Good morning. Good morning. The committee will come to order. Today were considering the nomination of Eugene Scalia. Let me say before i begin my Opening Statement that we welcome the secretary, good to see you. And we welcome mr. Scalias family. Well give him a chance to introduce all of them a little later. Theres so many of them and i wont the scalias are a productive family, apparently, so we wont come off any of your allotted time for your statement and i would say to the family members that the confirmation hearings arent necessarily a family exercise. I was before this committee myself to be nominated for education secretary and was grilled pretty heavily, i thought, with my family sitting right behind me. I was accustomed to it, but they werent. But they got over it before very long. We welcome you here and were glad youre here. Yesterday i received a letter from senator murray asking me to delays todays hearings. I think the Committee Members know, i do my best to do what senator murray suggests that i do. We work cooperatively even when we disagree. But im not going to agree to that and i want to carefully explain why. Weve already delayed the hearing one week at senator murrays request and let me go over the nomination process just briefly. On july 18, two months ago, President Trump said he would in a moment Eugene Scalia as the United States secretary of labor. And then on august 27th, the Committee Received mr. Scalias ethics paperwork from the government including his Financial Disclosures and based on these documents, it was determination he was compliant. Then on the same day, three weeks ago, august 27, the Committee Also received his committee paperwork which is extensive and is additional background information. All of that required paperwork has been before the committee for 23 days, more than three weeks. And since that day, august 27, mr. Scalia has offered to meet with every member of this committee and has met with most of us. Now to make sure im being exactly fair in the way i schedule these confirmation hearings, i check closely to compare how the committee handled president obamas nominations and compared them with the way we handle President Trumps. Lets take the example of tom perez who was president obamas second secretary of labor. The Committee Received the last of mr. Perezs paperwork ten days before his hearing or take the example of john king, president obamas second secretary of education, the Committee Received the last of mr. Kings paperwork six days before his hearings. By comparison, mr. Scalia had all of his paperwork in 23 days before the hearing. And i also think its reasonable to vote on mr. Scalia next tuesday. This has been a thorough process. Senators have known for two months that the president has selected, nominated mr. Scalia. As of today, weve had all of his paperwork for 23 days. Today senators will have the opportunity to have two rounds of questions. Any senator should be able to ask any additional question that a senator wishes to ask, that a senator did not ask when that person met personally with mr. Scalia. And if senators still have questions, they can submit those by 5 00 p. M. Tomorrow and mr. Scalia will answer them. I imagine the democrats on this committee disagree with mr. Scalia. And i disagreed with john king on many education matters. But when president obamas education secretary stepped down in his last year of office, i went to the president and i said, mr. President , i think we need to have a confirmed Senate Nominee in an important position like u. S. Education secretary. If you will please in a moment nominate john king with whom i disagree, i said if youll in nominate him, even though we disagree, well consider and confirm him promptly. And we did. Within 32 days after president obama nominated john king and within the senate had confirmed him. I also voted, by the way, for cloture on the senate floor for both of these nominees. I did this because i believe its important that we have a confirmed and accountable cabinet member for president s. Thats important to the senate so we have a chance to interview and deal with our cabinet members and its important to the country for the president to be able to have his choice of a cabinet member promptly considered and confirmed. So as a matter of fairness, after having a hearing ten days after receiving the last of mr. Perezs paperwork and six days after receiving mr. Kings paperwork was good enough for president obama, why is it not appropriate to have a hearing 23 days or three weeks after we received mr. Scalias paperwork. It would be hard for me as chairman to justify treating President Trumps nominees worse than we treated president obamas nominees. As for todays hearing. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement and then the secretary will introduce mr. Scalia. We welcome her. After his testimony, senators will each have five minutes of questions and well have two rounds of questions so senators can have time to ask them. I know as is often the case, there are other meetings and hearings going on this morning, so ive asked mr. Scalia to stay for the two rounds. Last week, a Washington Times headline red jobs report shows strong economy, growing wages, low unemployment rate. Wages are growing at an annual rate of 3. 2 . Overall, unemployment is at a 50year low. Businesses and workers need a secretary of labor who will steer the department with a steady hand. I believe mr. Scalia has those skills. His broad experience in both the public and private sector, a partner in the Washington Office where he spent the majority of his career dealing with his issues, 2002 and 2003, he was solicitor of the department of labor as the departments chief lawyer, he led initiatives to protect workers to improve enforcement of workforce safety laws. For example, he continued a case started by the Clinton Administration to ensure that a poultry factory was paying workers what they were owed. The department ultimately announced a 10 million settlement for workers. In 1992 he left the firm to serve as special assistant to william barr, he graduated with distinction from the university of virginia in 1985, university of Chicago Law School where he was editor in chief of the law review. Hes been a guest lecturer on unEmployment Law at Chicago Law School, adjunct professor at the university of the district of columbia. He and his wife have seven children. Hes all together well qualified for this job. Its important for the department to create an environment to help employers and employees succeed in todays rapidly changing workplace. One step the Trump Administration has taken to help the 700,000 americans who own and run their own franchises is to is involved with what we call the joint employer standard. In the obama years in 2015, the National LaborRelations Board issued a decision overturning more than 30 years of precedent creating a new standard. That decision meant that indirect or unexercised control over employees working conditions could make a franchiser joint employees. The department of labor itself issued a guidance broadening the interpretation of joint employer. That has led to a lot of confusion. One judge said federal courts have adopted a dizzying world of multifactored test for determining joint employment. The administration has attempted to eliminate this. June 2017, secretary acosta withdraw the guidance. In june of this year, the Comment Period closed for a new rule which we hope will bring stability and then a second way the administration has sought to create more certainty for employees and employers has been to raise the salary threshold for overtime pay in a reasonable way. In 2014 the Obama Administration more than doubled that threshold. There was bipartisan opposition from congress. The department has proposed a much more reasonable rule, the departments proposal would require input from workers and employees prior to future changes. Im glad to see these steps. As i mentioned earlier, the Senate Confirmed john king as United States secretary of education about a month after president obama said he wanted mr. King to serve as secretary. In this case, its been about two months since President Trump announced that he would in a nominate mr. Scalia to be the next labor secretary and the committee had has all of mr. Scalias paperwork and had an opportunity to meet with him for the past three weeks. The committee considered president obamas cabinet nominees promptly and with respect. It was embarrassing then and it is now for well qualified americans to be nominated by the president of the United States, any president , for an important position and then say to them in effect you are innocent until nominated or drag things out for a long period of time. Mr. Scalia is supported by a number of trade organization and is the committee has received letters of support from women he has mentored from career attorneys whom he worked with while he was solicitor from an hispanic immigrant who he represented on a pro bono basis and from one of senator ted kennedys former senior counsels on the judiciary committee. I ask consent that those letters and 17 additional letters of support be committed into the record. The committee will vote on tuesday on mr. Scalias nomination and i look forward to the full Senate Confirming him soon. Senator murray. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. It is good to see you. Thank you for joining us today to introduce the nominee. Mr. Scalia, i appreciate you and your family being here today. I look forward to you introducing your apparently very large family behind you. I know that will take a while, but we welcome all of you as well. Mr. Chairman, i do want to start by expressing my frustration with this rushed process and i have asked repeatedly to delay this confirmation hearing because i do believe that every nominees background should be reviewed carefully and thoroughly, especially for a role this important. Moving from a formal nomination that came on september 11th to confirmation in less than two weeks as we have in this case, is deeply concerning. Members have not been given enough time to review mr. Scalias background and i have repeatedly asked for more time and in fact we did not get answers to followup questions until late last night. So i want to be clear, i do not consider this nominees vet complete or sufficient and i will be asking questions and gathering information about your record and i expect thorough answers and im sure you will give them. Thank you. The chairman has said theres going to be a markup next tuesday and i really do urge the chairman to move the markup so everyone really does have more time to consider this nominees very long, complex record. Why . Because workers and families across the country are counting on us to take our vetting responsibility seriously, especially since President Trump clearly wont. His first nominee was a millionaire fast food ceo who disparaged his own workers and was forced to withdraw from consideration. His second pick served as a yesman before resigning. President trumps third pick, is an elite corporate lawyer who has spent his career fighting for corporations and against workers. I oppose mr. Scalias nomination to the department of labor back in 2001. 18 years later, his record defending corporations has gotten longer. The need for someone who will stand up for workers and families and stand up to President Trump on their behalf has only become more urgent. Because we have seen time and again that President Trump will not hesitate to throw working families under the bus to help corporations and billionaires and the powerfully connected get even further. When he worked with republicans to move a tax cut. From rolling back a rule ensuring workers receive their overtime pay, to blocking democrats efforts to raise the minimum wage and ensure equal pay, to seizing every opportunity to undermine workers rights to organize and join a union so they can advocate for higher pay and a safer workplace. The Trump Administration has consistently sided with corporations over workers. Now, instead of nominating someone who understands the challenges working people will face, President Trump has chosen a powerful corporate lawyer who has devoted his career to protecting big corporations and ceos from accountability and attacking workers rights and protections. President trump has nominated a secretary of corporate interest. If theres one consistent pattern in mr. Scalias long career, its hostility to the very workers he would be charged with protecting and the very laws he would be charged with enforcing if he would be confirmed. Like when he threw billions of dollars of workers Retirement Savings into jeopardy by suing to strike down the fiduciary rule. It required Financial Advisers to put their clients interest ahead of their own. And mr. Scalias made a career of striking down laws for big businesses looking to hack away at the safeguards and protections meant to avoid another economic crash, to fighting against protections for Workers Health and safety. When the department was working on a rule requiring employers to make accommodations to help prevent and address one of the most commonplace workplace injuries, mr. Scalia dismissed the Health Concerns of hundreds of thousands of workers as, quote, junk science and crusaded on behalf of corporate clients to undermine and overturn that rule. He hasnt fought against rules but also those to protect workers wages from being stolen by employers. Democrats have been pushing to raise the minimum wage to 15, to end the lower wage for tipped workers, to close the pay gap and make sure workers are not cheated out of their hardearned pay. Republicans continue to block our efforts to pay workers more, so i believe we need a secretary who cares about giving workers a raise, not one who criticized president obamas decision to increase the minimum wage for workers who are unfederal contracts. Not one who fought to help corporate clients steal employees tips and get out of paying overtime wages and we need someone who will hold companies accountable. The last time mr. Scalia served in the department of labor, he restricted protections that prevent retaliation against whistleblowers so severely he garnered bipartisan criticism for being openly hostile to whistleblowers. When it comes to accountability for discrimination, mr. Scalias record is unacceptable. In one case, he defended a company that discriminated against a job applicant because of her hairstyle. In another, which mr. He argued that employers should be able to discriminate against people with disabilities based on perceptions about what they can do and successfully undermined the landmark protections in the americans with disabilities act. When it comes to accountability for workplace harassment, his record got worse. While our nation is grappling with this epidemic, mr. Scalia is working to help get businesses off the hook. 30 women have been fighting to hold ford accountable for Sexual Harassment and assault they allege they experienced in the workplace, everything from unwanted touching to assault. Mr. Scalia has been fighting to get their case out of court. Our nation needs a secretary of labor who will prioritize addressing the epidemic of workplace harassment not someone who thinks the bar for what qualifies as harassment should be higher or that the standard of accountability should be lower. And these are all just a few examples of the larger alarming pattern of his career. His nomination offers a straight forward test for each of us. If you care about workers and families, his record is absolutely to me disqualifying for secretary of labor. But if like President Trump you want someone who run up the score board for corporations and billionaires at the expense of working families, his antiworker record is exactly what youre looking for. People are getting more and more tired of President Trumps antiworker agenda, the last thing they want to see from this administration is one more person using their power to look out for those at the top. So i hope everyone who claims to care about working families watches this hearing closely, looks at mr. Scalias record thoroughly and thinks long and hard about whether the workers they represent really want them to fight for someone who will not fight for them. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Show less text 00 23 56 thank you, senator murray. Well welcome the nominee, mr. Scalia. The secretary currently serves as the United States transportation secretary. Secretary, welcome. Thank you. Chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray, before introducing todays nominee, please let me acknowledge senator Johnny Isakson who recently announced his retirement. His leadership especially under the pension protection act has greatly benefited workers and you will be dearly missed. I am pleased to be here to introduce Eugene Scalia who i have known for decades as the nominee to be the 28th secretary of labor. I worked closely with him when i was secretary of labor. I can attest to his personal integrity and commitment to