Unpacking Kamala Harris' record on federal workforce issues

If elected, Vice President Kamala Harris — the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden on Sunday ended his reelection bid — would bring to the Oval Office significant experience in federal workforce issues and a history of advocating for employees and their labor groups. 

As vice president, Harris led a White House task force that made recommendations for how agencies could reduce barriers for public and private sector workers to organize or join a union. In the year after agencies began implementing these recommendations, the number of federal employees who are dues paying members of a union increased by 20%. 

“We are fighting to protect the sacred right to organize. We are protecting the sacred right to organize because we know when unions are strong, America is strong,” Harris said at a Service Employees International Union convention in May. 

The task force also encouraged including requirements in federal grants and contracts for using organized labor, especially on projects under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. 

Harris played a role in the Biden administration’s development of new regulations that prevent agencies from relying on a job applicant’s salary history to set their pay. 

“One factor that contributes to the gender pay gap is the common practice requiring applicants to share their salary history. [For] many women, this practice can mean inequitable pay from a previous job will follow them to their current job, and so on and so on,” Harris said at an Equal Pay Day event in 2022. “So our administration is committed to eliminating discriminatory pay practices that inhibit the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government.” 

And she helped in the creation of artificial intelligence policy, including guidance intended to establish safeguards for the federal government’s use of AI while still pushing agencies to utilize the burgeoning technology. 

“If the [Veterans Affairs Department] wants to use AI in VA hospitals to help doctors diagnose patients, they would first have to demonstrate that AI does not produce racially biased diagnoses,” Harris said in March as an example of the practices the policy puts in place. 

Harris also has led the White House’s response to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which — with respect to federal employees — entails the VA providing abortions in certain cases, government workers being allowed to use sick leave to travel for reproductive health care and a Defense Department policy to provide travel allowances for military personnel seeking the procedure. 

Before the White House

Prior to becoming vice president, Harris was a senator from California for four years, serving on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that oversees federal management. In the Senate, she gained attention for her sharp questioning of witnesses, leading to several high-profile exchanges with Trump administration officials. 

During a 2018 hearing with then-Office of Personnel Management Director Jeff Pon, Harris questioned the Trump administration’s proposal to fold OPM into the General Services Administration and the White House’s Executive Office of the President. 

“My concern is if OPM is eliminated, who will take on this independent role in the executive branch to ensure that HR decisions will be in compliance with and adhere to merit-based principles as opposed to politics?” she asked.  

She also raised concerns about a series of executive orders then-President Trump issued to make it easier to fire federal employees and limit the power of their unions, focusing specifically on the administration’s attempt to limit workers’ ability to engage in representation activities, or "official time," while on the clock. 

“Have you ever had the responsibility of actually working with an employee on a grievance?” Harris asked Pon in criticizing a provision that limited how long a federal employee can spend on official time. “Because if you have, you would appreciate that it takes time to establish a relationship of trust to then understand the experience they’ve had and be familiar with the facts in a way that you can sufficiently represent them in their grievance.”

As a senator, she also criticized the Trump administration for loosening hiring standards to support a surge in the number of Border Patrol agents. She called on the former president (and her pending election competitor) to focus resources on management challenges at the Homeland Security Department, including pay and training for current personnel. 

During her vice presidency, the Biden administration has backed a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost staffing, enact hiring flexibilities and implement pay reforms at DHS in response to an unprecedented increase in migration at the southwest border. 

Harris has faced some criticism for her record as a prosecutor, first as the San Francisco district attorney and then as the California attorney general, though in the Senate she frequently sought to place more stringent oversight on federal law enforcement.

In the wake of the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, Harris was an original cosponsor of the Justice in Policing Act, which would have required federal law enforcement officers to wear body cameras, use de-escalation techniques and employ deadly force only as a last resort. 

“We are here today with common-sense solutions, at least at the federal level, to hold police accountable,” Harris said at the time. 

Notably, Harris’ guest at Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address was an air traffic controller, who was affected by a government shutdown.