“President Trump demonstrated contempt for the health and safety of America’s workers by nominating Eugene Scalia to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor. Confirming Scalia would be akin to positioning a fox to guard a henhouse. Scalia’s life’s work has been to undermine the U.S. Department of Labor’s mission to ‘foster, promote, and develop the wellbeing of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.’

His record as an advocate for big businesses that trample on the rights and safety of working people is, quite simply, disqualifying.

“Eugene Scalia has spent his career defending corporations that undermine the health, safety and rights of working people. A vote to confirm him would be a vote to give those who experience sexual harassment and discrimination no recourse, to subject many more people to on-the-job hazards, to deny consumers the protections they need and deserve, to turn the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ rights into an agency that works to undermine them. It would be a vote to intensify the Trump administration’s assault on the rights of working people – a vote to make our country less fair.

“Scalia’s record is very clear. When he represented a bank, HSBC, that was charged with retaliating against an employee who reported that a manager was sexually harassing co-workers, Scalia’s questioning of a victim was aggressive and insensitive. He represented casinos that forced workers to share their tips with supervisors, denying them the right to sue for their wages. Scalia convinced an appeals court to reverse class certification for United Parcel Service workers who were denied reasonable accommodations for their disabilities, which were caused by on-the-job injuries. For the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Scalia led a fight against regulations that experts estimated would prevent some 600,000 injuries caused by unsafe workplace design each year. He led the legal work that blocked the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule, which would have protected consumers from investment advisors who put their personal profits ahead of their client’s best interests. And Scalia helped Walmart and other big businesses strike down a Maryland law that required employers to make minimum contributions to their workers’ health insurance coverage.

“The U.S. Senate must reject Eugene Scalia to serve as our country’s Secretary of Labor.”