Labor Secretary Ok’d After Clinton Backs Off Union Stance

After months of delay, the Senate on Wednesday approved Alexis Herman as secretary of labor. Her nomination, held up initially over her role in campaign fund raising, was cleared after a compromise with the White House ended an impasse over union labor on federal contracts.

The confirmation vote was 85-13 and provided an anticlimactic postscript to the bitter partisan dispute that had whirled for months around Herman’s nomination and had threatened to block Senate action on an array of unrelated measures.

The vote came after President Clinton backed away from his intention to issue an executive order that would have directed federal agencies to consider awarding large federal construction projects to companies with unionized labor.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said that Clinton had agreed instead to achieve his aim by issuing a presidential memorandum of understanding.