Department of Labor

(noun)

The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics; many U.S. states also have such departments.

Related Terms

Examples of Department of Labor in the following topics:

  • Landrum-Griffin Act

    • The Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959 is a U.S. labor law regulating labor unions' internal affairs and officials' relationships with employers.
    • The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (also "LMRDA" of the "Landrum-Griffin Act"), is a United States labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers.
    • Enacted in 1959 after revelations of corruption and undemocratic practices in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Longshoremen's Association, United Mine Workers and other unions received wide public attention, the Act required unions to hold secret elections for local union offices on a regular basis, and provided for review by the United States Department of Labor of union members' claims of improper election activity.
    • Unions had to hold secret elections, reviewable by the Department of Labor.
    • However, Griffin argued that these violations were contrary to the Act, placing the blame instead on the Department of Labor for failing to pursue action against the Teamsters union for its corruptions.

  • Measuring Unemployment

    • The use of this method has been declining in favor of labor surveys.
    • The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 15 years of age) using two different labor force surveys conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor).
    • Department of Labor Employment & Training Administration.
    • U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
    • U1–U6 from 1950–2010, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  • A Typical Department Structure

    • There are 15 current executive departments, whose secretaries comprise the Cabinet: the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security.
    • The number of employees at each department varies widely, from about 4,500 in the Department of Education to about 3,000,000 at the Department of Defense.
    • Likewise, the departments' budgets range from 15.77 billion at the Department of Commerce to 879.2 billion at the Department of Health and Human Services.
    • At the top of each department is the secretary (in the Department of Justice, the highest office is called the "attorney general," but the role is the same as that of the secretary of state, defense, etc.).
    • The Department of Justice is typical of all executive departments in its hierarchical organization.

  • The Reasoning of Specialization

    • Thus, Plato held that separation of functions and specialization of labor are the keys to the establishment of a worthwhile society .
    • Division of labor creates specialists who need coordination.
    • This coordination is facilitated by grouping specialists together in departments.
    • However, this structure makes the coordination between different departments more difficult than other structures.
    • It also does not allow for flexibility because of the centralization of labor.

  • Modern Labor Organizations

    • The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States.
    • It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association.
    • Today, most labor unions in the United States are members of one of two larger umbrella organizations:
    • In 2007, the labor department reported the first increase in union memberships in 25 years and the largest increase since 1979.
    • Federal law forbade such a strike, and the Transportation Department implemented a backup plan (of supervisors and military air controllers) to keep the system running.

  • The Executive Departments

    • The executive departments are administrative organs in the executive branch of the federal government.
    • The State Department (formally known as the Department of State) is the highest ranking executive department and is headed by the Secretary of State.
    • The three oldest executive departments are the Department of State, Department of War, and the Treasury, all of which were established in 1789.
    • The Department of War has since been subsumed by the Department of Defense, and many other executive departments have been formed.
    • After the vice president, speaker of the house, and the president pro tempore of the Senate, the heads of the executive departments are ranked as follows:

  • Cabinet Departments

    • At the top of each department is the secretary (in the Department of Justice, the highest office is called the "attorney general," but the role is parallel to that of the secretary of state, defense, etc.).
    • The three oldest executive departments are the Department of State, the Department of War, and the Treasury, all of which were established in 1789.
    • The Department of War has since been subsumed by the Department of Defense, and many other executive departments have been formed.
    • The order of the departments, and the roles of the secretaries of each department, is as follows:
    • Labor: The Secretary of Labor is responsible for occupational safety and workplace regulation.

  • Specialization by Skillset

    • Division of labor is the specialization of cooperative labor in specific, circumscribed tasks and like roles.
    • Division of labor was also a method used by the Sumerians to categorize different jobs and divide them to skilled members of a society.
    • One can see specialization by skillset being used in functional departments, grouping activities by functions performed.
    • Employees within the functional divisions of an organization tend to perform a specialized set of tasks, for instance, the engineering department would be staffed only with software engineers.
    • The skillset found here will place the employee in the right department.

  • The Decline of Labor

    • The labor movement saw a period of decline during the 1920s as a result of poor leadership and anti-union sentiment.
    • The 1920s marked a period of harsh decline for the labor movement.
    • In the 1920s, anti-Filipino sentiment was fueled by the California Department of Industrial Relations statistician Louis Bloch, publisher of a bulletin on Filipino immigration into California.
    • French, the director of the California Department of Industrial Relations, supported the report, to which he wrote an introduction, describing a "third wave of Filipino immigration," the rapidity of which he characterized as being too great.
    • Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor for 37 years, died in 1924.

  • Activities in the Human Resources Department

    • Human resource departments are responsible for a wide variety of activities across a number of core organizational functions
    • A brief review of the core functions of human resource departments will be useful in framing the more common activities a human resource professional will conduct.
    • Salary and benefits are also within the scope of human resource management.
    • Acting as the voice of the organization and/or the voice of the employees during any broader organizational issues pertaining to employee welfare
    • This chart highlights a few of the key competencies expected of human resource teams in organizations.