OnTheIssuesLogo

Thomas Perez on Families & Children

 

 


Expand access to paid leave & overtime protections

Under Secretary Perez's leadership, priorities for the department include ensuring a fair day's pay for a fair day's work through continued efforts to raise the minimum wage, expand overtime protections, and by being smarter and more strategic in the department's enforcement of federal law.

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.

Source: Department of Labor website: Secretary's biography , Feb 29, 2016

US Is only industrialized nation without paid family leave

For the life of me, I can't figure out why we're the only industrialized nation on earth that doesn't offer some form of national paid family leave. A great nation should not make people choose between the job they need and the family they love. A great nation must give them the tools to be both attentive parents & productive employees, to meet their obligations both at work & at home. We need paid leave in order to maintain a thriving middle class, in order to create truly shared prosperity in America.
Source: Remarks at the AFL-CIO National Summit on Raising Wages , Jan 7, 2015

Focus on reducing child labor internationally

[The new DOL report] helps us to understand the worst forms of child labor in over 140 countries and territories. And the report also analyzes the efforts those countries are making to address the problem.

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.

Source: Release of Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor , Oct 7, 2014

Other candidates on Families & Children: Thomas Perez on other issues:
Incoming Trump Administration:
Pres.Trump
V.P.Pence
A.G.:Sessions
DOE:Perry
DOI:Zinke
DOT:Chao
ODNI:Coats
HHS:Price
HUD:Carson

Outgoing Obama Administration:
Pres.Barack Obama
V.P.Joe Biden
State:John Kerry
HUD:Julian Castro
State:Hillary Clinton
Staff:Rahm Emanuel

Former Bush Administration:
State:Colin Powell
State:Condi Rice

Former Clinton Administration:
HUD:Andrew Cuomo
V.P.Al Gore
Labor:Robert Reich
A.G.:Janet Reno
Abortion
Budget/Economy
Civil Rights
Corporations
Crime
Drugs
Education
Energy/Oil
Environment
Families/Children
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Govt. Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Infrastructure/Technology
Jobs
Principles/Values
Social Security
Tax Reform
War/Iraq/Mideast
Welfare/Poverty





Page last updated: Jan 14, 2017