Labor Secretary Tom Perez has embarked on a week-long tour across America in order to meet five people and fill up the Labor Department's website with pictures and stories about people at work, a sort of pre-celebration of Labor Day.
A Labor Department spokesperson didn't respond to questions from TheBlaze about how many people were on the trip or how much it will cost.
The trip will take this long... Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor Thomas Perez is traveling across the country to promote Labor Day and meet with five people in five different cities. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
The department is billing the junket as a way for Perez to "talk with Americans about how we can help more people succeed in the workplace and at home." But the first two blog posts about his trip indicate that these meetings are mostly confirming the Obama administration's current position on these issues.
Perez's "On the Road" initiative started in Los Angeles, where he met with LeDaya Epps, a construction worker. Epps got an apprenticeship in construction work, and is now a full-time apprentice working on a rail project.
Labor employee Laura Miller blogged about the visit on Monday, and said the administration is already working to increase the number of registered apprenticeships over the next few years.
Miller also wrote that Labor is working with the Department of Transportation to create transportation-related construction jobs, and is focused on creating "good jobs."
On Tuesday, another official, Jared Benoff, wrote that Perez met with a Austraberta Rodriguez, a 71-year old janitor in Houston. Benoff wrote that Rodriguez boosted her income by helping to form a union, but that Rodriguez also supports an increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
The Obama administration is already known to support this increase, although it has been unable to move an increase through Congress.
Perez is scheduled to travel to Memphis, Cleveland and Atlanta later this week, and again will presumably meet with a single worker to discuss labor-related issues.
