Washington D.C. Employment Law Update : Washington D.C. Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Littler Mendelson Law Firm : Virginia, Tyson's Corner

Labor advocate and founding executive director of the American Rights at Work (ARW) Mary Beth Maxwell is joining the Department of Labor (DOL) as a senior advisor to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. According to an ARW press release, Maxwell will work with the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, the Obama Administration’s new initiative aimed at “restoring labor standards, improving workplace safety, enhancing work and family balance, protecting retirement security, and helping protect middle- and working-class incomes.”

Maxwell has been a vocal advocate of the beleaguered Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), and was widely rumored to be Obama’s pick to serve as Secretary of Labor. Maxwell is most known for her work at the ARW, a nonprofit advocacy organization begun in 2003 whose mission is to “promote the freedom of workers to join a union and bargain collectively.” Solis herself has ties to the ARW, having once served as the organization’s treasurer and board member. Prior to working at the ARW, Maxwell served as National Field Director for Jobs with Justice, an organization affiliated with the Service Employees International Union with which Secretary Solis is closely aligned. Her other positions have included acting as Deputy Field Director for NARAL, directing the pro-choice organization’s electoral, legislative, media, and fundraising training programs for local affiliates. Maxwell has also worked as Field Director for the United States Student Association.
 

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If there was any doubt regarding the influence organized labor may exert in the Obama Administration, the selection of Patrick Gaspard as Director of the Office of Political Affairs should lay those doubts to rest.

Prior to serving as the Associate Director of Personnel for the new administration’s transition team, Gaspard served as the Executive Vice President of Politics and Legislation for Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a very large and influential labor organization. Gaspard’s union loyalties will no doubt have some bearing on his roll as Political Director, a position criticized by many as being unnecessary and/or a propagator of party divisiveness.

Partisanship notwithstanding, Gaspard’s appointment may be a harbinger of things to come. Top vacancies need to be filled in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Department of Labor (DOL) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and organized labor is demanding that these posts be filled by supporters of labor. John Wilhelm, co-President of UNITE-HERE said in a leaked September memo:

We should have only one demand of an Obama administration: that the President of the United States publicly, repeatedly, and strenuously advocate that workers have unions, because unions are necessary to build a good America; that he apply that advocacy to specific worker fights and not just general statements; and that he put people on the [National Labor Relations Board] and in his cabinet who share that view and are committed to implementing it.

If these positions are seeded with strong proponents of organized labor, expect much stronger employee protections and employer regulations within the coming years. As it currently stands, Ellen Moran, a former official with the AFL-CIO, has been named as Obama’s Director of Communications. In addition, Duane Woerth, former President of the Air Line Pilots Association, is rumored to be in the running to lead the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Moreover, several labor officials or those with strong labor ties are being discussed as candidates for Secretary of Labor, including AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and Mary Beth Maxwell, the Executive Director of American Rights at Work, a labor advocacy group.
 

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