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Seth Harris

Deputy Secretary, Labor Department (since May 2009)

(Labor.gov)

Why He Matters

A Clinton administration alumnus, Harris returned to the Department of Labor as deputy to Secretary Hilda Solis.

Harris spent the intervening eight years teaching at New York Law School, where his research has focused on fair wages and preventing workplace discrimination.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Professor, New York Law School (2000 to 2009); Senior adviser, Labor Department (1993 to 2000); Clinton-Gore Transition Team (1992)
Alma Mater: Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, B.A., 1983; New York University Law School, J.D., 1990

DC Office: U.S. Department of Labor, Frances Perkins Building, 200 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20210, 1-866-487-2365
Web site

Path to Power

Harris went to college at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, earning his bachelor of science in 1983.

He obtained his J.D. in 1990 from New York University Law School, where he was editor of the Review of Law and Social Change.

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After law school, Harris did two clerkships, first for a judge on the Ninth District U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the second on the U.S. District Court of Maine.

Clinton Labor Department

Harris served on the Clinton-Gore transition team in 1992 before being appointed to Clinton's Labor Department as counselor to the labor secretary.

He stayed for seven years, advising both Clinton's first-term Labor Secretary Robert Reich and second-term Secretary Alexis Herman on legal, policy and management issues. He took on a few other policy-advising roles in that time, among them acting assistant secretary of labor for policy.

In the late 1990s, Harris also served as an ex-officio member of the 21st Century Workforce Commission, created by Congress to analyze the skills workers would need in a digital economy.

Academic

In 2000, Harris left the Labor Department to take a faculty position at New York Law School, directing its labor and employment law program. He taught and spent time researching the economics of labor and employment law. His research focused on the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, but he also studied other kinds of workplace discrimination. He wrote about the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act and union organizing.

At the same time, he was a senior fellow at the Life Without Limits Project of the United Cerebral Palsy Association and a member of the National Advisory Commission on Workplace Flexibility.

During his time in academics, Harris also occasionally called in to his brother, Paul Harris's, radio-show to talk about law in the workplace. He discussed a suit against Wal-Mart and a Supreme Court decision on age discrimination.

Obama Campaign

Harris joined the 2008 Obama campaign as a labor and employment policy adviser and also worked on the campaign's disability policy committee.

After Obama's election, Harris was asked to head the transition team working group that assessed the labor, education and transportation departments.

Obama nominated Harris as Secretary Solis's deputy at the Labor Department after her confirmation in February 2009. He was confrimed in May 2009.

The Issues

Harris is Solis's right-hand man at the Labor Department. That means advising the secretary on important legal issues, and making sure her decisions are executed.

Harris draws from his previous seven-year tenure in Clinton's Labor Department, and from his academic expertise in anti-discrimination law, especially as it relates to the Americans with Disabilities Act approved in 1990. He is also an advocate of fair wages, whether that means increasing the minimum wage for restaurant servers or ensuring that corporations pay their employees for overtime work.

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"Seth Harris's nomination demonstrates President Obama's will to return labor department policy back to the working people it was designed to serve," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said of Harris's nomination in a statement. Pascrell represents Harris's town of Montclair, N.J.

Employee Free Choice Act

One major item on the Labor Department's early agenda will be the Employee Free Choice Act. Both President Obama and Solis support the bill, which contained a provision giving employees the option to forgo a secret ballot and instead form a union when a majority of employees have signed cards in favor of it.

The so-called "card-check" provision riled opponents in business and industry groups, who argued that without a secret ballot workers could be pressured into supporting a union. They joined forces with lobbying and advertising campaigns opposing the bill.

In July 2009, Democrats withdrew the "card-check" provision from the bill. They said the remaining bill would still make it easier for workers to unionize by shortening the union elections.

The Middle-Class

In his research into workplace laws, Harris has often championed the middle-class.

He wrote a 2003 Los Angeles Times op-ed criticizing the George W. Bush administration's new labor regulations. Harris argued that the regulations expanded the Fair Labor Standards Act and created exemptions that would limit overtime pay to white-collar workers.

"In this era of economic insecurity, middle-class families should have the extra pay they are struggling to earn," Harris wrote.

Compliance in the Workplace

Harris believes that labor lawyers aren't the ones who have to comply with what he called a "dizzying array of workplace laws" that touch on issues from civil rights to immigration.

In 2003, Harris became the founding director of New York Law School's diploma program of Law in the Workplace aimed at teaching human resource professionals about labor law.

"These laws affect virtually every aspect of workplace life. Ultimately it is human resources professionals, not lawyers, who bear the front-line responsibility for assuring that their employers comply with these laws."

The Network

Harris was a senior counselor at the Department of Labor during the Clinton era. During Clinton's first term, he advised Labor Secretary Robert Reich. From 1997 to 2000, he advised labor Secretary Alexis Herman.

At the Obama Labor Department, Harris will report to Secretary Hilda L. Solis.

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