Reliable reports suggest that Bernie Sanders wants the Secretary of Labor job in a potential Joe Biden administration. We can debate whether Bernie would be better able to advance his agenda by retaining his independence in the Senate versus going to work for a President Biden. Personally, I think it would be a mistake to give up his Senate seat, as his political leadership is far more important than his administrative acumen.

But the larger point is that having someone with Bernie’s staunch commitment to workers’ rights as Labor Secretary could make a big difference for workers in the United States — even if Biden and Congress remain lukewarm toward labor issues.

No Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt has won substantive labor law reform legislation, even with congressional majorities. Even if the Democrats are able to expand their House majority and flip the Senate on November 3, it is hard to see Biden doing much to push labor law reform in Congress, notwithstanding his frequent invocations of his hardscrabble days coming up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. While some are making the case for Biden being a twenty-first-century Franklin D. Roosevelt, i.e., a moderate establishment politician who is pushed leftward by events upon taking office, that is unlikely.