Cherie Berry’s wasteful ways

In a first installment story about North Carolina Commissioner of Labor Cherie Berry, in her fourth term, The News & Observer’s Mandy Locke showed that Berry did very little to help workers in the private sector collect wages not paid to them. Her department’s ineptitude in enforcing worker safety rules or responding to worker complaints has been documented.

Simply, Cherie Berryis a labor commissioner who cares very little about labor. She’s focused mainly on helping business, curbing regulation on her own by simply letting investigations lapse, not paying much attention to safety complaints and ignoring legitimate complaints from workers who say their employers are stiffing them on wages owed.

A second installment report on Berry’s performance, or lack thereof, noted that her department gives up quickly if it can’t easily get answers as to why workers paid with public money – public money – aren’t getting paid by the organizations for which they work.

Yes, consider that since 2006, the state has paid at least $72 million to 17 companies that ended up failing to pay workers wages they earned in 2014. The state expected those companies to deliver, through the Medicaid federal/state health plan for the poor and disabled.

And yet, it’s as if the money vanished and Berry’s department threw up its hands and shrugged its shoulders. The N&O found that owners of the companies said they just didn’t have records.

Are federal officials and state officials who handed out the money to blame here? Of course they are. Clearly the oversight of these companies that subcontract to provide services for the elderly, for example, or the disabled is lax. The federal money is passed around too freely to people and companies that don’t account for it and sometimes get money for wages that is never spent for wages.

The Labor Department ought to take an intense interest in all its duties, from ensuring wages are paid to safeguarding public money designated for helping those on Medicaid, for one example. But when trouble arises, the department seems to think it’s OK to make a call or two and then just let things go.

This story was originally published October 15, 2015 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Cherie Berry’s wasteful ways."