Labor Secretary Wars Against Litigator Over Obama Wage Cases

The whistleblower complaint that the Labor Department’s top West Coast litigator filed against Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia this summer is far broader than previously disclosed, with roots in the Obama-Trump policy divide and one of the most controversial enforcement issues in employment law.

The complaint Janet Herold lodged with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in August alleges that Scalia ordered her transfer to a non-legal post in Chicago “in part due to her wage-and-hour work, including her work on the misclassification of workers as independent contractors,” her attorney, Alexis Ronickher, told Bloomberg Law.

When Herold’s lawyers first announced the ...