On Monday, President Donald Trump announced the formation of the National Labor Relations Board.
The new agency will be tasked with “assisting the President in achieving economic growth and job creation” by reviewing federal labor laws and making decisions on whether to implement them.
The board will be chaired by former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who also served as Labor Secretary under former President Barack Obama.
The agency is expected to issue a final rule by early summer.
Perez will be the first of a new group of former Obama administration officials to lead the NLRB.
Perez was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday to lead a newly formed team of former Labor Department officials.
His confirmation comes at a time when the Trump administration has been accused of failing to adequately enforce existing labor laws.
In February, Perez said that while he would have preferred that the labor secretary be in the White House, he “has a responsibility” to ensure that federal law enforcement is “as robust and effective as possible.”
In a speech at a national conference of the AFL-CIO, Perez suggested that the Labor Department should be a “supervisor of the president” and said the agency should be focused on enforcement of federal labor law.
The labor secretary will be a top executive at the NLB, with Perez taking the reins of the agency after the Obama administration announced that the NLIB would be a successor agency to the Labor Office of the President.
Perez’s appointment has come with a number of caveats.
The Labor Department’s inspector general has said that the new agency could still be subject to the Obama-era rules, which he says will need to be rewritten to comply with the Trump agenda.
“The Inspector General does not have the authority to investigate the enforcement actions of the Secretary,” the IG’s letter said.
“To the extent the Secretary is subject to these actions, the Inspector General must conduct an investigation.”
A Trump transition official told The Daily Beast that Perez “will have a very active role” in the new labor department, though he declined to provide details.
Perez, an immigrant and former Democratic congressman from Maryland, is expected in the administration as a labor secretary, and he’s been touted as the frontrunner to replace former Labor secretary Tom Perez as the head of the labor department.
His hiring comes as the Trump White House is facing increasing scrutiny over its handling of workers’ wages and benefits, and it’s expected that Trump will nominate another labor secretary as soon as early next month.