On March 1, International President Kenny Cooper and Assistant to the IBEW President for Government Affairs Austin Keyser attended an event at the White House where President Biden formally introduced Su as his Labor Secretary nominee. President Biden nominated Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su to succeed DOL’s leader, Marty Walsh, who has stepped down.
IBEW supports Su as the new head of the Labor Department for her long history as a champion for labor unions and workers.
In a statement, IBEW President Kenneth W. Cooper said that Su has dedicated her life to the cause of workers’ rights and good middle-class jobs. “Like President Biden and outgoing Secretary Walsh, she sees labor unions as key to rebuilding America’s middle class. I know she will bring the dedication and passion she has shown throughout her career for working families to this new role leading the Department of Labor, and the IBEW fully supports her nomination.”
Su is a nationally recognized worker-rights expert who oversees the Department of Labor’s workforce, managing its budget and executing the administration’s priorities. Su has dedicated her distinguished legal career to advancing justice on behalf of workers, implementing key administration policies on workers’ rights, including modernizing prevailing wage laws under the Davis-Bacon Act.
At the Labor Department, she has been working to ensure that the jobs created in critical sectors like semiconductor manufacturing and broadband are good-paying, stable and accessible to all.
Before coming to the Labor Department, Su served as secretary for the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency and as state labor commissioner, where she enforced strong on-the-job health and safety protections and cracked down on wage theft.
Walsh served two key years as DOL chief, reversing the previous administration’s efforts to water down registered apprenticeship programs and convening a high-level committee to explore how to expand collective bargaining rights and union membership to more Americans.
Cooper said:
“Secretary Walsh has truly left his mark on the Department of Labor. His commitment to the Department’s fundamental mission, ensuring a level playing field for working people, has always been 100 percent. Joe Biden announced during his campaign that he would be the most pro-labor president this country has ever seen. He has followed through on that promise through historic legislation and appointments like that of Secretary Walsh. The Biden-Harris administration’s pro-worker and pro-middle-class agenda is unprecedented in this country’s history. Julie Su is the right person to help carry that agenda forward at the Department of Labor.”
