Keith Sonderling sat in front of the Senate Thursday and told them his experience makes him the best person to run the Department of Labor.
Here’s what that experience has produced.
Four million lower-paid salary workers were about to get overtime protections. His department killed that rule. Just gutted it. If you work fifty hours a week stocking shelves or running a kitchen or managing a store for forty grand a year, you were finally going to get paid for your extra time. Sonderling’s Labor Department said no.
His department fired most of the employees in the office that protects workers from discrimination by federal contractors. Gutted the whole damn thing.
Now they’re writing a new rule to let corporations classify employees as independent contractors — so companies can pay lower wages and skip benefits entirely. Murray said that’ll cost workers billions. That’s not speculation. That’s what the goddamn rule is designed to do.
And his big showcase — the fraud prevention task force with JD Vance — is telling states to “verify first and pay later” on unemployment claims. You know what that means in practice? A woman who just lost her factory job sits at home without a check while some bureaucracy decides whether she’s lying about being unemployed. “Verify first.” Like the default setting for a working person asking for help is fraud.
Meanwhile, $1.5 billion in Education Department money arrived at his office at midnight and was disbursed in two hours. No verification. No fraud check. Funny how “verify first” only applies when the money might reach a worker.
Rick Scott said this man is “committed to making America the best place to get a job.” What a load of horseshit. You don’t make America the best place to get a job by making sure the job doesn’t pay overtime, doesn’t have benefits, doesn’t protect you from discrimination, and won’t help you if you lose it.
This isn’t a Labor Department. It’s a donor-class concierge service wearing a flag pin. Take the fucking pin off.
Source story: Sonderling highlights experience, fraud work in Labor secretary confirmation hearing.