Thomas Perez on Families & Children

Parents need support to help them juggle work and family

Expand access to paid leave & overtime protections

During his tenure, Secretary Perez has collaborated with a wide variety of stakeholders--including private-sector employers, labor unions, nonprofits and foundations--to build a broad coalition and forge lasting partnerships to address inequality and create shared prosperity. Notably, President Obama tapped Secretary Perez to assist with a months-long dispute at the West Coast ports, where he helped broker a deal between labor and management that enabled the ports to resume operations. He has earned a reputation for listening to all sides and crafting pragmatic solutions rooted in progressive values.

Additionally, Perez has kept up the drumbeat on state and local progress to expand access to paid leave.

US Is only industrialized nation without paid family leave

Focus on reducing child labor internationally

This report shines a light on children around the globe who are being robbed of their futures; who spend their days and often their nights engaged in some of the most grueling work imaginable. I'm talking about children who carry huge loads on their backs and wield machetes on farms. Children who scavenge in garbage dumps and crawl in underground mine shafts searching for precious minerals from which someone else will profit.

There are at least 168 million of them worldwide. That's one out of every ten children, waking up every day not to sit in a classroom with a book and a teacher and a sense of optimism... but preparing to do some of the most dangerous jobs there are. The report provides a scorecard that tracks the progress countries are making from one year to the next.