I loved this quote from the National Federation of Independent Business on Hilda Solis’ focus on enforcing labor laws with fines and other sanctions (my emphasis):

“Our members are concerned that the department is shifting its focus from compliance assistance back to more of the ‘gotcha’ or aggressive enforcement first approach.”

- Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business’ small business legal center.

“Compliance Assistance” can’t be a bad thing, as long as it’s not in lieu of actual sanctions.  You be the judge of how Harned intends the term, but it sounds like a corporate euphemism for non-enforcement to me.

Maybe I’m too cynical.

At the very least, I am happy to see a shift in the direction of enforcement at this time. Of course the pendulum can shift too far in that direction, but there has been so little enforcement action in the last decade that more certainly can’t hurt.