MOVING ON: Marty Walsh’s decision to leave the Labor Department to run a high-profile union later this month is unique, though it’s hard to define much of a pattern for any post-secretary career moves.

It is fairly rare for a one-time Labor secretary to find themselves elsewhere in a presidential Cabinet. However Elaine Chao (‘01-’09) went on to run the Transportation Department in the Trump administration and George Shultz (‘69-’70) headed up the Office of Management and Budget, Treasury and State departments after leaving DOL.

Labor secretaries tend to be well-connected politically, and several have attempted to parlay their administration experience into elected office — to mixed results, at best.

Elizabeth Dole (‘89-’90) became North Carolina’s first female senator in 2003, and Hilda Solis (‘09-13) has won three terms on the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors. (Former acting secretary Patrick Pizzella was elected to the village council for Pinehurst, North Carolina, as featured in this recent colorful Wall Street Journal A-hed about its signature traffic circle.)

However Robert Reich (‘93-’97) lost in the 2002 Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial primary as did Tom Perez (‘13-’17) last year in Maryland.

James Mitchell (‘53-’61) won New Jersey’s 1961 GOP primary, but ultimately lost the race for governor, while Lynn Morley Martin (‘91-’93) flirted with a presidential run in 1996 but never ran.

Others like Alexis Herman (‘97-’01) went into the corporate world or returned to legal work, as Eugene Scalia (‘19-’21) did. Meanwhile Alexander Acosta (‘17-’19) has kept a low profile in recent years after exiting amid renewed scrutiny of his handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s plea deal as a U.S. attorney in Florida.

As for Walsh, his career trajectory perhaps most closely tracks with Peter Brennan (‘73-’75), who was likewise a union president prior to his DOL days and later returned to organized labor.

GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, March 6. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. Send feedback, tips, and exclusives to [email protected] and [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter at @nickniedz and @oliviaolanderr.

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Driving The Day

FIRST IN SHIFT: A bipartisan group of lawmakers are introducing a bill this week to bolster internships and other training programs targeted to those seeking to pivot into STEM-related fields.

The STEM RESTART (short for Restoring Employment Skills through Targeted Assistance, Re-entry and Training) Act would provide funding to small- and medium-sized businesses to offer paid internship programs for mid-career workers seeking to return to the workforce or shift into a STEM career.

The bill would create a $50 million competitive grant program — with awards between $100,000 to $1 million for small businesses, and $500,000 to $5 million for larger ones — to support these so-called “returnships.”

The effort is being led in the upper chamber by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.). Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Jim Baird (R-Ind.) are sponsoring the bill in the House.

On the Hill

DEMS PRESS FOR CHILD LABOR DETAILS: Seventeen Senate Democrats asked the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services on Friday for a range of information on child labor and protections from potential abuses, particularly of migrant children.

The senators’ asked about DOL’s recommendations for deterring companies from illegally employing children and the department’s enforcement capabilities against companies that may be violating child labor law.

The Labor Department should work with HHS to make sure sponsors of migrant children who are under investigation for labor abuses “are carefully scrutinized prior to children being placed with them,” stated the letter, which was led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

DOL OFFERS TO MEET WITH FOXX: The Labor Department on Friday offered to schedule a briefing March 14 with House Education and Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx’s office about how the agency complied with ethics rules while Secretary Marty Walsh was pursuing the NHL Players’ Association job.

The offer came on the heels of a March 2 letter from Foxx demanding such a meeting following a series of written requests for information that left Republicans feeling stonewalled.

Additionally the GOP has a host of other outstanding requests they say DOL has either blown off or not sufficiently responded to, and so it remains to be seen how much of an olive branch the agency’s offer will be.

More hill news: “Bernie's way: A new course for running the HELP Committee,” from POLITICO Pro’s Daniel Payne.

Around the Agencies

WALSH REFLECTS: Outgoing Labor Secretary Marty Walsh granted an exit interview with The Washington Post looking back on his time at DOL and how his departure came about.

In it he said he wishes he got involved with last year’s freight rail negotiations sooner, said he never had discussions with the White House about becoming Biden’s chief of staff, and did not rule out someday running for governor of Massachusetts.

He also had strong words for Congress about strengthening the agency’s hand to go after child labor violations: “If Congress chooses not to give us more enforcement officers to protect these companies that are violating the law by using children, then they’re accomplices in this.”

More agency news: “Appeals Court Returns Shipping Union Jurisdiction Case to NLRB,” from Bloomberg Law.

In the Workplace

THE FACE OF CHILD LABOR: Federal officials’ recent crackdown on a meatpacking sanitation company unleashed a cascade of negative effects on one of the desperate families whose child was illegally employed, The Washington Post reports.

“First, she lost the job that burned and blistered her skin but paid her $19 an hour. Then a county judge sent her stepfather to jail for driving her to work each night, a violation of state child labor laws. Her mother also faces jail time for securing the fake papers that got the child the job in the first place. And her parents are terrified of being sent back to Guatemala, the country they left several years ago in search of a better life.”

Unions

TIGHT RUNOFF TO BE AUTO WORKERS CHIEF: Challenger Shawn Fain appears to be leading incumbent Ray Curry by nearly 650 votes in the race to lead the United Auto Workers union, but the contest could come down to about 1,600 challenged ballots, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Elsewhere on the ballot: “Daniel Vicente beat Lauren Farrell on a vote of 4,347 to 4,025 to take the Region 9 spot. A vice presidential spot is also up for grabs in the runoff and current UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, who heads the union’s Ford department, had a comfortable lead over Tim Bressler for the remaining vice presidential spot.”

More union news: “Alphabet Must Negotiate If Contract Staff Unionize, Labor Board Official Rules,” from Bloomberg.

IN THE STATES

S.C. OSHA SUIT DISMISSED: A federal judge on Thursday tossed out a lawsuit filed by the state of South Carolina against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration seeking to block the agency from forcing the state to raise penalties for workplace safety violations.

South Carolina had argued that DOL overstepped its authority in raising the maximum fine amount under the Biden administration, and therefore it should not be penalized for not adhering to the same figure.

U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon said that OSHA’s action was not reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act and therefore outside of the court’s purview.

“We thus do not have jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims and must dismiss their complaint,” Lydon wrote in a 10-page decision.

What We're Reading

— “In Rare Conviction, Contractor Is Held Liable in Construction Death,” from The New York Times.

— “Low-Wage Jobs Are Becoming Middle-Class Jobs,” from The Atlantic.

— “The Perks Workers Want Also Make Them More Productive,” from FiveThirtyEight.

— “Microsoft Construction Workers Fired for Protesting Wage Theft, Complaint Claims,” from Bloomberg.

— “Robots are your new office security guard,” from Axios.

THAT’S ALL FOR SHIFT!

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