The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRIBUTE TO SETH HARRIS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S1228-S1229 on Feb. 27, 2014.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO SETH HARRIS
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to the former Deputy Secretary of Labor, Seth Harris, who recently left the Department after nearly 5 years of service. In his time serving as both Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary, Seth was an invaluable asset to the Department. He brought to these positions a deep knowledge of both the agency and labor law, and he made significant contributions to the Department both as a manager and as a policy expert. Perhaps most important, he brought to these positions the lifelong passion for helping working families succeed that has been the hallmark of his impressive career.
Indeed, this was not Seth's first stint at the Department of Labor. He served for 7 years at the Department during the Clinton Administration, under both Secretaries Robert Reich and Alexis Herman. During this time, he served as counselor to the Secretary of Labor and as Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy, among other roles. He then moved to the academy, where he served as a professor of law at the New York Law School and director of its Labor & Employment Law Programs. While teaching at the New York Law School, his scholarship often focused on a law that is particularly close to my heart--the Americans with Disabilities Act. While teaching, Seth was also a Senior Fellow at the Life Without Limits Project of the United Cerebral Palsy Association, and was a member of the National Advisory Commission on Workplace Flexibility. When President Obama took office, Seth again answered the call to serve his country, and was confirmed as the eleventh United States Deputy Secretary of Labor in May of 2009.
I can understand why he wanted to return to the Department. As I have said on more than one occasion, of all the executive agencies, it may be the Department of Labor that touches the lives of ordinary working Americans the most on a day-to-day basis. The Department of Labor ensures that every American receives a fair day's pay for a hard day's work, and can come home from work safely each night. It helps ensure that a working mother can stay home to bond with her newborn child and still have a job to return to. It helps workers who have been laid off, veterans returning from military service, young people with disabilities entering the workforce and those who develop disabilities and are trying to reenter the workforce--it helps all of these workers to build new skills and aspire to better opportunities for the future. In addition, the Department helps guarantee that hardworking people who have saved all their lives for retirement can enjoy their golden years with security and peace of mind.
Yet, despite this important mission, it is safe to say that when Seth and the current leadership team arrived at the Department, it was an agency suffering from significant neglect. Enforcement activity was down. Vital regulations to protect workers had been weakened or repealed. The agency faced significant management challenges. Not surprisingly, the morale of the agency's career staff was low.
It has been heartening to see this critical agency revitalized under the Obama administration. Enforcement statistics are improving. More workers are getting better training so they can find better jobs. Employee morale at the agency is improving. In short, the Department of Labor is doing what it is supposed to be doing, and doing it well. As Deputy Secretary--the official responsible for overseeing the day-to-
day operations of the Department--Seth Harris played a key role in helping the Department meet these challenges.
In a message to Department staff upon his departure, Seth shared some of the agency's accomplishments over the last 5 years. I wanted to include this list in the Record, because it is an impressive array of achievements. To quote his message:
Last year, we achieved the lowest workplace fatality rate for miners, the fewest number of miners dying in workplace accidents, and the fewest workplace injuries in mines, ever. Over the last five years, we have twice achieved the lowest rate of fatalities in general industry, ever, including last year. And over the last five years, we achieved the lowest fatality rate in the construction industry, ever.
Last year, we conducted the largest number of whistleblower investigations, ever. Last year, we helped more miners who suffered retaliation from their employers for raising health and safety concerns than were helped in the entire second term of the Bush Administration or the entire second term of the Clinton Administration. Black lung that cripples and kills miners will become much, much rarer under a new rule we proposed. Hundreds of deaths and thousands of morbid illnesses will be prevented each year under a new rule we proposed to protect workers from exposure to silica.
Over the past 5 years, we have returned more than $1.1 billion in wages to the workers from whom they had been stolen. We conducted the largest number of directed Davis-Bacon investigations, ever. And we did the best job, ever, of targeting our wage and hour investigations to the workplaces that had violations, even when the workers felt too threatened and too disempowered to complain. We expanded minimum wage and overtime protections to nearly 2 million home health aides. The people who care for us when we need them most will now get the most basic of worker protections.
Last year, we conducted the largest number of pension and health plan investigations over the past five years. During that same period, we recovered more than $1.3 billion in pension and health plan benefits for more than 710,000 participants and beneficiaries through informal resolutions. We also promulgated almost two dozen rules with our colleagues at Treasury and HHS to implement the President's historic health care law.
Last year, we assured that the largest percentage of workers exiting Labor Department job training programs got industry-recognized credentials. We also helped hundreds of community colleges work with employers to give tens of thousands of workers skills that employers need right now and will need for years to come. We expanded eligibility for the Trade Adjustment Assistance and unemployment insurance under the President's Recovery Act. And we nursed all 53 jurisdictions administering UI programs through the worst unemployment crisis in seven decades.
Last year, we did the best job, ever, of targeting the very small number of union officers and staff who embezzle funds or engage in fraud. We also achieved near record efficiency in concluding investigations of union elections despite the fewest resources available ever.
Over the past five years, we have stripped away a mountain of bureaucratic and legal barriers that kept our civil rights agency from finding and remedying discrimination. And we are finding and fixing pay discrimination, in particular, at an accelerating rate. We changed the law so that hundreds of thousands more people with disabilities and veterans will get jobs with federal contractors every year.
Last year, we helped the highest percentage of federal employees with disabilities on workers compensation to return to work since we started keeping records on this activity. We also processed workers compensation claims for longshore workers and energy employees at the fastest clip, ever.
We have done the best job, ever, of managing the taxpayers' money entrusted to the Labor Department's care. We have had five consecutive years of clean financial audits, and these last two years, we had no material deficiencies in our financial audit. We replaced a 25-year-old financial management system that put us out of compliance with just about every law with a new cloud-based financial management system that helps us comply with every law, and balance our books, and spend the taxpayers' money responsibly.
Last year, we did the best job, ever, of paying our bills on time, and we paid the smallest amount of interest for late payments, ever. We paid our small business contractors faster than ever. And the percentage of contracting we are doing with small businesses is the highest, ever.
We accomplished all of this by taking seriously President Obama's direction to engage in evidence-based, data-driven management.
The Government Accountability Office recently conducted a survey of all managers in 24 executive branch departments and agencies at the GS-13 level and higher. GAO asked these federal managers a long list of questions that amounted to,
``does your agency or department use evidence-based, data-driven decision making?'' The Labor Department beat all 24 federal agencies that were part of the survey. We lead the federal government in Obama-style evidence-based, data-driven management.
This impressive list of accomplishments reflects an agency that is back on track. It is a testament to the hard work of Secretary Solis, Secretary Perez, Seth Harris, the DOL leadership team, and the dedicated career staff that work for the agency across the country.
While he has moved on to new challenges in his professional life, our Nation owes a great debt of gratitude to Seth Harris for his leadership and for his passionate dedication to helping working families. I know Seth's work on these issues is far from done, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new roles in the years to come.
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