Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Hilda Solis, the daughter of two union members, was confirmed by a Senate vote today as the nation’s 25th labor secretary.

The nomination was approved with bipartisan support after Republicans ended efforts to delay a vote over questions about her ties to union groups and tax liens on her husband’s business. The vote was 80-17.

Georgia Republican Senator Johnny Isakson said that while he disagrees with Solis on labor issues, he backed her confirmation. “It is the president’s right to pick his Cabinet,” Isakson said.

Solis, 51, takes charge of the Labor Department as unions press President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress to reverse some of the Bush administration’s restrictions on organizing. Obama has signed four presidential orders strengthening union rights with federal contractors and legislation making it easier to fight pay discrimination.

The top legislative goal for unions is the Employee Free Choice Act, a proposal that would make it easier for workers to organize. Solis, a California Democrat, has sponsored the legislation in the past and served as treasurer of American Rights at Work, a pro-union group lobbying for the bill.

Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, asked during her confirmation process if she would recuse herself for two years from debate over the bill because of her position with the advocacy group. Solis declined to do so.

Mexico, Nicaragua

Solis’s father, a Mexican immigrant, was a shop steward with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Her mother, from Nicaragua, was an assembly-line worker and a member of the United Rubber Workers.

“She will enforce more fairly the wage and hour laws we have on the books,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. “She will make the case that people in the workplace should have the right to be represented.”

Solis has been an opponent of free-trade agreements, in step with union positions. She voted against trade accords with Peru last year and Central America in 2005.

Solis’s legislative accomplishments include spearheading a bill to provide workers with training for environment-related “green-collar” employment. Such initiatives are a hallmark of Obama’s plan to act on the country’s energy needs and create jobs.

Randel Johnson, vice president for labor issues at the Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, said that companies hope Solis will pursue an agenda they can support.

‘Create Jobs’

“We will disagree on many issues, but we hope to have a cooperative relationship,” he said. “It’s still businesses that create jobs in America, and the Department of Labor will have to deal with us.”

The Employee Free Choice Act would require that companies recognize labor groups once a majority of their workers sign cards requesting a union rather than only after employees vote. Unions say the measure is needed to prevent companies from pressuring employees before a vote. Some companies oppose the legislation, saying it removes the privacy of the secret ballot and opens workers to intimidation by unions.

Obama co-sponsored the legislation as a senator from Illinois and pledged on his campaign Web site to fight for its passage as president and to sign it into law.

Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said he was opposing Solis’s nomination in part because of her support for the organizing legislation.

A Secret Ballot

“American workers deserve a labor secretary who will fight for their right to a secret ballot, but Congresswoman Solis has a long history opposing this basic American right,” DeMint said in a written statement.

Solis’s confirmation also had been delayed after reports that her husband, Sam Sayyad, paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens that had been outstanding against his automobile-repair business for 16 years. While Sayyad was the sole proprietor of the business, the couple filed their taxes jointly.

Solis was the fourth of Obama’s nominees to have their family taxes become an issue in the Senate’s confirmation process. Three of the nominees have said they failed to pay some taxes, and two of those withdrew from consideration for positions in Obama’s administration.

The Labor Department’s 2008 budget was about $50 billion, and the agency has about 17,000 employees.

To contact the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 24, 2009 17:48 EST