[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.
____________________