[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 33 (Thursday, February 27, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1228-S1229]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO SETH HARRIS

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to the 
former Deputy Secretary of Labor, Seth Harris, who recently left the 
Department after nearly 5 years of service. In his time serving as both 
Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary, Seth was an invaluable asset to 
the Department. He brought to these positions a deep knowledge of both 
the agency and labor law, and he made significant contributions to the 
Department both as a manager and as a policy expert. Perhaps most 
important, he brought to these positions the lifelong passion for 
helping working families succeed that has been the hallmark of his 
impressive career.
  Indeed, this was not Seth's first stint at the Department of Labor. 
He served for 7 years at the Department during the Clinton 
Administration, under both Secretaries Robert Reich and Alexis Herman. 
During this time, he served as counselor to the Secretary of Labor and 
as Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy, among other roles. He then 
moved to the academy, where he served as a professor of law at the New 
York Law School and director of its Labor & Employment Law Programs. 
While teaching at the New York Law School, his scholarship often 
focused on a law that is particularly close to my heart--the Americans 
with Disabilities Act. While teaching, Seth was also a Senior Fellow at 
the Life Without Limits Project of the United Cerebral Palsy 
Association, and was a member of the National Advisory Commission on 
Workplace Flexibility. When President Obama took office, Seth again 
answered the call to serve his country, and was confirmed as the 
eleventh United States Deputy Secretary of Labor in May of 2009.
  I can understand why he wanted to return to the Department. As I have 
said on more than one occasion, of all the executive agencies, it may 
be the Department of Labor that touches the lives of ordinary working 
Americans the most on a day-to-day basis. The Department of Labor 
ensures that every American receives a fair day's pay for a hard day's 
work, and can come home from work safely each night. It helps ensure 
that a working mother can stay home to bond with her newborn child and 
still have a job to return to. It helps workers who have been laid off, 
veterans returning from military service, young people with 
disabilities entering the workforce and those who develop disabilities 
and are trying to reenter the workforce--it helps all of these workers 
to build new skills and aspire to better opportunities for the future. 
In addition, the Department helps guarantee that hardworking people who 
have saved all their lives for retirement can enjoy their golden years 
with security and peace of mind.
  Yet, despite this important mission, it is safe to say that when Seth 
and the current leadership team arrived at the Department, it was an 
agency suffering from significant neglect. Enforcement activity was 
down. Vital regulations to protect workers had been weakened or 
repealed. The agency faced significant management challenges. Not 
surprisingly, the morale of the agency's career staff was low.
  It has been heartening to see this critical agency revitalized under 
the Obama administration. Enforcement statistics are improving. More 
workers are getting better training so they can find better jobs. 
Employee morale at the agency is improving. In short, the Department of 
Labor is doing what it is supposed to be doing, and doing it well. As 
Deputy Secretary--the official responsible for overseeing the day-to-
day operations of the Department--Seth Harris played a key role in 
helping the Department meet these challenges.
  In a message to Department staff upon his departure, Seth shared some 
of the agency's accomplishments over the last 5 years. I wanted to 
include this list in the Record, because it is an impressive array of 
achievements. To quote his message:

       Last year, we achieved the lowest workplace fatality rate 
     for miners, the fewest number of miners dying in workplace 
     accidents, and the fewest workplace injuries in

[[Page S1229]]

     mines, ever. Over the last five years, we have twice achieved 
     the lowest rate of fatalities in general industry, ever, 
     including last year. And over the last five years, we 
     achieved the lowest fatality rate in the construction 
     industry, ever.
       Last year, we conducted the largest number of whistleblower 
     investigations, ever. Last year, we helped more miners who 
     suffered retaliation from their employers for raising health 
     and safety concerns than were helped in the entire second 
     term of the Bush Administration or the entire second term of 
     the Clinton Administration. Black lung that cripples and 
     kills miners will become much, much rarer under a new rule we 
     proposed. Hundreds of deaths and thousands of morbid 
     illnesses will be prevented each year under a new rule we 
     proposed to protect workers from exposure to silica.
       Over the past 5 years, we have returned more than $1.1 
     billion in wages to the workers from whom they had been 
     stolen. We conducted the largest number of directed Davis-
     Bacon investigations, ever. And we did the best job, ever, of 
     targeting our wage and hour investigations to the workplaces 
     that had violations, even when the workers felt too 
     threatened and too disempowered to complain. We expanded 
     minimum wage and overtime protections to nearly 2 million 
     home health aides. The people who care for us when we need 
     them most will now get the most basic of worker protections.
       Last year, we conducted the largest number of pension and 
     health plan investigations over the past five years. During 
     that same period, we recovered more than $1.3 billion in 
     pension and health plan benefits for more than 710,000 
     participants and beneficiaries through informal resolutions. 
     We also promulgated almost two dozen rules with our 
     colleagues at Treasury and HHS to implement the President's 
     historic health care law.
       Last year, we assured that the largest percentage of 
     workers exiting Labor Department job training programs got 
     industry-recognized credentials. We also helped hundreds of 
     community colleges work with employers to give tens of 
     thousands of workers skills that employers need right now and 
     will need for years to come. We expanded eligibility for the 
     Trade Adjustment Assistance and unemployment insurance under 
     the President's Recovery Act. And we nursed all 53 
     jurisdictions administering UI programs through the worst 
     unemployment crisis in seven decades.
       Last year, we did the best job, ever, of targeting the very 
     small number of union officers and staff who embezzle funds 
     or engage in fraud. We also achieved near record efficiency 
     in concluding investigations of union elections despite the 
     fewest resources available ever.
       Over the past five years, we have stripped away a mountain 
     of bureaucratic and legal barriers that kept our civil rights 
     agency from finding and remedying discrimination. And we are 
     finding and fixing pay discrimination, in particular, at an 
     accelerating rate. We changed the law so that hundreds of 
     thousands more people with disabilities and veterans will get 
     jobs with federal contractors every year.
       Last year, we helped the highest percentage of federal 
     employees with disabilities on workers compensation to return 
     to work since we started keeping records on this activity. We 
     also processed workers compensation claims for longshore 
     workers and energy employees at the fastest clip, ever.
       We have done the best job, ever, of managing the taxpayers' 
     money entrusted to the Labor Department's care. We have had 
     five consecutive years of clean financial audits, and these 
     last two years, we had no material deficiencies in our 
     financial audit. We replaced a 25-year-old financial 
     management system that put us out of compliance with just 
     about every law with a new cloud-based financial management 
     system that helps us comply with every law, and balance our 
     books, and spend the taxpayers' money responsibly.
       Last year, we did the best job, ever, of paying our bills 
     on time, and we paid the smallest amount of interest for late 
     payments, ever. We paid our small business contractors faster 
     than ever. And the percentage of contracting we are doing 
     with small businesses is the highest, ever.
       We accomplished all of this by taking seriously President 
     Obama's direction to engage in evidence-based, data-driven 
     management.
       The Government Accountability Office recently conducted a 
     survey of all managers in 24 executive branch departments and 
     agencies at the GS-13 level and higher. GAO asked these 
     federal managers a long list of questions that amounted to, 
     ``does your agency or department use evidence-based, data-
     driven decision making?'' The Labor Department beat all 24 
     federal agencies that were part of the survey. We lead the 
     federal government in Obama-style evidence-based, data-driven 
     management.

  This impressive list of accomplishments reflects an agency that is 
back on track. It is a testament to the hard work of Secretary Solis, 
Secretary Perez, Seth Harris, the DOL leadership team, and the 
dedicated career staff that work for the agency across the country.
  While he has moved on to new challenges in his professional life, our 
Nation owes a great debt of gratitude to Seth Harris for his leadership 
and for his passionate dedication to helping working families. I know 
Seth's work on these issues is far from done, and I look forward to 
continuing to work with him in his new roles in the years to come.

                          ____________________