Kevin Wolf/AP Images for the Alliance for Lifetime Income
Former Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris speaking in June 2018
The Biden administration likes to send press releases about new hires. I have been emailed information about the new head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, members of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, the senior director for building emissions at the Council on Environmental Quality, the legislative affairs director for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the deputy social secretary for the Office of the First Lady, and much more. I think I know the name of everyone who works in the West Wing at this point.
But one new White House staffer in a fairly critical issue area had not received this honorific—until I asked the White House questions about it.
The Prospect had learned that Seth Harris, a former deputy secretary of labor and acting secretary of labor under President Obama who has connections to the ridesharing industry’s thunderous Prop 22 victory in California last year, a shattering event for U.S. labor law, has taken a key policy position in the administration.
Top labor officials were aware that Harris was in line for a White House job, yet were not informed of the specific position. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. But hours after the Prospect asked, Bloomberg reported that Harris would become a deputy assistant to the president for labor and the economy.
“I don’t think they are particularly proud of this hire,” said Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project, whose organization has been critical of Harris in the past. “Clearly, the most newsworthy thing he has been involved in in the last several years is seen as something that has been very bad for the American labor movement.”
That would be the Prop 22 initiative, the prototype of which Harris helped devise. Harris and the late Alan Krueger co-authored a policy paper for the Hamilton Project in 2015 on “modernizing labor laws for twenty-first century work.” The paper argued that rideshare drivers for Uber and Lyft weren’t typical employees or independent contractors, so a third category of worker (“independent worker”) needed to be constructed. Independent workers would not be eligible for overtime or minimum wage or even unemployment benefits, but would retain the ability to organize and collectively bargain, as well as civil rights protections. Harris and Krueger (who had previously consulted for Uber) described the goal as not to improve the gig worker’s lot, but to “enhance the efficiency of the operation of the labor market.”
Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash presented a modified version of essentially this proposal in response to California’s AB-5, which codified a state Supreme Court ruling classifying rideshare drivers and other independent contractors as employees. The companies spent $200 million on a ballot measure to create this third category of worker, and they succeeded in one of the nation’s most liberal states.
The results have been predictably terrible, with grocery stores firing their full-time delivery drivers in favor of Prop 22–enabled gig workers, Uber and Lyft jacking up prices for rides, and health care stipends from the “benefits program” for drivers coming up way short of what was advertised. Rideshare companies have vowed to bring the Prop 22 regime to other states.
That history has created a somewhat antagonistic relationship between Harris and the labor community, though it’s a fluid situation. There was not a full-throated objection when the White House informed labor officials of their aim to hire Harris.
While he may not be viewed as family, Harris has some support within unions, and has been acting as if he understands it makes political sense now to support the labor movement. Indeed, Harris is said to have been helpful in getting President Biden to release a statement on warehouse workers attempting to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, which turned out to be as pro-union a statement as any president has ever uttered while in office.
It’s unclear whether labor secretary nominee Marty Walsh was informed of the Harris selection, or asked whether he approved.
Hauser deferred to labor officials who represent workers on their stance. “It’s just a question of how much you should hold it against Harris for being like so many other Obama people and going into tech,” he said. It is known that Harris had aspirations to secretary of labor under Biden, so a staff job within NEC or elsewhere in the White House would be a step back.
Harris and Krueger described their goal as not to improve the gig worker’s lot, but to “enhance the efficiency of the operation of the labor market.”
Harris also served from 2014 to 2017 as an adviser to corporations for Dentons, a corporate law firm that has represented Walmart in labor disputes. He then moved to his own private law firm, where he promised to “deliver for his clients” with services that sound like but are not specifically lobbying: “federal regulatory process representation, policy intelligence gathering and analysis, government relations, strategic advising, and political strategy and advising.” The firm’s website, which was active as of at least last November, has now been taken down.
Like all staffers under Biden, Harris will have to sign the administration’s ethics pledge, which not only bans post-administration lobbying but bans officials leaving the government from “shadow lobbying”—approximately what Harris was up to—for one year. Ethics waivers allowing officials to work on issues they were involved with in the private sector are supposed to be made public within ten days. It is unknown precisely when Harris started work in the White House.
Meanwhile, the unusual lack of a public statement about the Harris pick—until questioned by the Prospect—is worth noting. Bob Kuttner revealed last week another White House personnel selection that progressives dislike, senior counsel Alicia O’Brien. Her appointment also wasn’t advertised, except by O’Brien herself on LinkedIn. A third controversial pick, Centerbridge Partners private equity fund manager and Puerto Rican bondholder Mark Gallogly, was just named as part of John Kerry’s international climate team at the National Security Council.
This has become a trend: splashy announcement of broadly popular nominees and staff appointments, and no statement at all for anyone who might ruffle a feather or two.
