“You just have to have the ganas — the desire — to do it.”
To achieve all of these goals, the DOL needs to increase its own workforce. The department needs more good people to help them and they are actively recruiting qualified applicants. At the conclusion of her commencement speech in Maryland,
the Secretary cleverly encouraged these particular graduates to apply. “The Department of Labor is looking for quality people like you to help ensure that American workers are safe and secure. If you are interested in continuing to work in a field that is in line with the values that all of you hold dear as graduates of the National Labor College, I encourage you to contact the Labor Department for oppor- tunities. In a single year, we will be adding nearly 670 investigators, inspectors and other program staff to carry on the mission of the Department.
Not only must we provide safe and secure jobs, but also, the Department of Labor must help workers by prioritizing job training and assistance. We need to make real investments in worker training and workforce development. I am already working to re-invest in and restructure workforce development and ensure a strong unemployment insurance system.
In 2007, Solis was appointed to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission), as well as the Mexico — United States Interparliamentary Group. In June 2007, Solis was elected Vice Chair of the Helsinki Commission's General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions. She was the only U.S. elected official to serve on this Committee.
A nationally recognized leader on the environment, Solis became the first woman to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2000 for her pioneering work on environmental justice issues. Her California environmental justice legislation, enact- ed in 1999, was the first of its kind in the nation to become law. In her new post at the Department of Labor, Solis hopes to reinvigorate the department and to restore morale and efficiency to the 17,000-employee department. Among the issues she intends to tackle are making the department a major player in fixing the pen- sion system and creating green jobs. She hopes to explore com- plaints on minimum wage, overtime and child labor violations partly through hiring more than 250 investigators to conduct a nationwide outreach pro- gram so that workers know their rights and employers know their obli- gations. In view of the ris- ing 14.5 percent unem- ployment rate, Solis has also vowed to strengthen job-training programs and to help create more jobs.
The mission of the Labor Department is to protect workers by improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, help- ing employers find workers, and strengthening free collective bargain- ing. ...I am here to tell you that under my watch we will live by the true meaning of our mission and we will work everyday to fulfill our commitment to the American worker! We are facing unprecedented challenges, but also unprecedented opportunities. So, I am challenging you today - to step up and help us transform this country.” Later, at another commencement speech to graduates of Hunter College in New York, Solis wasn’t exactly recruiting, but she concluded her remarks with a special message of encouragement to minorities, particularly Latinas like herself. “People always say that women, people of color, Latinas, they’re not ready to go to col- lege, they’re not ready to be in those big positions,” she said. “There are probably a dozen of you in this hall who are future Sonia Sotomayors, and there are probably two dozen future Hilda Solises. You [just] have to have the ganas — the desire — to do it.”
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