The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing

occupational safety and health Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at ...

, wage and hour standards, unemployment benefits, reemployment services, and occasionally, economic statistics. It is headed by the Secretary of Labor, who reports directly to the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

and is a member of the president's

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

. The purpose of the Department of Labor is to foster, promote, and develop the well being of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights. In carrying out this mission, the Department of Labor administers and enforces more than 180 federal laws and thousands of federal regulations. These mandates and the regulations that implement them cover many workplace activities for about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. Marty Walsh is the current secretary, having been confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and ...

on March 22, 2021. The department's headquarters is housed in the Frances Perkins Building, named in honor of

Frances Perkins Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the 4th United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of t ...

, the Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945.

History

In 1884, the U.S. Congress first established a

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...

with the Bureau of Labor Act, to collect information about labor and employment. This bureau was under the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the m ...

. The Bureau started collecting economic data in 1884, and published their first report in 1886. Later, in 1888, the Bureau of Labor became an independent Department of Labor, but lacked executive rank. In February 1903, it became a bureau again when the

Department of Commerce and Labor The United States Department of Commerce and Labor was a short-lived Cabinet department of the United States government, which was concerned with fostering and supervising big business. Origins and establishment Calls in the United States for ...

was established. United States President William Howard Taft signed the March 4, 1913, bill (the last day of his presidency), establishing the Department of Labor as a

-level department.

William B. Wilson William Bauchop Wilson (April 2, 1862 – May 25, 1934) was an American labor leader and progressive politician, who immigrated as a child with his family from Lanarkshire, Scotland. After having worked as a child and adult in the coal mines of ...

was appointed as the first Secretary of Labor on March 5, 1913, by President Wilson. In October 1919, Secretary Wilson chaired the first meeting of the

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...

even though the U.S. was not yet a member. In September 1916, the Federal Employees' Compensation Act introduced benefits to workers who are injured or contract illnesses in the workplace. The act established an agency responsible for federal workers’ compensation, which was transferred to the Labor Department in the 1940s and has become known as the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs.

, the first female cabinet member, was appointed to be Secretary of Labor by President Roosevelt on March 4, 1933. Perkins served for 12 years, and became the longest-serving Secretary of Labor. During the John F. Kennedy Administration, planning was undertaken to consolidate most of the department's offices, then scattered around more than 20 locations. In the mid‑1960s, construction on the "New Labor Building" began and construction was finished in 1975. In 1980, it was named in honor of Frances Perkins. President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to consider the idea of reuniting Commerce and Labor. He argued that the two departments had similar goals and that they would have more efficient channels of communication in a single department. However, Congress never acted on it. In the 1970s, following the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

, the Labor Department under Secretary

George P. Shultz George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...

made a concerted effort to promote racial diversity in unions. In 1978, the Department of Labor created the Philip Arnow Award, intended to recognize outstanding career employees such as the eponymous Philip Arnow. In the same year, Carin Clauss became the department's first female solicitor of the department. In 2010, a local of the American Federation of Government Employees stated their unhappiness that a longstanding flextime program reduced under the George W. Bush administration had not been restored under the Obama administration. Department officials said the program was modern and fair and that it was part of ongoing contract negotiations with the local. In August 2010, the Partnership for Public Service ranked the Department of Labor 23rd out of 31 large agencies in its annual "Best Places to Work in the Federal Government" list. In December 2010, then–Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was named the chair of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, of which Labor has been a member since its beginnings in 1987. In July 2011,

Ray Jefferson Ray Jefferson is an American government official and retired military officer who served as assistant secretary of labor for the Veterans' Employment and Training Service. He graduated from the United States Military Academy and served in the U ...

, Assistant Secretary for VETS resigned due to his involvement in a contracting scandal. In March 2013, the department began commemorating its centennial. In July 2013, Tom Perez was confirmed as Secretary of Labor. According to remarks by Perez at his swearing-in ceremony, "Boiled down to its essence, the Department of Labor is the department of opportunity." In April 2017, Alexander Acosta was confirmed as the new Secretary of Labor. In July 2019, Acosta resigned due to a scandal involving his role in the plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein. He was succeeded on September 30, 2019, by Eugene Scalia. Scalia served until the beginning of the Biden administration on January 20, 2021. The present Secretary is Marty Walsh.

Freedom of Information Act processing performance

In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, published in 2015 (using 2012 and 2013 data, the most recent years available), the Labor Department earned a D by scoring 63 out of a possible 100 points, i.e., did not earn a satisfactory overall grade.Making the Grade: Access to Information Scorecard 2015
March 2015, 80 pages, Center for Effective Government, retrieved 21 March 2016

Agencies, boards, offices, programs, library and corporation of the department

* Administrative Review Board (ARB) *

Benefits Review Board The Department of Labor's Benefits Review Board was created in 1972, by the United States Congress, to review and issue decisions on appeals of workers’ compensation claims arising under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act and t ...

(BRB) * Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) *

(BLS) * Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative (CFOI) * Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) *

Employees' Compensation Appeals Board The Employees' Compensation Appeals Board (ECAB) was created in 1946 by statute to hear appeals taken from determinations and awards under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act with respect to claims of federal employees injured in the course of ...

(ECAB) * Ombudsman for the

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was passed by Congress in 2000 and is designed to compensate individuals who worked in nuclear weapons production and as a result of occupational exposures contracted cert ...

(EEOMBD) * Employment and Training Administration (ETA) * Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) * Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) * Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) * Office of Inspector General (OIG) * Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) * Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) * Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) * Wage and Hour Division (WHD) * Women's Bureau (WB) * Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation ** PBGC Office of the Inspector General * Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ) * Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs (OCIA) * Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management (OASAM) ** Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) * Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy (OASP) * Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) * Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) * Office of Public Affairs (OPA) * Office of Public Liaison (OPL) * Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization (OUIM) * Office of the Solicitor (SOL) *

Office of the Secretary An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

(OSEC) ** Office of the Deputy Secretary

Other

* Wirtz Labor Library * Job Corps

Related legislation

* 1926: Railway Labor Act * 1949: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 81-393 * 1953: Small Business Act PL 83-163 * 1954: Internal Revenue Code PL 83-591 * 1955: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 84-381 * 1958:

Small Business Administration extension Small may refer to: Science and technology * SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language * Small (anatomy), the lumbar region of the back * ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication * <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text ...

PL 85-536 * 1961: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 87-30 * 1961:

Area Redevelopment Act Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open s ...

PL 87-27 * 1962: Manpower Development and Training Act PL 87-415 * 1962:

Public Welfare Amendments In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

PL 87-543 * 1963: Amendments to National Defense Education Act PL 88-210 * 1964: Economic Opportunity Act PL 88-452 * 1965:

Vocational Rehabilitation Act A vocation () is an occupation to which a person is especially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. People can be given information about a new occupation through student orientation. Though now often used in non-religious co ...

amended PL 89-333 * 1965: Executive Order 11246 * 1965: McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act * 1966: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 89-601 * 1970: Occupational Safety and Health Act * 1973: Comprehensive Employment and Training Act PL 93-203 * 1973: Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act PL 93-112 * 1974: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 93-259 * 1974: Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act PL 92-540 * 1974: Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) Pub.L. 93-406 * 1975:

Revenue Adjustment Act In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...

( Earned Income Tax Credit) PL 94-12, 164 * 1976: Overhaul of vocational education programs PL 94-482 * 1976:

Social Security Act Amendments Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

(Aid to Day Care Centers) PL 94-401 * 1977: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 95-151 * 1977: Federal Mine Safety and Health Act * 1978: Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act PL 95-523 * 1981:

Budget Reconciliation Act A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environment ...

PL 97-35 * 1982: Job Training Partnership Act PL 97-300 * 1983: Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act PL 99-603 * 1988: Family Support Act PL 100-485 * 1988: Employee Polygraph Protection Act * 1989: Fair Labor Standards Amendment PL 101-157 * 1990:

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act Omnibus may refer to: Film and television * Omnibus (film), ''Omnibus'' (film) * Omnibus (broadcast), a compilation of Radio or TV episodes * Omnibus (UK TV series), ''Omnibus'' (UK TV series), an arts-based documentary programme * Omnibus (U.S. ...

PL 101-508 * 1993: Family and Medical Leave Act PL 103-3 * 1993:

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation and Bankruptcy Act Omnibus may refer to: Film and television * ''Omnibus'' (film) * Omnibus (broadcast), a compilation of Radio or TV episodes * ''Omnibus'' (UK TV series), an arts-based documentary programme * ''Omnibus'' (U.S. TV series), an educational progr ...

PL 103-66 * 1996: Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 PL 104-188 * 1996: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act PL 104-193 * 1996:

Veterans Employment Opportunities Act A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military. A military veteran that has ...

PL 105-339 * 1998: Workforce Investment Act of 1998 * 2014: Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Goldberg, Joseph P., and William T. Moye. ''The first hundred years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics'' (US Department of Labor, 1985
online
* Laughlin, Kathleen A. ''Women's work and public policy: A history of the Women's Bureau, US Department of Labor, 1945-1970'' (Northeastern UP, 2000)
online
** Boris, Eileen. "Women's Work and Public Policy: a History of the Women's Bureau, US Department of Labor, 1945-1970." ''NWSA Journal'' 14#1 (2002), pp. 201-20
online
* * Ritchie, Melinda N. "Back-channel representation: a study of the strategic communication of senators with the us Department of Labor." ''Journal of Politics'' 80.1 (2018): 240-253.

External links

*
Department of Labor
on USAspending.gov
U.S. Department of Labor
in the ''

Federal Register The ''Federal Register'' (FR or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on fed ...

''
Department of Labor
reports and recommendations from the Government Accountability Office {{DEFAULTSORT:United States Department Of Labor 1913 establishments in Washington, D.C. Government agencies established in 1913 Labor