I was in the U.K. and Germany and went to Volkswagen and learned about their apprenticeship model - young people become paid apprentices in trades. It's not a coincidence that youth unemployment is far lower in Germany than the United States because there are paid opportunities for young people to get experience.
— Tom Perez
We have to have a conversation where we bring in all the stakeholders and say, 'What is the vision of the Democratic Party?'
Our universal message of access to economic opportunity resonates with the ironworker in northeastern Ohio and the immigrant in South Florida. And we sometimes have a relationship deficit with our voters, because we're not communicating that message.
The politics of division are not what we want in New Jersey and Virginia and elsewhere.
Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin.
We can't understand what we've accomplished on civil rights without telling the story of Bayard Rustin. And now, we must write the next chapter in the American civil rights story by drawing strength and inspiration from his moral courage.
Helping veterans isn't just a part of my job. For me, it's personal. It's in my blood.
It's wrong that so many hardworking people - people working full-time, or even multiple jobs - need public assistance just to survive.
When you put more money in the pockets of working families, they spend it on groceries, gas, school supplies, and other goods and services. And that helps businesses grow and create jobs.
Costco pays their workers good wages with benefits while selling good products at competitive prices and remaining quite profitable.
It's time to update our workplace policies to reflect the realities of the 21st-century labor force and to support modern working families. It's time to continue our nation's long commitment to supporting unemployed workers by extending emergency unemployment compensation.
You shouldn't have to win the boss lottery in order to have a little bit of flexibility at work. Raising and supporting a family isn't just a financial obligation. What's important isn't just being able to put food on the dinner table - we want you to be at the dinner table, too.
Dr. King's last campaign was a labor struggle. Many people are aware that King was assassinated in Memphis in the spring of 1968. Less well-known is what drew him there: solidarity with city sanitation workers, who, without the benefit of union representation, were rising up to protest humiliating pay and deplorable working conditions.
During Black History Month, I'm reminded yet again of the ways that the struggle for civil rights is interwoven with the struggle for workers' rights.
Misclassification means workers are denied not just minimum wage and overtime but other social safety net protections like workers' compensation and unemployment insurance.
Companies are recognizing that paid leave reduces training and turnover costs, that it's a formula for recruiting and retaining good workers.
My father earned his citizenship by serving in the Army during World War II. He devoted his life to caring for our nations veterans at a VA hospital in Buffalo, New York. That desire to serve fellow Americans propelled my four siblings into medical careers, too.
Sometimes you have to push the envelope in pursuit of the right thing.
I consider Keith Ellison a friend.
Donald Trump, you don't stand for our values.
People are so sick of these Twitter tirades. They want leaders they can be proud of.
The best way to promote and protect opportunity is through collaboration, consensus-building, and pragmatic problem-solving. Throughout nearly 30 years in public service, I have approached tough challenges by making room for as many people as possible around the table in search of common ground.
When I taught a civil rights class at the University of Maryland Law School, I would do an exercise with my students. I'd write 'civil rights' on the board and ask them to tell me what immediately came to mind.
Improving veterans' employment is an all-hands-on-deck enterprise. We work with the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, with private sector partners and others.
I've talked to several CEOs - from a recycling company in Indiana, a furniture company in Kentucky, a brewing company in Colorado, and more - who believe paying higher wages is both the right thing to do and part of a successful business model.
The theme of the Labor Department's centennial is 'Then, Now, Next.' So in honoring Esther Peterson, we look not just to the past but to the future, acknowledging with honesty and a sense of purpose the lingering challenges we still face and the distance we've yet to travel before equality is truly a reality in the lives of all women.
Tampa Electric has used apprenticeships since 1978 to make sure its workforce is the best in the business - trained, prepared, and productive. Apprenticeships improve its bottom line and give the company a competitive advantage.
Each year, Labor Day gives us an opportunity to recognize the invaluable contributions that working men and women make to our nation, our economy and our collective prosperity. It gives us a chance to show gratitude for workers' grit, dedication, ingenuity and strength, which define our nation's character.
The most important family value of all is time with your family.
Civil rights activists and union activists shared not just common values and objectives but also common enemies.
For the purposes of the FMLA, marriage will now be determined based on where the couple got married, not on where an employee lives. This is called a 'place of celebration' rule.
One of the most pervasive and damaging trends we are seeing in the 21st-century workplace is the deliberate misclassification of workers by employers looking to shift responsibility and cut costs.
My mother fiercely valued education. She entered college the same year I did, in 1979, and graduated eight years later. She was a remarkable role model for all of us.
My parents didn't feel that they had any choice but to leave the Dominican Republic. They did, however, choose to become Americans, and they lived American values every day.
Here's the reality: when Hillary Clinton won the nomination, the DNC handed her insufficient and substandard tools for success.
The Republican playbook is voter suppression.
Talk about the issues that matter most to people.
Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable.
From the new hate crimes law to the repeal of DOMA and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' to the emerging popular support for marriage equality, we are making progress at breakneck speed. As someone who has dedicated most of my career to civil rights law, I am deeply moved by this sea change and proud to have done my part.
Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead.
We need to see the FLSA and the minimum wage as part of a larger struggle to cut poverty and to address the challenge of income inequality.
To reward work, to grow the middle class and strengthen the economy, to give millions of Americans the respect they deserve... It's time to raise the minimum wage.
Extending emergency unemployment benefits isn't just the right thing to do for our families - it's the smart thing to do for our economy.
If I don't get something done at the office at 4:30 in the afternoon, I can go back to it at 10:00 in the evening.
How can we say we're for family values when so many women in the United States have to jeopardize their livelihood to take a few weeks off from work after giving birth? Should a man have to sacrifice his economic security to take care of his sick mother or his wife returning wounded from active duty?
The King Holiday is a celebration of many things - his pursuit of racial justice, his commitment to non-violent resistance, his belief in service and doing for others. But you might also call it the other Labor Day.
As America prepared for war in 1941, discrimination largely shut black Americans out of job opportunities in the growing defense industry.
Misclassification is a serious problem in construction as well as other industries, and it is exacerbated by increasingly fissured employment structures where work is contracted and subcontracted away from the core company.
Change very often comes to Washington, not from Washington.
Years after my parents made the United States their home, I had the joy of traveling to the Dominican Republic with my kids. They saw where it all started and how their grandparents' values survived and thrived in America.
