NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | January 18, 2019 | PAGE 7
At BOLI, a labor champion takes the reins
By Don McIntosh
SALEM — In a House chamber
packed with union officers and
other well-wishers, Val Hoyle
raised her right hand and took the
oath of office Jan. 7 as Oregon la-
bor commissioner.
“I am fundamentally commit-
ted to fulfilling this office in every
way,” Hoyle declared, calling it
“the most important job nobody
has ever heard of.”
The Oregon Labor Commis-
sioner is a statewide elected office
that oversees the Bureau of Labor
and Industries (BOLI), the state
agency that enforces wage-and-
hour and civil rights laws, sets the
prevailing wage on public con-
struction projects, and oversees
state-registered apprenticeship
training programs.
“This is going to be good for
us,” said Matt Eleazer, president
of Bricklayers Local 1, one of the
dozens of union leaders who
turned out to the event. “She
stands up for workers rights, and
she knows what’s right. She’s
been a champion for workers her
whole life.”
Boyle has had lifelong ties to
the union movement. Her grand-
father was active in the New York
Laborers union, and her father
On the floor of the Oregon House, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum
administers the oath of office to Oregon Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle.
“We’re really excited to have someone at BOLI who comes from labor,” said
Oregon Building Trades Executive Secretary Robert Camarillo (right), who
witnessed Hoyle’s swearing in. “Having her there gives us confidence that
workers safety and rights are going to be important.”
Dan Toomey was a firefighter
and the president of Fire Fighters
Local 789 in Nashua, New
Hampshire. [In a happy coinci-
dence, Toomey was sworn in the
same day to a seat in the New
Hampshire House of Representa-
tives.] In college she worked as a
lobbyist for Massachusetts build-
ing trades unions. And during
seven years as an Oregon state
representative from Eugene, she
earned accolades from labor for
director is Sabrina Balderama,
who was the membership coordi-
nator for the Portland State Uni-
versity branch of the American
Association of University Profes-
sors. Hoyle is conducting nation-
wide searches for administrators
of BOLI’s Civil Rights and Wage
and Hour divisions.
Only three other states have an
elected labor commissioner —
Georgia, North Carolina, and
Oklahoma. In the rest of the
her work; the Oregon AFL-CIO
named her “Legislator of the
Year” in 2011.
Hoyle also named several cur-
rent and former union staffers to
her executive team. Her deputy
commissioner will be Duke
Shepard, who was Oregon AFL-
CIO political director from 2006
to 2010, and then served as labor
policy adviser to Oregon gover-
nor John Kitzhaber from 2011 to
2014. And her executive services
country, state labor and civil
rights laws are enforced by agen-
cies directed by administrators
appointed by the governor.
PAST LABOR COMMISSIONERS
Brad Avakian 2008-2018
Dan Gardner 2003-2008
Jack Roberts 1995-2003
Mary Wendy Roberts 1979-1995
Bill Stevenson 1975-1978
Norman Nilson 1955-1974
Trump labor bureau appointments: Still vacant
At the Labor Department, half the top
jobs remain unfilled.
Donald Trump promised to hire only the
“best people” to head government agen-
cies, but two years into his four-year
term, as many as a third to half of the fed-
eral agency executive positions he’s sup-
posed to appoint are vacant, either be-
cause they resigned, were never
confirmed by the Republican-led Senate,
or were never nominated to begin with.
The nonprofit group Partnership for Pub-
lic Service has been keeping tabs on key
executive branch nominations that re-
quire Senate confirmation — including
Cabinet secretaries, deputy and assistant
secretaries, chief financial officers, gen-
eral counsels, and agency heads. Of the
roughly 700 positions they’ve been
tracking, only 433 have been confirmed.
And within the Department of Labor,
fully half of the executive-appointed po-
sitions are still vacant two years in. Judg-
ing by the people Trump nominated to
those posts, that might be for the best.
At the close of 2018, with the 115th
Congress at an end, all pending nomina-
tions were returned to the president. He’ll
now have to decide whether to renominate
these folks. As of mid-January, none of the
following had been re-nominated.
OSHA: Scott MugnoTo head the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration, Trump nominated Scott
Mugno, a former FedEx executive with a career-long
history of opposing new OSHA regulations. At a January
2018 confirmation hearing, Mugno couldn’t name a single
new OSHA rule he had supported during his two decades
as safety chief at FedEx. The Republican-led committee
approved him anyway, but his nomination never came up
for a vote by the full Senate.
Wage and Hour Division: Cheryl StantonThe Labor
Department’s Wage and Hour Division is responsible for
regulating and enforcing minimum wage, overtime, and
family leave requirements, as well as prevailing wage laws
for construction employees on federal contracts. To lead it,
Trump nominated Cheryl Marie Stanton, a South Carolina
workforce agency executive and member of the board of
the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. Stanton
formerly clerked for federal judge Samuel Alito (the labor
foe who later became Supreme Court justice and wrote
the anti-union Janus decision.) She also worked as a
White House lawyer for President George W. Bush, serving
as the administration’s liaison to the Labor Department
and the National Labor Relations Board. Her nomination
passed out of the Senate Health, Labor and Pensions
Committee in January 2018, but never got a Senate floor
vote.
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation: Gordon
Hartogensis To head the federal government’s pension
insurance agency, Trump nominated Gordon Hartogensis,
a wealthy private investor and Republican donor with no
experience in government or pension fund management.
Hartogensis, 48, retired at age 29. He has spent the last
seven years managing his family’s money. He’s also
married to Grace Chao, the sister of Trump’s Transportation
Secretary Elaine Chao, and is thus the brother-in-law of
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).
spends most of his time now managing his family’s
money.
Employment and Training Administration: John
PallaschTo head the agency in charge of job training and
apprenticeships, Trump nominated John Pallasch, a
Kentucky state workforce director and former Bush Jr.
administration Labor Department official who also
worked for anti-union education reformer Michelle Rhee.