By a vote of 57-35, the Senate approved the nearly $447 billion omnibus appropriations bill on Sunday. The House of Representatives passed this combination of six separate federal funding bills last Thursday.  The Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 3288) will provide agencies including the Department of Labor (DOL), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) with a substantial increase in funds for fiscal year 2010. Specifically, the bill provides $13.3 billion in discretionary funding to the DOL, $1.6 billion of which is allocated to worker safety and health initiatives. The NLRB is slated to receive $283.4 million, and the EEOC $367 million. The practical implication of this spending measure is that the affected agencies will now have the financial resources to carry out their stated plans to hire more personnel and boost their enforcement efforts. The DOL alone intends to use the funding to hire more than 600 new full-time enforcement and compliance employees at the Employment Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), Employment Standards Administration (ESA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

President Obama is expected to sign this bill into law.