the Assembly: “The Labor Department has a daunting task: protecting the safety and health of more than 4.4 million workers who toil in all kinds of environments–from farm fields to small businesses to corporate offices. And workplace fatalities have climbed in recent years. The Charlotte Observer found that a construction worker dies on the job every 10 days in North Carolina. Many of those deaths were preventable.
That responsibility soon will fall to one of two men running to replace him. Their race has received little attention in a crowded election year. But the job touches the state’s nearly 400,000 employers and everyone who works for them, as well as anybody who rides in an elevator or on a roller coaster.
The choice couldn’t be starker.
Republican Luke Farley is a 39-year-old Raleigh lawyer who has represented businesses in disputes with the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Division for 14 years. “My sense of mission,” he said, “is to keep workers safe and healthy without bankrupting business in the process and [to] drive job growth.”
Democrat Braxton Winston, 41, is a former Charlotte city councilman. A stagehand, he’s a union member in a state with the second-lowest rate of union membership in the nation. He says the choice for voters is between “a worker like them or … their boss’s lawyer.”
North Carolina is one of only four states that elects its labor commissioner, and it’s had only four since 1977. Republicans have held the office since 2000, with Cherie Berry serving five four-year terms. This year, with the incumbent not seeking reelection and workplace fatalities rising, the stakes may be higher than ever.”