Biden Transition Workforce Floats Trial Balloon: Jenny Yang for OFCCP Director? | DirectEmployers Affiliation

It had all of the early earmarks of the traditional four-part political “trial balloon.”

First, the rumors started to swirl (two weeks in the past) that the US DOL Transition Workforce had chosen a candidate to be the following OFCCP Director.

Second, early final week, the rumors named Jenny Rae Yang as that candidate, however with uncertainty: A Member of the US DOL Transition Workforce and a widely known civil rights advocate and former Commissioner (appointed on August 2, 2012: President Barack Obama), after which Vice-Chair in 2014, then Chair of the EEOC from September 1, 2014 till January 25, 2017 (departed with the arrival of the Trump Administration). In 2016, Ms. Yang additionally introduced, championed and ushered within the EEOC’s Element 2 “hours labored” and “pay knowledge” assortment from employers. Sterling credentials to make sure because the OFCCP is slated to be “Floor Zero” within the Biden Administration’s enforcement of employment discrimination based mostly on race, intercourse and ethnicity.

Third, as media inquiries then started researching the swirling rumor mill, immediately the “unidentified sources in-the-know” (on this case from the US DOL Labor Transition Workforce itself) predictably appeared out of the mist and darkness and confidentially (so everybody might hear) confirmed that the US DOL Transition Workforce was giving “severe consideration” to Ms. Yang—however, after all, they might not discuss it or affirm this information “on the document” as a result of reigning confidentiality guidelines of the Transition Workforce (however which aren’t sufficiently robust to cease a leak like theirs, after all. They’re keen and in a position to be solely a bit of bit naughty.) Reporters on the opposite finish of these “leak calls” at all times surprise: “Who’s taking part in who”? Or is it whom? Higher pull the New York Instances Fashion-Information on that one. And, after all, the Transition Workforce then wouldn’t return press cellphone calls (that is additionally within the “trial balloon” playbook together with leaks up towards a weekend), however considerably didn’t deny the story…one other traditional tell-tale signal: the DNA proof of a trial balloon story unfolding as deliberate.

• What is occurring now’s that the Transition Workforce is ready to see if it will get vital backlash from Black civil rights teams and Black spokeswomen/males influential inside the Democrat Social gathering. The expression for this type of cautious “testing of the waters” within the navy is: “Run it up the flag pole and see if anyone shoots at it.” If not, proceed to Step 4.

Fourth, within the “trial balloon” formulation would be the formal announcement from the Transition Workforce, or Labor Secretary-nominee Walsh, that Ms. Yang has the job…if she will be able to survive the three-day weekend with out the President getting known as into yet one more intra-party spat amongst loyal Democrats.

Why all of the drama and want for a trial balloon, and a cautious one at that, you would possibly ask? Black Civil Rights teams weren’t blissful that the Administration was filling up with numerous Division Heads who weren’t Black, and even whereas they felt they’d a really highly effective declare that Biden rode to victory himself, after which received the Senate again (to 50/50) through the Georgia Senate run-off races, on the backs of Black voters. Then, the Biden-Harris US DOL Transition Workforce was gradual to achieve out to the normal Black Civil Rights teams (City League; NAACP, Attorneys Committee for Civil Rights Beneath Regulation, and so forth.) when seeking out the following US DOL Secretary of Labor. After which, to the additional dismay of Black Civil Rights teams, their suggestion for the Secretary’s job slowed down on the US DOL Transition Workforce. Certainly, ultimately their candidate was one of many first to exit consideration from the group of candidates final left standing for the Secretary’s job.

And, among the many remaining two on the brief record for the Secretary’s job was Julie Su, an Asian-American candidate from California. Ms. Su made a powerful run on the job pushed forward energetically by Asian-American civil rights and neighborhood teams. Full courtroom press. Making an attempt to melt the blow to the Asian neighborhood that Biden was choosing an previous Labor pal of his with sterling credentials to run US DOL and never Ms. Su, it provided her the quantity 2 job at Labor.  Asian activists threatened that Asians would shrink again from the Democrats if Su didn’t get the highest job. She didn’t, however not earlier than rejecting the quantity two job at US DOL out-of-hand and lashing out onerous contained in the Democrat social gathering. The Walsh announcement hung within the stability for weeks, consequently, because the Transition Committee tried to kind out and appease the Asian-American neighborhood.

So, now Jenny Yang emerges from the infighting which adopted the seek for the Secretary’s job.

And what a sterling background Ms. Yang has for the OFCCP job…nearly too good, in truth. Shifting from the Chair of the EEOC (a Presidential appointment topic to the recommendation and consent of the Senate) to the OFCCP Director Chair (appointed by the Secretary of Labor with no Senate oversight) can be a step down for Ms. Yang in status. Nonetheless, the OFCCP Director place can be a turbo enhance in authority, energy and affect over the Biden civil rights agenda because the EEOC is useless to Workforce Biden for many of President-elect Biden’s coming time period as President. And, if Republicans take again the Senate in 2022, Workforce Biden would then have little likelihood to regulate the EEOC and drive EEO coverage by means of the Fee within the subsequent 4 years. And, the OFCCP has been “the engine” of federal Civil Rights coverage for many years now, at any fee. And Ms. Yang’s transfer to the OFCCP, if her whispered close to choice holds up and he or she nonetheless needs the job, is oddly the reverse trek Cari Dominguez took as a Republican. Ms. Dominguez traveled from the OFCCP Director job (within the George H. W. Bush (#41) Administration), to the Assistant Secretary of Labor place, to EEOC Chair, making her then the highest-ranking Hispanic within the Bush Administration (however solely after her switch to change into the Chair of the EEOC)

However the freedom Ms. Yang could have at OFCCP will astound her in an company which desperately wants her extra for her administrative abilities than what she wants the company to do for pay reporting and homosexual, lesbian and transgender rights. Whereas the Chair at EEOC, Ms. Yang was nicely regarded on each side of the aisle in Congress and managed the sprawling EEOC very nicely. She decreased Cost inventories after which championed sexual harassment prevention by establishing in January 2015 a celebrated “Choose Taskforce on The Research of Harassment in The Office.” (Ms. Yang left the EEOC on July 1, 2017 earlier than the Process Drive might fulfill its position. That duty then rolled over to EEOC Commissioner Victoria Lipnik who succeeded Ms. Yang because the EEOC Chair, and to fellow Commissioner Chai Feldblum. (Lipnik and Feldblum then revealed in 2018 a broadly acclaimed report titled “KEY FINDINGS Of The  Choose Process Drive On The Research of Harassment In The Office.”) Ms. Yang additionally modernized the EEOC’s pc techniques and started a research of and motion of the EEOC in direction of systemic discrimination investigations.

Jenny Rae Yang is at present a Senior Fellow within the Heart on Labor Human Companies, and Inhabitants on the City Institute. She has been there since she left the EEOC. She obtained her BA from Cornell College and acquired her regulation Diploma in 1996 from New York College. She then clerked for the Honorable Edmund V. Ludwig in the USA District Courtroom for the Jap District of Pennsylvania. (“Clerking” for a Decide after commencement from regulation faculty is a prestigious plum job for high-performing regulation faculty graduates.) After clerking, Ms. Yang went to work for 2 years on the US Division of Justice, Civil Rights Division, as an investigating prosecutor. In 2003, she joined the well-known Plaintiffs’ regulation agency in Washington DC often known as Cohen, Millstein Sellers & Toll PLLC the place she was a companion representing staff totally on civil rights litigation.