Bruce Clarke: Berry makes tough choices

Your recent series and editorial on Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry unfairly used some difficult individual circumstances to paint a tone-deaf leader.

Berry believes worker safety is her most important duty. Her department’s record is very good. Attend any speech she gives, or greet her in the hallway, and she will talk about worker safety. It is why she travels the state, gives awards and coaches inspectors to teach first, fine second.

We are all better off when employers are fined for truly serious violations such as unguarded saws but counseled for others such as the height of a fire extinguisher on the wall.

Previous commissioners too often took a more combative and less productive approach.

If Berry appears tone deaf because she is realistic about the cost and ability of courtroom litigation to actually collect several hundred dollars in unpaid wages from a defunct company or bad actor, then so be it.

A change in law to allow a lien on real property or a tax-paid fund for shorted workers might be better solutions.

Maybe it feels good to attack a public servant by using the real misery of unpaid employees as the excuse, but it unfairly insults Berry’s impressive career and the difficult resource choices she must make under current law.

The writer runs a human resources company and writes a regular column for The N&O’s Work & Money section on HR issues.

This story was originally published October 17, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Bruce Clarke: Berry makes tough choices."