Politico: Gay and lesbian activists, who had been getting a bit restless about the Obama transition's centrism, were welcomed into transition headquarters yesterday for a big meeting with John Podesta, who's leading the transition, and Jim Messina, personnel director of the transition and a deputy chief of staff in the new White House. Participants said afterward that the session, which drew about 60 attendees and a cadre of senior Obama advisers, was very positive and productive. A prominent lesbian activist will chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality. And at the meeting, Obama officials said they're giving serious consideration to two favorites of the community – John Berry for Interior and Mary Beth Maxwell for Labor.
WSJ: For the rainbow cabinet of the nation’s first African American president, Mary Beth Maxwell is the perfect labor secretary you’ve probably never heard of: a gay woman, community organizer and labor leader with an adopted African American son. And this founding executive director of American Rights at Work is about to get the full-court press.More on Mary Beth.
Maxwell already had the strong backing of former Rep. David Bonior, who despite repeated attempts to get his name removed from consideration continues to be on the short list of potential labor secretaries. Bonior, 63 years old, says it is time for his generation to turn over power to a new generation, and Maxwell, whose labor-backed organization pushes for expanded collective bargaining rights, is his pick.
Some labor leaders from both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, a splinter union group led by the Service Employees International Union, back her as a consensus choice, citing her efforts on behalf of legislation to allow unionization at workplaces with the signing of cards, not secret balloting.
Here is Mary Beth speaking on workers rights as human rights:
