Governor Names Labor Leader to Run Employment Department

After upsetting labor unions by favoring corporate interests this year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday appointed a Democrat and longtime labor leader to manage the sprawling bureaucracy of the Employment Development Department.

Patrick W. Henning -- son of legendary labor activist Jack Henning, a one-time appointee of President John F. Kennedy -- becomes director of the department as it faces criticism that it is a recalcitrant, inept bureaucracy.

The $12.1-billion agency, which handles unemployment, family leave and disability insurance, had an interim director for about a year.

Henning’s appointment is one of dozens that Schwarzenegger has given to Democrats and moderates, including his cabinet secretary and finance director. The Republican governor joked after the Nov. 2 election that his political philosophy would continue to confuse people because he sometimes acts outside of party boundaries.

Henning’s appointment nevertheless has given hope to labor unions that believe that Schwarzenegger has courted business interests. The governor vetoed nearly 90% of the so-called “job-killer” legislation that had been sent to him by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and worked to kill Proposition 72, a labor-backed initiative to increase healthcare coverage.

“It’s a positive sign that he is appointing somebody that is a Democrat and with a positive labor background,” said Jim Hard, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents about 8,000 department employees.

In a statement, Schwarzenegger said, “Patrick shares my vision of advancing California as a job-creating machine.”

Henning, 58, said he would serve “California’s workforce and employers” and “keep the economy on the right track.” His appointment to the $123,000-a-year job probably will be confirmed easily by the state Senate.

Henning has worked as the legislative expert on the Assembly and Senate labor committees for the last 17 years -- monitoring thousands of pieces of legislation. His job frequently has meant filtering information from lobbyists and labor groups and presenting it to committees torn with partisan rancor.

Henning is viewed as a cool, wry mediator and policy expert who understands both the Legislature and the state bureaucracies well. He was labor commissioner under Gov. Jerry Brown and a member of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board in the early 1980s during difficult fights between then-Gov. George Deukmejian and farmworker unions.

Despite his labor ties, the California Chamber of Commerce has supported Henning’s appointment. “We feel that despite the fact that he comes from one of the finest labor backgrounds in the state, he has always been willing to talk with us and debate us openly,” said Dominic DiMare, a chamber lobbyist. “He’s open, accessible, straightforward and fair.”

Henning has a rich labor pedigree -- his father was undersecretary of Labor under Kennedy. Henning’s brother is a labor attorney. In the 1970s, Henning worked for a variety of unions and was executive director of the Catholic Labor Institute of Southern California.

Former labor leader Tom Rankin, who has known Henning for nearly two decades, said he doesn’t consider the appointment a gift to labor unions but a nod to professionalism. “That was the weakness of some of the [former Gov. Gray] Davis appointees -- they didn’t have any idea, they didn’t even understand the programs,” he said.

The 10,000-person Employment Development Department is one of the largest bureaucracies in the state and a crucial link for government, 900,000 businesses and 19 million workers in California. In recent years, agency officials have been accused of making frequent errors in processing claims and failing to crack down on delinquent taxes. The state’s unemployment insurance fund has veered toward bankruptcy in recent years.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley), chairman of the Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, said the department’s bureaucracy can be “overwhelming, and it really does not inspire people to achieve the end result, which is a good quality job at their maximum productive level.”

“Pat,” Alarcon said, “is well positioned to achieve a balance.”