businesses say the agency's enforcement regime often becomes onerous under Democratic administrations, leading to burdensome reporting requirements and a type of punitive enforcement that they say stifles economic growth. They applaud Republican administrations for focusing more on helping companies abide by the law than on penalizing those who violate it. So they are bracing for a big shift.

"With the new administration, I think you are going to a shift from compliance assistance to pure enforcement," said Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Labor activists say that focusing so closely on the concerns of employers shortchanges workers and that a shift in emphasis is long overdue. Under President Bush, they say, the pendulum has swung far away from enforcement, leaving workers vulnerable to dangerous workplaces and with little protection from exploitive employers.

FULL 2 page story at link.