Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is kicking serious ass:
Her aggressive moves to boost enforcement and crack down on businesses that violate workplace safety rules have sent employers scrambling to make sure they are following the rules.
The changes are a departure from the policies of Solis' predecessor, Elaine Chao. They follow through on President Barack Obama's campaign promise to boost funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, increase enforcement and safeguard workers in dangerous industries.
Garnering less attention, she just finished hiring 250 new investigators to protect workers from being cheated out of wage and overtime pay. She also started a new program that scrutinizes business records to make sure worker injury and illness reports are accurate. And she is proposing new standards to protect workers from industrial dust explosions — an effort the Bush administration had long resisted.
Whenever you hear someone suggest that this administration doesn't represent "change," feel free to laugh in their faces. Big Cape Fear laughing. Because they're very wrong.
We can argue about the degree of change and questions of ideology, but to suggest that President Obama isn't significantly different from Bush/Cheney in terms of both policy and persona is being willfully dishonest.
Then again, I must be imagining how Secretary Solis is carrying out President Obama's policies and campaign promises to tighten labor laws. You know, because I'm just an delusional Ofestishist. I'm sure Solis is just selling out liberals somehow.