Public Employee Press

Spitzer names new chief at Labor Dept.

Safety and Health head is former DC 37 member

In a twist on the movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” M. Patricia Smith has gone to Albany. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has named her the new Commissioner of the state Labor Dept. Smith brings a solid background in prosecution from her former position as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the AG’s Labor Bureau.

She came to a Cornell Labor Breakfast forum Jan. 31 to speak to the labor community, hear their concerns and share her vision for the agency. She said that enforcement will be the centerpiece of her administration, starting with the laws on prevailing and minimum wages. In stark contrast to the prior administration, she proclaimed, “The Labor Department and the Labor Commissioner have to be the voice for the workers of New York State.”

Smith also used the occasion to announce her appointment for director of the agency’s Safety and Health Dept., Maureen Cox. Cox has an impressive record, starting with her roots as a Public Health Sanitarian in DC 37’s Health Services Employees Local 768.

“Cox helped us tremendously when tuberculosis was a problem in the early 1990s,” said Guille Mejia of DC 37’s Safety and Health Dept. “She took a real active role with some of the city agencies, in particular, the Department of Corrections, in getting them to work on their policies for inmates.”

Cox went on to become a safety and health inspector for the State Labor Dept. “She is known as a straight arrow and she’s always had an open door policy,” said Mejia. “She was one of few people in the Pataki administration who followed the agency’s mission to protect workers.” Other powerful women have served as state labor commissioner, including DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts (1981-87) and famed New Dealer Frances Perkins, who was appointed to the position by then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1929 and went to Washington with him in 1933 as U.S. Secretary of Labor.