President Biden appears to have accepted his fate

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Labor secretary nominee Julie Su who will continue to serve as acting secretary even though her confirmation bid is all but doomed in the Senate.

But the White House, which has hailed Su as a leading dealmaker, especially when it comes to California labor issues, has been reluctant to let her intervene in the Hollywood strikes.

“We are closely monitoring the situation,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Labor

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Hey Times.

Su, who was California’s chief of labor before joining the Biden administration in 2021 as deputy U.S. Labor secretary, has played a key role in leading an agency that has been critical to Biden’s domestic agenda and reelection message. If confirmed, she would be Biden’s first Asian-American cabinet secretary.

Biden, a self-described “pro-union president,” kicked off his

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2024 campaign with

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a speech to union workers in Philadelphia in June and has put union members at the center of his re-election strategy. But several labor disputes flaring up across the country, including the Hollywood strikes, threaten to undermine that argument.

The president supported union workers and called for fair pay and benefits for striking screenwriters and actors in their ongoing dispute with studios that has brought Hollywood to a standstill.

At the same time, Biden is struggling to get his own top Labor official confirmed.

Last week

The White House recently appealed to centrist Senator Joe Manchin

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(DW.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) to seek their support for Su.

Manchin had said he would resist her confirmation because of concerns about her “more progressive background.” Sinema did not say how she plans to vote, but a statement from the White House on Friday that Su would continue as acting secretary amounted to a tacit admission that she did not have enough votes to receive confirmation.

The White House had hoped Su’s role in brokering a deal between California longshoremen and their employers in June would reinvigorate a bid that had been delayed since February. Su, who has relations with both sides in the port dispute, was able to help break a years-long stalemate over a collective bargaining agreement.

Administrative officials cited the incident as proof of Su’s sharp skills as a mediator, and as another reason the Senate should confirm her.

“She’s high

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qualified, experienced and has proven itself time and time again when it comes to providing work for America’s workers and our economy,” a White House official said Friday.

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eastern ports

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which kept our supply chains strong for US companies, farmers

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and working families.”

But as the Hollywood strikes and a separate strike by hundreds of LA hotel workers escalate, the White House remains publicly engaged in general messages of support for unions. No one is responsible for monitoring the conversations, but several officials across the administration are in contact with all parties involved, a White House official said.

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Hey Times.

That’s how it’s been quiet about the strikes in Hollywood. She doesn’t plan on repeating a trip she took to LA in June to intervene in the port dispute.

The unions also do not seem interested in a heavy-handed response from the Biden administration.

Ellen Stutzman, the chief negotiator for the Writers Guild of America, declined

appreciate

President Biden, his administration and all our elected allies support writers in a statement, but added that the studios are the only ones who can end the strike by making a fair deal.

SAG-AFTRA declined a request for comment.

Sus position in Washington, meanwhile, remains tricky. She still has the emphatic backing of the White House, which has pledged to push through with her nomination despite little evidence of a campaign to get her confirmation.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say Tuesday whether senior officials still meet in a “war room” nightly to share updates on her nomination.

Instead, the White House has relied on a little-known federal code to keep her in her acting role indefinitely. When then Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh left the administration in March, Su, as his deputy, automatically became acting secretary. That role allows her to carry out the duties of the Labor secretary until a successor is confirmed.

Su’s opponents have criticized the White House’s new strategy. For months they have been calling on Biden officials to withdraw her nomination. With the White House planning to keep her in the acting position indefinitely, those calls can be expected to increase.

I believe that this use of the Succession Act violates the constitutional provision of advice and consent and would potentially open any law [Department of Labor] Action led by Julie Sus on legal challenges, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in a letter to Biden calling on the president to withdraw Su’s nomination.

“If your administration believes that Ms. Su cannot receive the necessary votes for confirmation, you should rescind her nomination,” Cassidy, the senior Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote. “Any attempt to circumvent the will of Congress, especially its constitutionally mandated advisory and consenting role, is unacceptable.”

A spokesperson for Stand Against Su, which describes itself as a coalition of small businesses, freelancers, tips and franchisees working together to counter Julie Su, said the new strategy indicates Biden does not want to face the truth.

“Julie Su flew in at the last minute to chair a deal with West Coast Ports that was nearing completion. The Labor Department’s subsequent lack of action in other labor disputes highlights her lack of negotiating skills,” Rachel Tripp, a spokesperson for the group, told The Times in a statement.

Tripp criticized Biden and Su for allowing labor leaders to “hold the American economy hostage”, pointing to the president’s decision to tap senior White House adviser Gene Sperling to monitor conversations with auto workers as evidence that Su “wasn’t up to the task”.

“That’s not what leadership looks like,” she added. “It’s further proof that Su is the wrong choice for the top Labor job.”