Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su will celebrate her first Labor Day as the country’s top worker advocate on Monday. Though her confirmation as labor secretary is bogged down in the Senate, Su says she won’t let that keep her from memorializing the holiday.

What You Need To Know

  • Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su will celebrate her first Labor Day as the country’s top worker advocate on Monday, though her confirmation for the job has been bogged down by the Senate

  • Despite that, the Labor Department is continuing its work; this week, a new proposed rule was introduced expanding overtime pay for salaried workers making less than $55,068 each year

  • Su confirmed that the Labor Department is keeping an eye on the Hollywood writers and actors strike against producers, and may step in to keep sides at the negotiating table if needed

“Labor Day is a day where we celebrate working people across the country, we celebrate the people who keep us moving, who work in grocery stores, and pick our fruits and vegetables and stock shelves, and health care workers and teachers,” Su told Spectrum News, adding that holidays like Labor Day exist because of labor unions, which she says must also be celebrated.

“We believe that workers should have time to rest, to be paid for all the hours that they work. But we also know that lots of workers are working, even though it's a holiday. And so we also honor and celebrate them. But I think every day is sort of Labor Day here at the Department of Labor.”

Su says that as long as she's in charge of the department — whether that’s in her current acting capacity or fully confirmed by the Senate — she’ll be there for the American worker.

Just this week the department proposed a rule to ensure salaried workers making less than $55,068 are automatically eligible for overtime pay. The department estimates 3.6 million Americans could benefit. The rule will be published in the Federal Register and will be open for public comment for 60 days before the department finalizes it.

“For a long time working people have struggled to get by, you know, working people who you know are going to work and maybe you know that they're a manager in your local grocery store,” said Su. “Those workers should be entitled to overtime and that's what our rule does.”  

Su was also asked if the department would consider stepping in to resolve the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and Writers’ Guild of America strikes in her home state of California, just as she did earlier this year with the western ports. 

“We want to look at where we could be helpful, where we can be supportive,” she explained. “Supporting collective bargaining means mostly letting the parties work things out, letting them do what they know best, respecting their role, respecting their expertise."

The department will continue to keep an eye on the situation to see where it might be able to step in — including ways to keep the unions and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers at the negotiating table. “Maybe it's about helping them see a path that has become sort of obscured because of many months of negotiation,” Su added. 

As for how the acting labor secretary will be marking Labor Day, Su told us she will be hitting the road to talk to workers. President Joe Biden is also expected to mark the holiday meeting with union workers in Philadelphia, as organized labor provided crucial support in Biden’s first presidential campaign and has remained a reliable supporter in his re-election bid.