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    Julie Su Faces Senate Fight as Labor Dept. Nominee

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    Business groups are critical of the candidate, Julie Su, and key senators are wavering. The administration’s labor policies are central to the clash.Just over a year ago, the White House suffered an embarrassing defeat when three Democratic senators voted against advancing President Biden’s pick to run a key labor agency, dealing a blow to the administration’s pro-labor agenda.On Thursday, the administration and Senate Democrats tried to ensure that history wouldn’t repeat itself, only this time the stakes were even higher.The occasion was the Senate confirmation hearing of Julie Su, who has served as acting labor secretary since March 11 and is Mr. Biden’s choice to fill the job permanently.As with last year’s confirmation battle, over the government’s top enforcer of minimum wage and overtime laws, Ms. Su’s nomination represents a broader fight over workplace regulation, with business groups chafing against Mr. Biden’s push to strengthen unions and increase workers’ rights and benefits.And once again, there are signs that the administration may fall short, with at least two Democrats and an independent wavering over whether to support Ms. Su. A vote of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is scheduled for next week.In her testimony before the committee on Thursday, Ms. Su largely associated herself with the record of her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh — whom some Republicans and business groups have held up as pragmatic, and whom Ms. Su served as deputy.She said she would seek employers’ advice on improving worker safety, and described the reverence she gained for small business owners after watching her immigrant parents operate a dry cleaner and a pizza franchise.Democrats argue that Ms. Su, who has strong backing from labor unions, would be a strong worker advocate and enforcer of provisions like the minimum wage, safety regulations and restrictions on child labor, as well as the right to join unions.“You need in terms of a bully pulpit a secretary of labor who makes clear that she is going to stand with working families, and she is prepared to use the powers of the office to take on corporate interests,” Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who heads the labor committee, said in an interview on Wednesday.If confirmed, Ms. Su is also likely to lead the Biden administration’s effort to expand overtime pay for salaried workers. The administration is expected to propose a rule substantially raising the salary threshold — currently about $35,500 — below which most workers automatically qualify for overtime.Those questioning the merits of Ms. Su’s nomination have cited her record as California labor secretary and her support for the state’s labor regulations to suggest that she is a threat to certain industries.When Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the committee’s ranking Republican, pressed at the hearing for assurances that she wouldn’t pursue regulations that could harm the franchise business model, Ms. Su reminded him that her parents had been franchise owners and suggested that their businesses “were the reason my sister and I were able to go to college.”President Biden with Ms. Su and her daughters at the White House in March.Yuri Gripas for The New York TimesThe Flex Association, a trade group representing several prominent gig economy companies, has called attention to her support for a California measure that would have effectively classified gig workers as employees, requiring companies like Uber and DoorDash to pay them a minimum wage and overtime and to contribute to unemployment insurance. (The law was later scaled back through a ballot measure.)The group circulated an email on Wednesday expressing concern that Ms. Su “does not appreciate” that classifying gig workers as employees could cause many to lose access to such work.Some labor experts have disputed this claim, and a rule being finalized by the Labor Department on how to classify workers takes a different approach from the California measure. But Kristin Sharp, the Flex Association’s chief executive, said that the labor secretary would have discretion over how to carry out the new rule and that “we want to make sure that person is objective in his or her views of nontraditional work.” The group has not taken an official stand on Ms. Su’s nomination.Other business groups have cited what they say is Ms. Su’s support for a California law setting up a council to issue health and safety regulations for fast-food restaurants and create an industry-specific minimum wage.“She has supported policies that directly attack our model,” said Matthew Haller, president of the International Franchise Association, alluding to the fast-food measure. A ballot measure next year will allow voters to decide whether to nullify the law. It is unclear from a video the groups point to that she has specifically supported the law.And Republicans and a variety of business groups have highlighted accusations that California issued billions in fraudulent unemployment insurance claims while she was the state’s labor secretary in 2020. At the hearing, Mr. Cassidy recounted a report of a rapper securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent funds in California and boasting about it on a video.Ms. Su has conceded that a large number of claims were improper. Mr. Sanders pointed out that the overpayments reflected features of a federal program that the state merely administered, and that other states paid out a far higher percentage of fraudulent claims.In recent weeks, a coalition of business groups has erected billboards and run ads critical of Ms. Su in the home states of potentially decisive senators, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Jon Tester of Montana, all of whom have so far refrained from backing her nomination.The effort is reminiscent of a business-backed campaign against David Weil, whom Mr. Biden tapped to head the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division in 2021, and who had led the agency during the Obama administration. That nomination died on the Senate floor last year after Mr. Manchin, Ms. Sinema and a third Democratic senator, Mark Kelly of Arizona, declined to support him. (Ms. Sinema has since become an independent.)Mr. Weil and his backers lamented the muted response from progressive groups on his behalf. This time, labor unions and other supporters are making a more determined push. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, Liz Shuler, announced on Wednesday that a coalition of unions would make a “six-figure buy” of ads backing Ms. Su in states like Arizona and West Virginia and would urge local union members to contact their senators.The United Mine Workers of America, which is influential in Mr. Manchin’s home state and sat out the fight over Mr. Weil, endorsed Ms. Su last week.Emilie Simons, a spokeswoman for the president, said that the White House felt confident about Ms. Su’s confirmation and that it was working hard for every vote. She said that Ms. Su had offered to meet with every senator on the labor committee and that she had met with senators from both parties.At a Senate Democratic lunch on Tuesday, Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, regarded as one of the more moderate Democrats on the labor committee, spoke up on Ms. Su’s behalf, noting her work on expanding apprenticeships as deputy secretary.Mr. Hickenlooper said in an interview that he had watched Mr. Tester, his undecided colleague from Montana, as he delivered his remarks and that he was “hopeful that we’ll get him.”But Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema may be harder to wrangle, according to veterans of such nomination fights. Mr. Manchin, who is up for re-election next year in a Republican-leaning state, has yet to meet with Ms. Su. Ms. Sinema is likely to face a challenge from a labor-backed candidate in her re-election bid, giving her little incentive to accommodate unions.Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Workers of America who advises multiple unions and has helped secure the nomination of many pro-labor officials over the years, said that generating popular support for Ms. Su in Arizona and West Virginia might help her cause with Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema.But, he added, “I think there is good reason to be worried about both of them.”Jonathan Weisman More

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    Republican Economists Line Up Behind Biden Nominee

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    Jared Bernstein, the president’s choice for chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, won praise for his work that led to a provision in the Trump tax cuts in 2017.WASHINGTON — Nearly every living economist who led the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a Republican administration — including the three chairs under President Donald J. Trump — signed a letter urging Congress to confirm President Biden’s new nominee to lead the council, Jared Bernstein.The letter, obtained by The New York Times, praises Mr. Bernstein for engaging with economists across ideological lines and for his work drafting the original proposal for the opportunity zones program that was included in the 2017 tax package that Mr. Trump signed into law.The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Mr. Bernstein’s nomination on Tuesday. Democrats had worried about his chances of clearing a committee vote after Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was hospitalized in February for treatment of depression. They had stepped up efforts to court Republican senators to support Mr. Bernstein. Mr. Fetterman has since returned to work in the Senate.Mr. Bernstein has been a member of the council since the start of Mr. Biden’s administration. The president tapped him to succeed Cecilia Rouse, who stepped down at the end of last month to return to her post at Princeton University. Before then, Mr. Bernstein was an adviser to Mr. Biden when he was the vice president, a longtime fixture at liberal think tanks in Washington and a frequent sparring partner with conservative economists on cable news.He also worked with Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist who went on to head the council under Mr. Trump, to draft a white paper for the Economic Innovation Group think tank about a novel effort meant to steer investment to impoverished parts of the United States. Those were the so-called opportunity zones, which were included in the 2017 tax law.The program designates areas in every state where investors in real estate, operating businesses or other projects are eligible for significant tax advantages, including potentially not having to pay capital gains taxes on profits from their investments in those areas.Republicans have championed the zones since the law was passed. Some critics, including in Washington think tanks, have criticized them for delivering investments to some areas that were already gentrifying rapidly. Recent research has shown a widening share of zones attracting investment in the years since they were established.Mr. Hassett, who spearheaded the letter to members of the Banking Committee on Mr. Bernstein’s behalf, and his fellow former heads of the council cited the idea for the zones as one example of Mr. Bernstein’s outside-the-box thinking on economics.Mr. Bernstein has “established a reputation for producing informative, data-driven analysis and developing creative policy ideas,” the former heads of the council wrote.Along with Mr. Hassett, two other acting heads of the council under Mr. Trump signed the letter: Tomas Phillipson and Tyler Goodspeed. Other signatories included Michael J. Boskin, who led the council under President George H.W. Bush, and three chairs under President George W. Bush: Ben S. Bernanke, N. Gregory Mankiw and R. Glenn Hubbard.Mr. Hassett said he had been unable to reach the only other living past chair of the council under a Republican, Alan Greenspan, to ask him to sign the letter.In an interview, Mr. Hassett praised Mr. Bernstein’s collegiality and suggested that he would continue a bipartisan tradition of council chairs seeking advice from their predecessors from both political parties.“I disagree with Jared about a lot, and Jared and I have been disagreeing about things for 20 years,” Mr. Hassett said. “But he really is a fundamentally good person who tries to figure things out with an open mind, and who changes his mind.” More

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    Biden’s World Bank Pick Looks to Link Climate and Development Goals

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    Ajay Banga will begin a monthlong “global listening tour” to drum up support for his nomination to be the bank’s next president.The Biden administration’s nominee to be the next president of the World Bank, the international development and climate institution, is embarking on a monthlong sprint around the globe to solidify support for his candidacy.It will be the first opportunity for the nominee, Ajay Banga, to share his vision for the bank, which has been aiming to take on a more ambitious role in combating climate change while maintaining its core commitment to alleviating poverty.Mr. Banga, who has had a long career in finance, faces the challenge of convincing nations that his decades of private-sector experience will help him transform the World Bank.He will begin his “global listening tour” on Monday with stops in Ivory Coast and Kenya, the Treasury Department said on Friday. In Ivory Coast, he will meet with senior government officials, leaders of the African Development Bank and civil society organizations. In Kenya, he will visit the Kenya Climate Innovation Center and a World Bank-backed project that helps local entrepreneurs find ways to address climate change.Mr. Banga will focus on how finding development solutions can be intertwined with climate goals and emphasize his experience working on financial inclusion in Africa, where he helped expand access to electronic payments systems while chief executive of Mastercard, a Treasury official said.The whirlwind campaign will also take Mr. Banga to Asia, Latin America and Europe.The White House nominated him last week after the unexpected announcement last month that David Malpass will step down as World Bank president by the end of June, nearly a year before the end of his five-year term. Mr. Malpass, who was nominated by President Donald J. Trump, ignited a controversy last year when he appeared to express skepticism about whether fossil fuels contribute to global warming.During a briefing at the Treasury Department this week, Mr. Banga made clear that he had no doubts about the causes of climate change. “Yes, there is scientific evidence, and it matters,” he said.Careful to strike a balance between the bank’s growing climate ambitions and its poverty-reduction goals, Mr. Banga emphasized that both issues were interconnected and equally important.“My belief is that poverty alleviation, or shared prosperity, or all those words that essentially imply the idea of tackling inequality, cannot be divorced from the challenges of managing nature in a constructive way,” Mr. Banga added.The World Bank’s nomination process runs through March 29, and other countries may offer candidates. But by tradition, the United States, the bank’s largest shareholder, selects an American to be its president. The executive board hopes to choose a new president by early May.A climate protest in Munich on Friday. Mr. Banga will focus on how finding development solutions can be intertwined with climate goals.Anna Szilagyi/EPA, via ShutterstockIf approved by the board, Mr. Banga will face an array of challenges. The world economy is slowly emerging from three years of pandemic and war that have slowed global growth and worsened poverty. Emerging economies face the prospect of a cascade of defaults in the coming years, and the World Bank has been vocal in calling for debt reduction.The Biden administration has pointed to China, one of the world’s largest creditors, as a primary obstacle in debt-restructuring efforts. Mr. Banga was careful not to be critical of China and said he expected to travel there in the coming weeks.“Today I’m the nominee of the United States, but if I’m lucky enough to be elected, then I represent all the countries who are part of the bank,” Mr. Banga said on Thursday. “Having their points of view known, understood and openly discussed — maybe not agreed to, but openly discussed — is an important part of leading a multilateral institution.”His nomination has won both praise and skepticism from climate activists and development experts.Some climate groups have lamented Mr. Banga’s lack of direct public-sector experience and expressed concern about his affiliation with companies that invest in the oil and gas industries.“Many question whether his history at global multinationals such as Citibank, Nestlé, KFC and Mastercard will prepare him for the huge challenges of poverty and inequality,” Recourse, a nonprofit environmental organization, said in a statement this week. Recourse has been critical of the World Bank’s policies on gas transition, its exposure to coal and its pace of action on climate change.Other prominent activists have praised Mr. Banga, including Vice President Al Gore, who predicted that he would bring “renewed leadership on the climate crisis to the World Bank.”And others viewed Mr. Banga as a natural choice to bridge the gap between the bank’s broad mandates.“Throughout discussions of the World Bank’s evolution, borrowing countries have consistently communicated that financing for climate should not come at the expense of other development priorities,” Stephanie Segal, a senior fellow with the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an essay this week. “In nominating Banga, whose candidacy does not lead with climate, the United States has signaled agreement that the bank’s development mandate cannot be abandoned in favor of a ‘climate only’ agenda.”The Biden administration has also faced questions about why it did not choose a woman to lead the bank, which has had only men serve as its full-time president.Mr. Banga asserted that as someone who was born and educated in India, he would bring diversity and a unique perspective to the World Bank. He also emphasized that at Mastercard, he had demonstrated a commitment to empowering women and elevating them to senior roles.“I think that you should credit the administration with taking a huge leap forward into finding somebody who wasn’t born here, wasn’t educated here,” Mr. Banga said. “I believe that giving people a level playing field is our job.”He added: “And that means whether you’re a woman, your color, your sexual orientation, growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, it doesn’t matter.” More

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    Biden Nominates Julie Su as US Labor Secretary

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    President Biden’s choice to lead the Labor Department is the deputy to the incumbent, Martin J. Walsh, who is leaving the administration.President Biden on Tuesday announced his intention to nominate Julie Su, the deputy labor secretary, to succeed Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, who has said he plans to leave his position in March.Ms. Su has helped oversee the Department of Labor during an administration that has made strong overtures to organized labor and to workers, both by communicating support for workers who are striking or seeking to unionize and through a series of regulatory, enforcement and legislative actions.Among those initiatives are a rule that would make it more likely for workers to be considered employees, granting them access to a minimum wage and unemployment insurance, and legislation that provides incentives to owners of clean energy projects to pay wages similar to union rates.Ms. Su’s contribution to these administration achievements won her widespread backing from labor unions.“Julie Su is broadly respected by unions, cares about the plight of workers, and folks appreciate her ability to manage the plumbing inside of D.O.L. and make the case to the world,” said Patrick Gaspard, a former senior union official and ambassador to South Africa who now heads the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.If confirmed, Ms. Su will take over the department at a time of rising interest in labor organizing. The labor secretary has little formal role in promoting unionization; it is the National Labor Relations Board that enforces labor rights. But Mr. Biden leaned on his first labor secretary to encourage workers to unionize, appointing Mr. Walsh to a task force to explore ways to increase union membership and including him in a White House meeting with union organizers.Ms. Su would probably be deployed in a similar way and make the case for legislation that the administration had failed to enact, which could benefit Mr. Biden politically even if it was unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House over the next two years.Among the assignments that may land on her desk are promoting the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize by threatening fines for employers that violated labor law, and elevating the importance of workers in service professions like child care and home care.Mr. Biden has proposed spending hundreds of billions of dollars to benefit care workers, but the proposals were largely absent from the legislation that Congress passed during his first two years in office. The PRO Act passed the House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate. It was reintroduced in Congress on Tuesday.In his announcement, Mr. Biden urged the Senate to advance Ms. Su’s nomination quickly “so that we can finish the job for America’s workers,” a refrain he appears to have adopted in support of an expected re-election campaign..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.If she is confirmed, Ms. Su’s opportunities to advance a new regulatory agenda will also be somewhat limited. As deputy labor secretary, she helped oversee the department’s push for rules designed to protect workers from Covid-19; a rule making it more likely for workers in the gig economy and elsewhere to be classified as employees rather than contractors; and a rule that would most likely raise the wages paid to workers on federally funded construction projects. The latter two rules have yet to be made final.Some Republicans cited concern over her involvement in advancing such regulations. “Deputy Secretary Su has a troubling record and is currently overseeing the Department of Labor’s development of anti-worker regulations that will dismantle the gig economy,” said Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the committee that will hold a hearing on her nomination, in a statement on Tuesday.But few high-profile regulatory items remain. The most prominent is a move to raise the cutoff below which most salaried workers are automatically eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay. The current cutoff is about $35,500, and the Biden administration is expected to propose raising it substantially, likely setting up a challenge from the business community.A federal judge struck down a 2016 rule put forth by the Obama administration raising the cutoff to about $47,500.Ms. Su, a speaker of Mandarin whose parents were immigrants, served as head of California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency before joining the Biden administration in 2021.The agency won praise from worker groups for being quick to establish rules protecting workers from hazards related to Covid-19, but critics highlighted accusations that the agency paid out billions in fraudulent unemployment claims. Ms. Su conceded that a large number of unemployment insurance payouts during the pandemic had been improper, and Republicans cited those accusations in opposing her 2021 nomination as deputy, which the Senate approved, 50 to 47.For several years before taking over the Labor and Workforce Development Agency in 2019, Ms. Su served as California’s labor commissioner — its top enforcer of minimum-wage and overtime laws. In that capacity, she was known as an innovative regulator, reorienting the agency so that it relied on worker complaints as the basis for investigations rather than random inspections of workplaces.She helped draw attention to cases in which employers cheated workers on minimum-wage and overtime payments with a public-relations campaign announcing that “Wage Theft Is a Crime.”Before entering government, she was known for her work in the 1990s on behalf of several dozen Thai seamstresses who had been forced to work in a Southern California sweatshop for far below the minimum wage until the authorities freed them. Ms. Su helped the workers win compensation from the companies that used the sweatshop as a supplier. The MacArthur Foundation cited her work on behalf of the workers when it awarded her a “genius” grant in 2001. More

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    Biden Labor Secretary to Depart to Run N.H.L. Players Union

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    Martin J. Walsh, a former mayor of Boston, was regarded as an unusually visible labor secretary.Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh is leaving the Biden administration to become executive director of the National Hockey League Players’ Association, the union announced on Thursday.Mr. Walsh, a former Boston mayor who had led the city’s powerful Building and Construction Trades Council, helped to bolster the Biden administration’s pro-union credentials and usher in a period of more aggressive workplace regulation after the relatively hands-off approach during the Trump administration.Mr. Walsh said in a statement that he would leave the Labor Department in mid-March.Alongside President Biden, who has been more vocal about supporting unions than any other president in decades, Mr. Walsh was arguably the administration’s most visible proponent of unions. He joined Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in meeting union organizers at the White House, and he served as vice chairman of an administration task force exploring how the federal government could increase union membership.Although union membership fell to 10.1 percent of the work force last year, the lowest rate on record, the country added nearly 300,000 union members amid a wave of worker organizing at major corporations including Starbucks, Amazon and Apple. (The rate fell because the work force grew even more rapidly.) Mr. Walsh cheered on the trend and warned employers to respect workers’ desire to unionize and refrain from coercive tactics.“As secretary of labor, I don’t appreciate that,” he said in an interview in August, when asked about complaints issued against Starbucks by the National Labor Relations Board. Workers who choose to organize “should be treated fairly and respectfully, not intimidated,” he added. Starbucks has denied violating labor law.Labor Organizing and Union DrivesTesla: A group of workers at a Tesla factory in Buffalo have begun a campaign to form the first union at the auto and energy company, which has fiercely resisted efforts to organize its employees.Apple: After a yearlong investigation, the National Labor Relations Board determined that the tech giant’s strictly enforced culture of secrecy interferes with employees’ right to organize.N.Y.C. Nurses’ Strike: Nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai in Manhattan ended a three-day strike after the hospitals agreed to add staffing and improve working conditions.Amazon: A federal labor official rejected the company’s attempt to overturn a union victory at a warehouse on Staten Island, removing a key obstacle to contract negotiations between the union and the company.In the Inflation Reduction Act, the major climate and health bill that Mr. Biden signed last year, Mr. Walsh helped push for labor-friendly provisions, including incentives for the owners of clean energy projects to pay wages similar to union rates.When it came to regulation, Mr. Walsh’s approach was most visible in the Labor Department’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency within the department, had declined to issue a new workplace rule governing Covid-19 under President Donald J. Trump.But Mr. Biden and Mr. Walsh pushed the agency to issue two so-called emergency standards — one outlining the steps employers in the health care industry would have to take to protect workers, and another requiring workers to either be vaccinated against the coronavirus or wear masks and be tested regularly. The Supreme Court blocked the latter rule, though it let stand a provision from another agency that required workers to be vaccinated at facilities that received funding from Medicare and Medicaid.After an executive order from Mr. Biden, the Labor Department also put forth a rule raising the minimum wage for federal contractors last year to $15 an hour. It proposed a rule that would make it more likely for millions of workers in industries like home care, construction and gig work to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors, guaranteeing them a minimum wage and overtime pay, and another that could raise the wages paid to construction workers on federally funded projects.It has recently cited six Amazon warehouses for creating work environments that have high risk for musculoskeletal injuries among workers. Amazon has said the accusations don’t reflect the steps it takes to ensure worker safety..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Ann Rosenthal, a longtime Labor Department lawyer who was at the department during the first year of the Biden administration, said Mr. Walsh was among the most effective of the 13 secretaries she served because of his credibility with unions and other worker advocates, his close relationship with Mr. Biden, and his political instincts and pragmatism. “He really checked all the boxes,” Ms. Rosenthal said.Mr. Walsh’s tenure at the department was not without controversy. Most prominent was the deal he helped broker in September between major freight rail carriers and a dozen unions representing more than 100,000 rail workers. The deal helped to avert a potentially crippling strike before the midterm elections and granted improvements in health benefits and wage increases of nearly 25 percent over five years.But the deal lacked paid sick days, and some workers complained that it did little to ease the grueling, unpredictable schedules that had put stress on their personal lives and health. Although members of four rail unions voted down the deal, the administration urged Congress to mandate the deal in November, and the president signed legislation enacting it. (Last week, one of the carriers, CSX, announced an agreement with unions that would provide four paid sick days a year for about 5,000 workers; a White House spokeswoman said Mr. Walsh had continued to push the rail carriers to offer paid sick leave.)Critics also complained that OSHA under Mr. Walsh didn’t go far enough in protecting workers from Covid-19. They said the agency should have devised regulations that applied to a variety of high-risk industries, such as meat processing, grocery and retail, not just health care. (The department said it had the power to ensure worker safety in these industries through other means, such as a so-called general duty clause.)Other rules, like the independent contractor rule and the one governing construction-worker wages, were proposed but not finalized during the first two years of the Biden administration — a delay that has worried some supporters.And Mr. Walsh and his administration colleagues failed in their efforts to win legislation that would have made it easier for workers to unionize, such as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, which would have blocked employers from requiring workers to attend anti-union meetings and made it possible to impose penalties on employers that violated labor law. The House passed the measure, but it stalled in the Senate.The Senate also killed a measure that would have granted consumers a $4,500 incentive to buy electric vehicles assembled at unionized plants in the country.A battery plant in Ohio that is a joint venture of General Motors and the South Korean manufacturer LG Energy Solution recently unionized. But without the kind of legislation that the Senate has balked at, unions face much longer odds in organizing at a proliferation of new battery and electric vehicle plants in the South.Mr. Walsh is a longtime fan of the Boston Bruins and has received political contributions from the hockey team’s owner. The Daily Faceoff, a hockey publication, previously reported on the contributions.The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Walsh was one of several candidates under consideration to replace Ron Klain as Mr. Biden’s chief of staff. That job eventually went to Jeffrey D. Zients. More

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    Brian Deese, Top Economic Aide to Biden, Will Step Down

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    Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, played a pivotal role in negotiating economic legislation the president signed in his first two years in office.WASHINGTON — Brian Deese, who served as President Biden’s top economic adviser and helped create and negotiate the sweeping economic legislation that Mr. Biden signed into law in his first two years in office, will leave his position in mid-February.Mr. Biden announced the departure on Thursday, saying Mr. Deese’s work as director of the National Economic Council was crucial to the country’s economic recovery.“Brian has a unique ability to translate complex policy challenges into concrete actions that improve the lives of American people,” Mr. Biden said.The move is the latest high-level departure from the administration as Mr. Biden hits the two-year mark in his presidency and Republicans take control in the House. On Wednesday, Ron Klain, who has known Mr. Biden for more than three decades, stepped down as the White House chief of staff.The turnover comes as Mr. Biden is at something of a policy inflection point, shifting focus from passing laws to carrying them out.Mr. Deese, 44, helped to shape some of Mr. Biden’s most sweeping economic successes, including a $1.9 trillion aid package to help pull the nation from the pandemic recession, bipartisan measures to invest in infrastructure, and an energy, tax and health care measure that was the largest federal effort in history to combat climate change.But his legacy will include the high inflation that plagued the economy last year, which economists attribute in some part to spending from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. It will also include assembling the most diverse staff in terms of race and gender in the council’s history.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands as the third year of his term begins.State of the Union: President Biden will deliver his second State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, at a time when he faces an aggressive House controlled by Republicans and a special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information.Chief of Staff: Mr. Biden named Jeffrey D. Zients, his former coronavirus response coordinator, as his next chief of staff. Mr. Zients replaces Ron Klain, who has run the White House since the president took office.Eyeing 2024: Mr. Biden has been assailing House Republicans over their tax and spending plans, including potential changes to Social Security and Medicare, as he ramps up for what is likely to be a run for re-election.Mr. Deese hosted weekly breakfasts or lunches with Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen; Cecilia Rouse, the chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; and Shalanda Young, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.Perhaps the sharpest criticism Mr. Deese faced as director was when he was appointed, from liberal groups wary of his previous job at the Wall Street giant BlackRock. Those criticisms have quieted somewhat as liberals applauded the climate bill and other legislation.“We were very skeptical of Deese’s decision to go to BlackRock and what that portended,” said Jeff Hauser, the director of the liberal Revolving Door Project. “He has worked out surprisingly well.”Mr. Deese’s departure was long planned. He has been commuting since late last summer from New England, where his wife and children live, to Washington. He does not yet have a new job lined up..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The president has not decided on his successor. People familiar with the search process say Lael Brainard, the vice chair of the Federal Reserve, and Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, appear to be the leading candidates for the job. Other contenders include Bharat Ramamurti, a deputy on the National Economic Council; Gene Sperling, a former director of the council under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama; and Sylvia M. Burwell, a former Obama aide who is now the president of American University.With Mr. Deese’s departure, his allies and colleagues say, Mr. Biden is losing the first and last person he consulted on economic issues and a driving force behind his domestic policy legacy.Ms. Rouse called Mr. Deese “an amazing partner as we navigated the rather choppy economic waters over the past two years.”Mr. Deese worked on the National Economic Council in the Obama White House, where he helped coordinate a bailout of the auto industry and negotiate a landmark international climate treaty in Paris. He joined Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign relatively late; along with Jake Sullivan, who is now the national security adviser, Mr. Deese helped to fashion a campaign platform that sought to curb global warming by investing heavily in new technologies that could help lower greenhouse gas emissions, like electric vehicles.Shortly after Mr. Biden was elected, Mr. Deese and colleagues on the presidential transition team began drafting what would become the American Rescue Plan. The week it passed the House, in mid-March, Mr. Deese and other aides huddled with Mr. Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the rest of the president’s plans for economic legislation.Mr. Deese urged the president to go big, maintaining the cost and ambition of the sweeping expansion of government in the economy that Mr. Biden had promised in the campaign. He prevailed: Mr. Biden later announced a $4 trillion economic agenda.Mr. Deese helped push that agenda through Congress by building relationships with swing-vote Democrats and moderate Republicans. He and a top Biden aide, Steven J. Ricchetti, camped out in the office of Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, in the waning days of negotiations over the infrastructure bill. Surrounded by Ohio sports jerseys, sustained by ordered-in salads, they hammered out the final details of what became Mr. Biden’s first big bipartisan win.Senators in those negotiations praised Mr. Deese for responding frankly to their concerns, in language that explained how legislative tweaks would affect people and businesses in the country.“Economists can — they can put you to sleep, and they talk, and when they get done, you don’t know what the hell you’ve heard,” Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, said in an interview. “That isn’t the case with Deese.”Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and a key negotiator in the infrastructure talks, said that Mr. Deese was “a good poker player, and he’s a good negotiator. But once the commitment was made, I trusted that the commitment would be fulfilled.”Mr. Deese brought more climate expertise to the National Economic Council than any previous director, and it was on that issue that his congressional relationships paid the biggest dividends for Mr. Biden. In July, after months of negotiations, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia and a key swing vote, signaled to Democratic leaders that he could not support the climate bill Mr. Deese had helped fashion, apparently dooming the effort.But the following Monday, Mr. Manchin called Mr. Deese, with whom he had built a close relationship, including a zip-lining trip together. Mr. Manchin told Mr. Deese he still wanted to find agreement on a bill and invited him to the Capitol to continue talks that also included Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader.Mr. Deese barely slept for the next week, colleagues say, as the negotiations wore on in secret and ultimately produced the Inflation Reduction Act. More

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    Economist Austan Goolsbee Is Named to Lead the Chicago Fed

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    A longtime University of Chicago economist who served in the Obama White House will be president of one of the Fed’s 12 regional districts.The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said on Thursday that Austan D. Goolsbee will become its next president, taking a seat at the central bank’s policy-setting table as officials work to bring down the fastest inflation in decades.Mr. Goolsbee, who was a member and later chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration between 2009 and 2011, has long been a faculty member at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He has a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and studied for his undergraduate degree at Yale.He will replace Charles Evans, who has been in the role since 2007 and at the Chicago Fed since 1991 and is retiring.The Chicago Fed district is made up of Iowa and most of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Fed’s 12 presidents oversee large staffs of researchers and bank supervisors and vote on monetary policy on a rotating basis.Mr. Goolsbee will vote on policy in 2023, meaning that he will be an important voice at the table as the Fed continues its effort to wrangle rapid inflation and tries to decide just how aggressive a policy response that will require. He is expected to start on Jan. 9.“These have been challenging, unprecedented times for the economy,” Mr. Goolsbee said in the statement from the Chicago Fed announcing the decision. “The bank has an important role to play.”Mr. Goolsbee warned in an opinion column last year that using past economic experiences to understand pandemic-era inflation and labor market changes would be a mistake.“Past business cycles look nothing like what the United States has gone through in the pandemic,” he wrote. “The most interesting questions aren’t really about recession and recovery. They center on whether any of the pandemic changes will last.”He also participates in surveys of economic experts carried out by the Chicago Booth Initiative on Global Markets, which offers a snapshot of some of his thoughts on relevant topics including inflation and the growing divide between the rich and the poor. Early this year, he noted that corporate profit margins have increased — a sign that companies are increasing prices by more than their costs are climbing — but said that they had not shot up enough to explain inflation. In response to a question about whether price controls could be used to contain prices, he wrote: “Just stop. Seriously.”In another Booth poll, asked if “the increasing share of income and wealth among the richest Americans is a major threat to capitalism,” he responded: “Duh.”While many economists responded to Mr. Goolsbee’s appointment positively, there was some backlash. Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, has been pushing the Fed to appoint Latino leaders. He said the selection process — which is run by the local business and nonprofit leaders who sit on a regional bank’s board — is antiquated and opaque.The result risks “perpetuating a legacy that has shut out Latinos from the upper echelons of leadership at the Fed,” Mr. Menendez said in a statement. More

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    David Lipton, Economic Diplomat, Will Step Down From Treasury

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    Mr. Lipton, who served in senior roles in the Clinton and Obama administrations and at the I.M.F., is retiring.WASHINGTON — David A. Lipton, a longtime figure in the field of international economics, is stepping down on Wednesday from his job as international affairs counselor to Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, according to two Treasury Department officials familiar with his plans.Mr. Lipton, one of Ms. Yellen’s closest aides, is departing at a critical moment for the global economy. He has become a key negotiator in some of Ms. Yellen’s biggest policy issues. He was deeply involved in international discussions about a global minimum tax last year and has been at the center of the talks among the Group of 7 nations to impose a cap on the price of Russian oil.An economist by training with a doctoral degree from Harvard, Mr. Lipton, 69, has held senior economic policymaking positions in the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations. He was also a top official at the International Monetary Fund, where he served as the deputy managing director.Last year, Ms. Yellen recruited Mr. Lipton to return to the federal government to help steer the Treasury Department’s international portfolio while President Biden’s nominees to lead the international affairs division were awaiting Senate confirmation.In a statement, Ms. Yellen described Mr. Lipton as one of her closest advisers and lauded his career.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.Beating the Odds: President Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.The ‘Trump Project’: With Donald J. Trump’s announcement that he is officially running for president again, Mr. Biden and his advisers are planning to go on the offensive.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.“He will be irreplaceable for the department, but I feel incredibly fortunate to have had his counsel in my first two years,” Ms. Yellen said. “During that time, David has helped shape our international agenda across a wide set of challenges — from the recovery from the pandemic to our response to Russia’s war against Ukraine.”Mr. Lipton first met Ms. Yellen while a graduate student at Harvard, where he took her introductory course in macroeconomics. Lawrence H. Summers, who would serve as Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, was also in the class, and he and Mr. Lipton became friends.After graduating from Harvard with a Ph.D. in economics in 1982, Mr. Lipton joined the I.M.F., where he worked for eight years on assignments that involved stabilizing the economies of poor countries.In 1993, after a stint working with the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs advising Russia, Poland and Slovenia on their transitions to capitalism, Mr. Lipton joined the Clinton administration’s Treasury Department. He was recruited by Mr. Summers, who was then the deputy Treasury secretary under Robert E. Rubin. He initially focused on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union before turning his attention to easing turmoil stemming from the Asian financial crisis in 1997.While President George W. Bush was in office, Mr. Lipton worked at Citigroup and at the hedge fund Moore Capital Management. He joined the Obama administration as an economic adviser. In 2011, Christine Lagarde named him her top deputy at the I.M.F. when the fund was spending billions of dollars to prop up Greece’s economy and as the economic tension between the United States and China was intensifying.Mr. Lipton’s second term at the monetary fund was cut short in 2020 when Kristalina Georgieva reshuffled its senior leadership. His position at the fund, which is usually decided by the United States, was filled by Geoffrey Okamoto, a former Trump administration official.A longtime proponent of the benefits of a global economy and multilateralism, Ms. Yellen persuaded Mr. Lipton to join her team as the Biden administration sought to mend international relationships that had been frayed during the Trump era.“David Lipton has been an insufficiently sung hero of the international financial system for the last 30 years,” Mr. Summers said in a text message. “His quiet strength and wisdom both prevented and resolved numerous crises.”Mr. Lipton, who grew up in Wayland, Mass., was a star wrestler in high school, serving as a co-captain for two years. At Harvard, he and Mr. Summers bonded over squash and economics.During remarks introducing Mr. Lipton at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in 2016, Mr. Summers described his former classmate as an economic “fireman in chief” who maintained a “keep hope alive” attitude when economic diplomacy got tough.Known for a dry wit that belies his earnest demeanor, Mr. Lipton expressed appreciation for the high praise but recalled that when he met Mr. Summers on the first day of school he initially had his doubts.“After talking to Larry for about 15 minutes, my reaction was, ‘If they’re all like that, I’m really in trouble,’” Mr. Lipton joked. More