Obama to Nominate Thomas Perez as Labor Secretary

By Sari Horwitz and Lena H. Sun, Washington Post

Thomas E. Perez, the likely nominee to be the next secretary of labor, was introduced to organized labor under traumatic circumstances.

Perez was 12 when his father died of a heart attack, and a friend’s father stepped in as a surrogate. The man was a Teamster who’d lost his job, and the union helped support him.

Perez never forgot.

Now, Perez, 51, a first-generation Dominican American, is in line to lead the Department of Labor. President Obama plans to nominate Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, to be labor secretary, according to two people in the administration familiar with the decision.

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