UPDATE: Scalia Vote Today: Will the Senate HELP Committee Allow an Enemy of the Labor Department’s Mission to Oversee It?
UPDATE: In response to Senate HELP committee Republicans’ party-line vote to advance conflicted corporate lawyer Eugene Scalia’s nomination for U.S. Labor Secretary despite his anti-worker record, Allied Progress director Derek Martin made the following statement: “These Senators need to explain why they’d leave working families’ wages, retirement, and safety at the mercy of someone dedicated to protecting corporate profits at any cost.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 24, 2019) – President Trump’s irresponsible choice to be the next U.S. Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia, faces a critical vote today in the Senate HELP committee. Members face a crystal-clear choice: ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to turning over the Labor Department to a hopelessly conflicted corporate lawyer who has spent decades fighting virtually every pillar of the agency’s mission to protect workers’ wages, retirement, safety, and the right to medical and family leave. Scalia cannot be trusted to look out for all working people, particularly from historically marginalized communities, given his past anti-LGBT writings, his work to gut protections for people with disabilities, and work defending corporations sued for harboring a culture of racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
“A vote for Eugene Scalia is a vote to keep working families voiceless in this administration and greedy corporate interests free from accountability,” said Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Allied Progress. “Scalia has dedicated his career to ensuring corporate profits always come before workers’ rights and safety — and any Senator who rubberstamps his nomination would be embracing and enabling that view. It is our hope Senators put their fear of an angry Trump tweet aside and do what’s right for all working people. They must demand a new nominee that actually wants to help more workers climb into the middle class — not someone who has to constantly worry about offending an old corporate client.”
TOP 5 MOST DISQUALIFYING ELEMENTS OF SCALIA’S ANTI-WORKER RECORD:
1) Scalia argued companies shouldn’t be held responsible for bosses who sexually assault employees at the workplace.2) Scalia represented Juul Labs on an amicus brief that said imposing further safeguards on the e-cigarette industry would “endanger public health.”3) Scalia argued the Federal Government doesn’t have leading role in workplace safety and that the science behind attempts to prevent repetitive stress injuries on the job was medical “quackery”4) Scalia called the Obama Administration’s Fiduciary Rule to protect retirement savers from conflicted financial advisers a “Regulatory Godzilla” and an “Extraordinary Example Of Disregard” Of The Constitution.