02/27/2025 at 10:00AM
Full committee hearing.
Nominee:
- Keith Sonderling, Boca Raton, FL
Sonderling began his career as a management-side labor and employment attorney in his native state of Florida. After spending nearly 10 years in the private sector he joined the Department of Labor in the first Trump administration. There he held several roles, most notably serving as the acting and deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD). There, he was responsible for gifting Amazon, Uber, and other giants of the gig economy by ruling that gig workers are independent contractors.
In 2020, Sonderling was tapped to become one of five commissioners at the EEOC. He was strongly supported by the business community.
The deputy secretary of labor serves as the de facto chief operating officer of the DOL, managing an approximately 17,000-person workforce and a $14 billion dollar budget. Further, the deputy manages the politically appointed heads of each agency that falls under the DOL, including vital agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, WHD, the Employee Benefits Security Administration, and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), among others.