President Joe Biden on Monday honored the nation’s first female Cabinet secretary, signing a proclamation to establish a national monument for Frances Perkins, who led the Labor Department under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Joined by AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, administration officials, members of Congress and Perkins’ grandson at the Labor Department on Monday, Biden praised the late labor head’s accomplishments for workers over her career and in FDR’s administration in the 1930s and '40s.
“Over decades of service, she became a fierce defender of unions and workers’ rights — an architect of the New Deal,” Biden said.
Perkins, also the longest-serving labor secretary in American history, fought to establish unemployment relief, overtime pay, child labor laws, a minimum wage, workers compensation, national health insurance and Social Security, Biden said.
“In fact, during her 12 years in office, she accomplished everything on her list except expanded health care for health insurance,” Biden said, before noting that 65 years later he and his onetime boss, former President Barack Obama, took on the issue and got the Affordable Care Act passed.
The new national monument is in Newcastle, Maine, where Perkins spent summers as a child and used as a place of respite as an adult, the White House said.
Biden also used Monday’s remarks, which come as he is looking to cement his legacy less than six weeks before he leaves office, as a chance to reflect on his own accomplishments in labor — an area he considers a defining issue of his presidency, often referring to himself as the “most pro-union” president in history.
“It's clear that Frances Perkins and a generation of activists and labor leaders laid the groundwork for much of what we've accomplished in the last four years,” Biden said.
Biden went on to tout his wins on securing a requirement for project labor agreements for most large federal construction, preserving the pensions of more than 1 million workers under the Butch Lewis Act and becoming the first sitting president to walk a picket line.
“I got all this credit for walking the picket line — it never crossed my mind not to walk the picket line,” Biden said. “I didn’t even think it was any big deal, walked a lot of picket lines.”
Biden’s own acting labor secretary, Julie Su, who spoke ahead of the president said he will be inducted into the Labor Department's Hall of Honor.
The establishment of the new monument was also billed by the White House as part of its effort to honor women’s contributions to American history, an effort the administration said it has spent $40 million on.
The Interior Department also announced five new National Historic Landmarks focused on accomplishments of women in U.S. history. The sites are in South Carolina, Virginia and New Mexico, with two in Washington.
During his remarks, Biden also called for an American women’s history museum to be built on the national mall.