READ: Trump's tariffs make him labor unions' Man of Steel.
"He has one of the most important jobs in the city because labor costs are more than half of what the city spends every year," said Mayor Edward I. Koch, who made him his first deputy labor commissioner in 1988, the year before Mr. Hanley was first promoted to commissioner by Mayor David N. Dinkins.
That is quite different from what Mr. Neumark has concluded and repeatedly written about increases in minimum wages, a position that has made him a pariah among labor leaders and a hero to the restaurant industry and other employers of low-skilled workers.
The needle-trades unions play a big role in the story, and my grandfather was a lifelong member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, beginning around 1910. (Grandpa was a tailor at Bergdorf Goodman, which I guess made him an aristocrat of labor. According to family lore, one of his customers was Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes).
Walker's successful battles to degrade organized labor made him a darling of the conservative movement and inspired other Republican governors to take a hard line on unions.
They said his background in labor economics made him unqualified, even though full employment is one of the Fed's mandates.
One week after a labor arbitrator made him a free agent, Kirk Gibson left the Detroit Tigers late last night and agreed to a three-year, $4.5-million 4.5-millionth the Los Angeles Dodgers.
A permanent outsider, he never acquired a tenured teaching or conducting position and for 30 years paid his way as a music critic, and by "alimentary" labor, which made him more enemies and sapped his creative energies.
The courts ultimately overruled Chiang, but his action made him a hero to organized labor.
The mayor nonetheless gave Mr. McFadden considerable responsibility, making him his chief labor negotiator and assigning him to deal with disputes between unions and private companies in the city.
