The likelihood of the Trump administration finally getting a new Secretary of Labor in place took a major step forward this week with the approval of Labor Secretary nominee Alexander Acosta by the Senate Committee on Health Employment Labor and Pensions (HELP). The committee recommended his confirmation yesterday by a party-line vote of 12 – 11 and forwarded the nomination to the floor for a final vote by the full Senate. As an aside, during his confirmation hearing, Acosta addressed the overtime threshold along with other labor-centric issues and described the new definition of joint-employer as “untraditional”. You can see that exchange here. Notwithstanding protestations by some of the more liberal democratic Senators, Acosta, who has previously been confirmed on three separate occasions by the Senate for other federal positions, is expected to easily win final confirmation.