For 2010 , Solis 's agenda was to enact some ninety new rules and regulations intended to grant more power to unions and to workers . Whether Solis would try to revive Clinton administration ergonomics rules that had been discarded in the early days of the Bush administration , and that business groups continued to oppose , was unclear . In the wake of the April 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia , the worst in the U.S. in forty years , Solis announced that the Labor Department 's Mine Safety and Health Administration would conduct an internal review of its enforcement of the Massey Energy mine prior to the accident . She also requested that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health provide an independent analysis of that review . ( By the end of her tenure , however , some safety experts said she had fallen short of getting any meaningful new regulatory scheme in place in the wake of the disaster . ) Later that month , Solis and the department hosted the first-ever meeting of the G-20 labor ministers ; they discussed how to accelerate job creation in their respective countries . Solis also faced disgruntlement from a local of the American Federation of Government Employees representing her own employees , who were unhappy that a longstanding flextime program reduced under the George W. Bush administration had not been restored . The department said the program was modern and fair and that it was part of ongoing contract negotiations with the local . The year also saw the department trying to crack down on firms that illegally use summer internships for free labor , by clarifying what may constitute an unpaid academic internship ; the move brought resistance from universities . The year additionally saw Solis leading an administration campaign against farmers who employed children or underpaid workers . ( Proposed new rules in this area were dropped in 2012 , however , following adamant criticism from conservatives and agricultural groups . ) In February 2011 , as protests continued over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker 's proposal to limit that state 's public employee unions ' collective bargaining rights , and similar proposals were made in other states , Solis spoke out strongly and emotionally against such moves , saying " those governors are n't just asking workers to tighten their belts , they 're demanding they give up their uniquely American rights as workers " . Overall , however , the Obama administration did not speak out forcefully against these moves
Upper Big Branch Mine disaster
Upper Big Branch Mine disaster
Hilda Solis