Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I come to the floor tonight to oppose the nomination of Cheryl Stanton to serve as Administrator of the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division.

The Wage and Hour Division enforces some of our Nation's most important workplace laws, including the Federal minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor laws, and family and medical leave. Yet, Ms. Stanton has a very long history of siding with employers when they have violated workers' rights. So I will be voting against this nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I also want to object to the Senate moving on Republican labor nominees without approving nominations for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.

Last Congress, in an unprecedented display of obstruction, my colleagues across the aisle blocked the confirmation of Chai Feldblum and Mark Pearce for terms on the EEOC and NLRB, respectively.

Even though both of these nominees were highly qualified, respected by their peers, Senate Republicans refused to give them a vote.

These are critical Agencies that are responsible for protecting workers' rights. Yet my colleagues across the aisle were more interested in tilting the playing field even more in favor of corporations than providing the Commission and the Board with balanced voices.

Despite longstanding practice to confirm majority and minority members to independent Agencies, my colleagues across the aisle jammed through Republican nominees only to the Board without Mr. Pearce, the Democratic nominee.

Republican leaders allowed one Senator to block the nomination of Ms. Feldblum to the EEOC, meaning that important civil rights agency is unable to do some of its most critical work.

In this moment, as our Nation is grappling with how to address the epidemic of sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, hamstringing the Agency that is responsible for protecting women's rights and safety is absolutely the wrong message to send to women, to workers, and to businesses.

So I am going to keep fighting to make sure the nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission represent all voices, as they are supposed to, not just corporations.

I urge every man, woman, and worker who believes workers should have a voice to join me in that.

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