From The Hill. Longtime friend to the disability community Sen. Tom Harkin mentioned it.A dour jobs report and the influence organized labor will have with the Obama administration dominated the confirmation hearing of Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif., pictured) as Labor secretary.
Democratic lawmakers seized on a new report released Jan. 9 stating that more than 524,000 jobs had been lost in December, pushing the nation’s unemployment rate to 7.2 percent, to press Solis on how she would reverse the trend.
“Every morning working families wake up to more bad news. More jobs lost. More pensions gone. More dreams that disappear,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the panel’s chairman.Lawmakers quizzed Solis as to how she could best reverse the jobs decline for a number of sectors in the economy, from healthcare workers to those afflicted with disabilities. One solution the California congresswoman recommended was focusing on creating new “green-collar” jobs. That could include retrofitting government buildings to meet energy-efficiency standards and installing solar panels, among other tasks that would develop America’s alternative energy production.
“This is the potential we have not seen before. There is a calling to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Solis said.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said she was supportive of the program but warned it was not a “green bullet” to answer the country’s job woes. Instead, the Labor Department has to be more active in funding already existing job-training programs, including those for healthcare workers.
Reviewing the latest jobs report, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said the unemployment rate for the disabled is at 63 percent, calling it a “true blot on the American character.” Harkin asked Solis what the Labor Department could do to turn this around. She said she would focus on programs to help military veterans returning from combat who suffered injuries.
Solis earned praise from both sides of the aisle for her career in public service, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) promising to vote for her confirmation.
Born to immigrant parents, Solis was the first Hispanic California state senator and has been a member of Congress for the past eight years, often advocating for immigrant rights, as well as union rights.
The member also earned the backing of fellow lawmakers. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced Solis to the committee, while some of her House colleagues, Reps. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), sat in attendance.
But despite the warm words from the committee, Solis faced tough questioning from Republicans on a number of issues that the incoming Obama administration will have to weigh in on, from state right-to- work laws to funding union corruption investigations at the Labor Department.
Solis often deferred, not directly answering the questions about Obama’s future labor policies, and promised to answer senators’ queries later in writing.
Most pressing, however, was the Employee Free Choice Act, otherwise known as “card-check,” which would allow workers to organize into a union by signing authorization cards and not by secret ballot. Labor groups have said the bill is their No. 1 priority this year, while business associations have already been lobbying hard against the measure.
“It can’t be used to magnify one side over the other. It has to be handled fairly,” Hatch said.Senators asked Solis for her thoughts about secret-ballot elections and mandatory arbitration, two provisions in the bill that have raised strident opposition from industry. Unions have argued that employers have often prevented workers from organizing and that the bill would help strengthen workers’ rights.
Solis mentioned at least three times that she in the House and Obama in the Senate were co-sponsors of the legislation during the past Congress. But the congresswoman has not discussed the issue with the president-elect as of yet and could not answer questions about the bill at the hearing.
Solis serves on the board of American Rights at Work, a liberal worker advocacy group. Ranking Republican Mike Enzi (Wyo.) complained to Solis about personal attacks the group has made against lawmakers and asked if she would step down.
“If I’m confirmed, I am more than likely to remove myself from the board,” she answered.