Contact: Russ White, University Relations, (517) 355-2281, whiterus@msu.edu

10/6/2004

Robert B. Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, will speak at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, in Room 471 of the Michigan State University Law College Building. The presentation is sponsored by the MSU School of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Reich is University Professor and Maurice B. Hester Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University and at Brandeis's Heller School of Social Policy and Management. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under Clinton.

As the nation’s 22nd secretary of labor, Reich presided over the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act; led a national fight against sweatshops in the U.S. and illegal child labor around the world; headed the administration’s successful effort to raise the minimum wage; secured workers’ pensions’; and launched job-training programs, one-stop career centers and school-to-work initiatives.

Under his leadership, the Department of Labor earned more than 30 awards for innovation and government reinvention. A 1996 poll of cabinet experts conducted by the Hearst newspapers rated him the most effective cabinet secretary during the Clinton administration.

Reich has written 10 books, including “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; the best sellers “The Future of Success”and “Locked in the Cabinet”; and his most recent book, “Reason.”

Reich is co-founder and national editor of The American Prospect magazine. Also, his commentaries can be heard weekly on public radio’s “Marketplace.”