At HELP Hearing, Murray Grills Trump’s Secretary of Labor Nominee on Wasteful Interagency Agreements, Trump’s Anti-Worker Agenda

*** WATCH : Senator Murray’s full questioning*** *** WATCH and READ : Senator Murray’s full opening remarks*** Washington, D.C. — Today—at a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) hearing to consider Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the HELP committee, grilled Trump’s nominee Acting Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) wasteful interagency agreements with the Department of Education (ED) and a recent proposed rule that if finalized rips away minimum wage and overtime protections from 3.7 million home care workers. [INTERAGENCY AGREEMENTS BETWEEN DOL AND ED] Senator Murray began by calling Sonderling out for working with Secretary Linda McMahon to senselessly move some of the complex education programs that help kindergarteners and other elementary school students from ED to DOL. MURRAY: Acting Secretary Sonderling, right now you are working with Secretary McMahon to take over Department of Education programs to help Trump “abolish” that Department. It makes zero sense that DOL, an agency whose expertise is in supporting wage earners and job seekers, that it’s being tasked now with taking over complex education programs from the Department of Education to help kindergarteners and other elementary school students. Do you know how many programs at the Department of Labor are focused on elementary school students? SONDERLING: I can tell you that it makes a lot of sense for us to work with the Department of Education. You have education systems— MURRAY: I asked you a specific question and I have very little time. Do you know how many programs? SONDERLING: We have our IAA agreements under the Economy Act— MURRAY: I am asking if you know how many are focused—I will tell you. The answer is none. None of them. And that’s concerning because while some offices within your department are taking on a set of responsibilities they have no experience dealing with—they are also struggling to manage their own grant programs. As recently as this last January, a report from the DOL Inspector General noted the Employment and Training Administration is “challenged in effectively managing its grant portfolio.” Acting Secretary Sonderling, do you believe it is a smart management decision to add more grant responsibilities to an agency that’s consistently unable to handle those tasks? SONDERLING: I think it makes a lot of sense. Our systems at the Department of Labor are more sophisticated based on prior reports and implementing those recommendations than the Department of Education system. They are on a legacy G-5 system. We use Grant Solution, which is the same system that WIOA title funds are distributed by from the labor side and from the education side to the same states and from an efficiency standpoint from the states who take this money they are used to having to go to Education and Labor. The IAA is not dealing with policy it’s dealing with providing the Department of Education a service. And I can tell you that the Department of Education career staff have been detailed to the Department of Labor and they are making those policy decisions regarding the pre-K-12 program, regarding OCTAE, regarding those other decisions where the Department of Labor is assisting them on the backend with these grant systems, working with states. And the states love this. 21 states have now submitted a joint plan for efficiency for getting that very important money to pre-K-12 institutions. MURRAY: Let me just say, I appreciate smart new reforms—but the facts are, these arrangements are wasteful—one of them cost taxpayers an extra million dollars! And the rest, the Administration has refused now to tell us for months how much they cost or really anything else, despite bipartisan demands for that information. And it’s not working! In one case, ED transferred responsibilities to you only for you to have to send that work to yet another Department because DOL lacked the expertise to handle it. SONDERLING: On July 1 st at midnight $1.5 billion came over to the Department of Labor. It was out by 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. There was no lag. The money went out to the states in our updated system, and the Department of Labor will continue to provide those services under the IAAs which are lawful under the Economy Act, and also is most efficient for taxpayers and the states getting these monies. MURRAY: I will just say again, I just have to tell you Americans want an agency that is focused on the education of early learners all the way through. They don’t want it shuffled off to another department that they cannot find out the information or don’t have the expertise to do it. That is my opinion. Let me move on here because I just have a minute left. [RIPPING AWAY OVERTIME AND MINIMUM WAGE PROTECTIONS] Senator Murray then questioned Sonderling about a rule proposed on July 2 nd that would strip minimum wage and overtime protections away from 3.7 million home care workers by DOL’s own estimate. MURRAY: The Labor Department founding mission is “to promote the welfare of wage earners.” You’ve run this Department for three months. And in that time, you’ve formalized taking overtime away from four million people, moved to cut care workers’ minimum wage, teed up longer hours for 14-year-olds, and defended a budget that leaves workers in the dust. So, let me [ask] a very specific question: On July 2 nd of last year, DOL proposed a new rule about wages and overtime pay for home care workers. If this draft rule is finalized, how many workers will be stripped of minimum wage and overtime protections? SONDERLING: This is a very complicated issue we have worked on for a long time and the current rule, you know, has essentially created a secondary market where workers are not getting overtime, they’re not getting protections. Those who are you know, receiving the services, are not going to companies to get the proper background checks. So this rule will allow third parties to come back in to properly manage the payroll, to properly manage their ability to do background checks, and have more workers and continuity of care. MURRAY: You didn’t answer my question. SONDERLING: What the prior rule did was, people were not getting overtime. When 40 hours hit, they would get a different person— MURRAY: I’m out of time and I’m going to correct the record here. Because if this draft rule is finalized, which is what my question was to you, it’s 3.7 million home care workers who will be stripped of minimum wage and overtime protections. That’s how many home care workers the Department is working to rip away minimum wage and overtime protections from. And Mr. Chairman, to me that is anti-worker. ###