Labor To Open Fire Over Solis Confirmation

The country's largest labor and Hispanic groups are ratcheting up the confirmation fight over Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis, preparing a full-out political and media blitz to get the California Democrat approved and into the Obama cabinet.

"Enough is enough, the gloves are coming off on Friday," said one official with the AFL-CIO, outraged over the delays. "Labor, women's groups, Hispanic groups are opening fire. We worked with Republicans in good faith. Hilda Solis has answered all their questions but they continue to oppose her for partisan ideological reasons."

With Solis's nomination stalled again on Thursday after revelations that her husband had just settled $6,400 in tax leins against his business, unions are no longer willing to hold their breath for the sake of fewer dramatics.

"Our full efforts are being mobilized to fight back," the union official said. "Earned media and field campaign to generate calls, letters, and emails coming tomorrow. Depending on how things move paid media will be added on top of these efforts."

Implicit in the new tone -- as well as the coordinated effort -- is the notion that the White House, too, is fed up with the feet-dragging and has signaled to its supporters that when it comes to Solis' nomination it is time to fully engage.

Sen. Mike Enzi, the ranking Republican on the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, insisted on Thursday that committee members needed more time to "review the documentation submitted in support of Representative Solis's nomination." But those complaints, labor leaders insist, are part of a broader agenda to derail or damage the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Previous to her husband's tax gaffe, Solis withstood criticism from Republicans who insisted that her work at American Rights at Work, a union ally, was tantamount to being a lobbyist for EFCA. That this would be grounds for slowing her nomination seemed overtly partisan. But such is the politics that Employee Free Choice engenders. Now, however, it seems things are going to grow even more heated.

Comments

[wlkcrk]

08:26 PM on 02/10/2009

I said earlier that during the depression there were the very RICH and the VERY POOR. We survived because my father worked on the WPA. I feel that the Rethugs want us to go back to have only the VERY RICH and the VERY POOR again. As a matter of fact I feel that they'd just rather do away with the poor as long as they remain RICH.

[hdc77494]

12:05 AM on 02/09/2009

Have you guys thought about the impact of the employee free choice act? Unions will be able to start signing up members in secret. When they get to 49%, union thugs start knocking on individual's doors at home and pressuring them to sign the card or else. Once they get to 51% of the employees, the law says the feds can force the company to accept a union contract. If they don't like the union offer and can't negotiate a deal in a few months, an arbitrator can force the company to accept a contract. Employees will be pressured because the law doesn't force the union to use a secret ballot.
Why would anyone think the law needs to be changed so the WORKERS don't have a choice but the union does?? Why do you think steel companies and auto companies are failing? Their leaders agreed to union contracts that over decades, they can no longer afford. GM was paying 15,000 people to sit around union halls and collect 90% of their pay for two years after a layoff. Union members are collecting more over thirty years of retirement than they earned in twenty years of actual work. Whatcompanies do you think can actually afford to do that??

[hdc77494]

11:53 PM on 02/08/2009

Did the dems win the election, or the unions?? 90% of democrats are NOT members of a union. Obama just issued an executive order telling federal worksites to REMOVE a poster Bush had them put up, that reminded contract workers that they DID NOT have to pay union dues to work on federal job sites. Do you really think he did that to "help" working people, or to make it easier for unions to take money OUT of the pockets of working people?? Soliz says her job as Labor Secretary is to help Unions, not workers. If she's doing her job and the feds have strong work rules, why do you need the protection of a union??

[hdc77494]

11:46 PM on 02/08/2009

Soliz husband had tax liens going back 16 years. Do dems pay taxes?? She also violated ethics laws by lobbying other lawmakers to pass a bill that was being pushed by an activist organization she is on the board of. Third, she said her job as labor secretary is to help unions grow. That may be her personal goal, but the job of the labor secretary is to create a safe, level playing field for ALL working people. Helping a union that employs only 6% of the private workforce in this country is partisan and clearly NOT her job.

[hey0there]

07:06 PM on 02/07/2009

"Not only was she involved with a private organization that was lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she has cosponsored, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest. "

these ethics issues (far more serious than her husbands tax issues) are the reason she wont be confirmed. publicly she will say it she is withdrawing her name from consideration because of her husbands tax issues, as its less damaging for her career to throw him to the dogs instead.

hurry up and do it, and nominate Rosa Delauro instead as she's the better choice anyways.

[stopwar]

06:40 PM on 02/07/2009

Hey, Mitch McConnell: Want to talk about a lobbyist as Secretary of Labor? Want to "lead" the Republicans in the Senate in opposing Solis because she's too close to the other side on Labor issues?

But I didn't hear you say anything about the most recent Labor Secretary, Elaine Chao, who served for all 8 years of the Bush catastrophe. Oh that's right, she's YOUR wife.

[Bardmess]

01:35 PM on 02/07/2009

All people who work or plan to work need to support Solis, and campaign against anyone in Congress who is trying to block her. This is one of those instances where the cockroaches are caught out in the open with the light on.

[bobtr900]

03:36 PM on 02/07/2009

I totally agree. I would suggest the unions do what they know how to do, picket. I would set up a picket watch around the home of every Rethug on that committee.

Labor has been getting slaughtered by the Repubs, the party of Pro-Life and Family Values. I would cram that stuff down their throats. Exactly what is Pro-Life and Family Values about attacking the families of ordinary, everyday wage earners who only seek the basic necessities of life for their children. While rich or well off Repubs demand unlimited wealth for the wealthy Repubs and no healthcare for children. Repubs are truly sick and greedy people.

[Geria]

07:27 PM on 02/06/2009

What is maddening is the fact that the democrats never go after the repubs the way they go after democrats. Who made this rule, anyway?

[Geria]

07:13 PM on 02/06/2009

In the Scandinavian countries, business recognizes that it needs labor and doesn't hate labor and try to destroy unions as in the US. The US is a place destroyed by conflict between labor and business with business causing all the real damage, and to the whole economy. To spite unions, manufacturers decided to move their production off shore. This is the equivalent of giving a foreign country YOUR economy, or the part of the it that really matters. When you collapse the productive side of any economy, no wealth gets created as it is only labor that creates wealth. This act, repeated over and over was a large part of what caused the crisis, but to hear the businessmen tell it, it was government interference with the free market that caused the recession. Because he can't recognize his role in this disaster, the businessman lives to repeat it. So far, he has given us two depressions in the last l00 years.

[Szewczyk]

06:42 PM on 02/06/2009

The Republicans have proven themselves, over and over again, to be radical, right-wing nuts, who are willing to ruin our country and drive it into the ground to make their half-baked ideological points. They couldn't suck enough and Obama and the Democrats should simply ignore them and do what needs to be done to save our country from the results of years of Republican misrule.

[Deparis]

04:56 PM on 02/06/2009

Sign me up and don't start that fight without me!

[Geria]

07:16 PM on 02/06/2009

Nor me either. When you decide to take up arms, I want to be with you.

[CUL8R]

04:30 PM on 02/06/2009

Haven't those clowns in the Republican Party suffered the wrath of the people enough? Will they ever learn? Apparently not!

[Chris]

04:27 PM on 02/06/2009

Shouldn't the labor secratary be impartial incase she is needed to mediate a labor dispute?

[lj9283]

02:24 PM on 02/07/2009

That's the National Labor Relations Board, which is completely independent of the Department of Labor.

[fedupwiththis]

04:18 PM on 02/06/2009

Glad to hear that the battle will be engaged. The Rethugs picked this fight, now it's our turn to kick their butts back to Dumfukistan whence they came.

[jacqmac]

04:04 PM on 02/06/2009

EVEN IF I subscribed to the antiquated NOTION that a woman is RESPONSIBLE in some way for her husband's transgressions and is therefore not to be trusted (as the Republican obstruction of this CRUCIAL appointment in reminding us), I would be against this BLOCKAGE.
However, I DON'T subscribe to that antiquated notion. Then let's look at the WHOLE PICTURE.
1) Solis' husband FINALLY paid off $6400 of tax liens against his business.
Was this a MAJOR CORPORATION? No--it was a SMALL BUSINESS. These liens were from 16 years ago. The total, broken down, amounts to $400 a YEAR. Since the economy has been tanking for the last EIGHT years, that leaves EIGHT years of liens. Businesses often don't becom PROFITABLE before the THIRD year of their existence. And-well-the IRS LOVES to compute INTEREST on whatever the unpaid amount REALLY is. So--that COULD BE as small a number as $100 and maybe as big a number as $400. Add the INTEREST on and voila! you get $6400. And-since it would appear that Ms. Solis kept HER taxes up to date and had NOTHING TO DO WITH HER HUSBAND'S BUSINESS-then this entire argument-both here in the comment section and in the SENATE is absolutely SILLY, not to mention STUPID and MEAN-SPIRITED.
Hilda Solis SUPPORTS WORKING PEOPLE. THIS IS WHY THE SEIU, among others, is starting a PETITION to these idiiots who just DON'T BELIEVE that they LOST THE ELECTION!!

[Geria]

07:23 PM on 02/06/2009

Obama has to step in and stop the republicans from putting forward sexist none arguments.

[lj9283]

02:30 PM on 02/07/2009

And this wasn't the IRS but local taxes which he thought he had paid. He has paid his federal, state, and payroll taxes. This is an LA county tax lien. He paid it yesterday, but is appealing the payment.