Department of Labor Still Pursuing Obama Era Policies

Timothy Birdnow

Trump's Department of Labor is STILL pursuing Obama-era lawsuits promoting "social justice".

Powerline dishes.

The culprit is the Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). During the Obama administration, OFCCP became a bastion of leftism. It pursued radical theories of pay discrimination, the goal of which is to force companies to pay male and female employees the same rates with little regard for the work they actually perform and the relevant experience they bring to the job.

Silicon Valley became a prime target of the Obama OFCCP. On its way out the door, the Obamaites filed pay discrimination cases against Oracle, Google, and Palantir. Under Alex Acosta, the DOL pursued these cases (the one against Palantir settled). Under Gene Scalia, it has continued to do so.

Indeed, according to this article by Cory Andrewsof the Washington Legal Foundation, Scalia has done nothing much to curb the OFCCP. Andrews says that "since Secretary Scalia assumed his post in September 2019, the OFCCP has seemingly grown more stridentunder his watch.” (Emphasis added) "At the same time,” he continues, "Secretary Scalia has had nothing to say about OFCCP’s ultra vires enforcement regime.”

Andrews correctly views the OFCCP as an extreme example of the rise of the administrative state, under which inordinate power resides in the hands of largely unchecked bureaucrats:

If [the OFCCP] suspects a federal contractor or subcontractor of violating one of the anti-discrimination provisions in a government contract, the OFCCP doesn’t refer the matter to the DOJ to sue for breach of contract in federal court. Nor does it refer the company to the EEOC for further investigation and possible action under Title VII.

Instead, the OFCCP brings an administrative enforcement action against the accused before the Labor Department’s own administrative law judges. Appeals from that adjudication? The Labor Department decides the appeal, too. . . .

What does it take to actually drain the swamp? Trump appoints people who do nothing. We elected him to stop this kind of crap.

Bear in mind this is Trumps' second shot at this; his former Labor Secretary - Alexis Acosta - pursued the very same strategy, the one started by the Obama Administration.

This is exactly why there should be no Department of Labor in the first place. It is not only none of the Federal government's business, it's also something guaranteed to wreck havoc on the nation. And it is something that will attract radicals from Big Labor and the Progressive reformers.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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