Keith Sonderling — a former U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Commissioner and President Donald Trump’s present nominee for deputy secretary of labor — confronted a spread of questions Thursday as members of the Senate’s Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee sought to find out not solely his views on labor questions, but additionally the extent of his involvement with the company’s transformation by Elon Musk and his Division of Authorities Effectivity.
Earlier than kicking off his questions, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., welcomed Sonderling and his household to the listening to. However every thing after that was powerful love.
Not like the case of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who scored a 14-9 vote of confidence from the HELP Committee earlier Thursday morning, few Senators let in the present day’s nominee skate by with excuses of not being within the constructing but.
Expertise on the company didn’t work in Sonderling’s favor
Acknowledging that Keith Sonderling was a senior advisor to the appearing DOL secretary, Kaine requested the deputy secretary nominee, “What number of Division of Labor staff have misplaced their jobs for the reason that starting of the Trump administration?”
“I’m a senior advisor proper now on the U.S. Division of Labor. I don’t have the authority over hiring and firing choices,” Sonderling stated.
“Do you not know the reply?”
“I have no idea,” Sonderling stated, earlier than intimating the assistant secretary of administration or the HR employees on the division would doubtless know.
“Is the reply to my query one that you simply’re excited about or disinterested in?” Kaine requested.
Sonderling began, “If confirmed as deputy secretary of labor—,” however Kaine interrupted him, re-emphasizing that the deputy secretary nominee works on the DOL “now. You’re there proper now.”
“I don’t have the authority over HR, however I’ll,” Sonderling stated, agreeing that his curiosity in defending employees’ rights prolonged to “each employee in america.”
The trade was unremarkable, in that it was a basic show of Democrats’ rapid-fire questioning Donald Trump’s DOL nominees this month. But it surely was the start of Sonderling’s recurrent grilling over fired employees and whether or not the senior advisor had any culpability within the huge discount of head depend.
Sonderling pressed briefly on impartial contractor, joint employer guidelines
Earlier within the listening to, HELP Committee Chairman Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., had used his time to query Sonderling in regards to the back-and-forth interpretation of impartial contractor standing. “As deputy secretary, do you decide to re-implementing the impartial contractor normal used within the first Trump administration, so employees are free to earn a residing in a means that works finest for them?”
Sonderling answered that the impartial contractor rule is at the moment beneath litigation. “If confirmed, I’ll actually work with the solicitors and the division to make sure the perfect path ahead,” he stated. “I do have a really robust document on this and what we did within the first Trump administration, I, after all, stand by. As a result of primarily based on long-standing authorized ideas, we didn’t make up a brand new normal.”
Underneath the Trump administration, Sonderling famous, DOL adhered to “requirements that the Supreme Courtroom has blessed earlier than,” he stated.
Taking pictures on the earlier leaders — “The Biden-Harris administration made a lot of makes an attempt to learn union constituencies, together with by implementing guidelines that improve company management over small companies” — Cassidy identified that Sonderling had beforehand signed the Trump administration’s joint employer rule “refocusing on who truly directs an worker’s work everyday.”
Cassidy requested if the Trump-era rule could be re-implemented.
“If I am fortunate sufficient to be confirmed, I am dedicated to all the foundations and regulation[s],” Sonderling stated, including that whereas the joint-employer rule Cassidy referenced is “not beneath litigation […] that’s one thing we’re going to check out very intently.”
In one other period, Sonderling’s commitments to make clear the company’s stance on impartial contractor and joint employer interpretation could have been essentially the most salient subjects of the labor dialogue.
However over the subsequent hour, these tidbits have been overshadowed by bipartisan considerations over the Division of Authorities Effectivity and its actions at DOL.
Bipartisan considerations over DOGE mount
Sen. Tim Kaine spoke throughout a Lori Chavez-DeRemer listening to on Feb. 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. He would later take Sonderling to process over DOL firings.
Win McNamee by way of Getty Photographs
As was the case with many Republicans current, the dialog with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, began jovially. (She and Sonderling famous they’d beforehand spoken at size about fish, apparently within the context of seafood-related labor points in Alaska.)
Nonetheless, Murkwoski echoed the fear of Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., relating to DOGE’s entry to delicate DOL information.
“Know that this senator shares the priority about confidentiality of that,” stated Murkowski.
“As I’m speaking to Alaskans, one of many considerations I’m listening to is we don’t know why there are those that are gaining entry. It might be fantastic, it might be not — however I’m nervous about it,” she continued. “I believe that we will alleviate nervousness and nervousness by simply saying your delicate information goes to stay confidential.”
In the end, Murkowksi didn’t push Sonderling on it, however ended by saying she “simply wished to place [her concern] on the market on the document” earlier than transferring on to debate apprenticeships.
Claiming ignorance didn’t work in Sonderling’s favor, both
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., advised Sonderling that she was rising “an increasing number of involved” all through the listening to at how the nominee dodged questions on employers discriminating with out recourse, and the place of veterans and folks with disabilities in an anti-DEI society.
Circling again to Kaine’s earlier line of questioning about firing federal employees, Blunt Rochester stated, “Whereas I used to be sitting right here, [I] did a Google search and located, on Bloomberg Regulation, details about what number of staff from the Division of Labor have been let go.” She went on to ask how Sonderling would assist the American workforce, whereas firing authorities staff — together with these at DOL.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., subsequent contrasted Sonderling’s “deep respect for civil servants” in opposition to her view that “this administration continues to assault these employees.” She spoke about how Elon Musk’s e mail demanding to know the way employees spent their week prompted government-wide “chaos, confusion and worry” for federal staff, together with DOL employees.
“I wish to know who was concerned in making choices on the division relating to the steerage that was given to division staff,” she requested.
Directives from the Workplace of Personnel Administration, together with “the steerage associated to responding to emails or not,” Sonderling stated, is the work of the company’s HR division.
Keith Sonderling, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee because the Deputy Secretary of Labor, arrives for his affirmation listening to held by the Senate Committee on Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Feb. 27, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee by way of Getty Photographs
“How is it attainable that you simply weren’t concerned in such a high-level choice as an individual who’s a senior a part of the transition workforce? You’ve been there within the constructing; you will have been part of the touchdown workforce,” Alsobrooks requested. “How is it attainable that you simply weren’t concerned?”
“It’s a giant company, and there’s skilled profession employees that deal with numerous features of the division,” Sonderling stated. “The particular questions you’re asking about go to the skilled employees and the human sources divisions, which I don’t handle and I don’t have authority over, and I belief them totally.”
In a surreal second, Sonderling famous that he himself acquired one of many emails, which he realized solely after studying about it on social media.
“Which I believe once more factors to the sheer incompetence — to even ship that e mail to you says one thing horrible in regards to the folks within the constructing,” Alsobrooks stated, summing up senators’ recurring aversion to DOGE all through the listening to.
