[dramatic music] [dramatic music continues] - A lot to talk about and joining me is Luke Farley, the GOP nominee for North Carolina Labor Commissioner.

Sir, good to have you on the "State Lines" set.

- Kelly, thank you for having me.

Thanks for your interest in this race.

- We are very interested in it.

The voters deserve to know all the Council of State candidates.

Tell us about you.

Primary voters would know you, they voted for you.

But everyone else whose vote you need, who's Luke Farley?

- Luke Farley is somebody who wants North Carolina to become a magnet for good-paying jobs.

I'm coming at this office for Labor Commissioner with one main goal in mind.

That's to keep our workers safe and healthy without bankrupting our businesses in the process so that this state is the number one state in business in the country.

- Why does business threat or business fiscal threat pair with employee safety?

Why do you say it that way?

"Don't bankrupt businesses, protect workers."

- Protect workers without bankrupting businesses in the process because this office can be North Carolina's secret weapon for economic development.

Here's what I mean by that.

So if this office is well-run, if our labor and employment laws are enforced in a fair and even-handed way, it tells people this is a place you want to do business.

Come do business in North Carolina and when business comes here, that means jobs.

Jobs mean salaries paid, mortgages paid, rent paid, groceries bought, clothes for kids and that's what's driving me to run for this office.

I think about what North Carolina's gonna be like in 20 years.

I got two young sons, seven and two.

I got another baby on the way in a week actually and I think about what's North Carolina gonna be like for them in 20 years?

Because for me, it's been a fantastic place with endless opportunity.

Own a home, start a career, get married, have a family but there's a lot of competition out there from other states, from other countries and I wanna make sure that North Carolina is a place for my kids, your kids, the kids of everybody watching.

That there's as much opportunity for them as there has been for me and that's what really drives me to run for this office.

- And business climate, it was Forbes I think rated us barely number two behind Virginia.

- That's right.

- In business climate.

So you're trying to gain that extra 1/2 of 1% if we're to follow your platform.

So how are labor laws being administered in this state currently?

- Well they're being administered smartly, right?

We have had 24 good years.

The first 20 years with my friend Cherie Berry, the Elevator Queen, as a lot of your viewers may know, a friend of mine who's endorsed me.

Then four years with our current Commissioner, Josh Dobson.

But 24 good years of common sense leadership at the Labor Department and we need to keep going in that direction.

I'm gonna be a Commissioner in the mold of Cherie Berry and Josh Dobson doing that common sense leadership that promotes job growth in North Carolina.

- I saw where you're an OSHA lawyer.

So you're in worker safety or representing businesses with OSHA.

Which is it, what does that job mean in the private sector?

- Yeah, so I have a wealth of experience working with the laws and regulations that this department enforces.

I'm not a politician, I'm coming out of the private sector and I want to take that private sector experience I've gained and make North Carolina a better place with it and that private sector experience is working with our state's labor and employment laws.

The work I've done has made workers safer and healthier and businesses more secure.

Now I want to take that experience and bring it to the whole state.

- Generally people will say Democrats are pro-working person, pro-worker and Republicans are pro-business and business development.

- Yeah.

- Where do you fall on that and how should the everyday voter as they look down that ballot- - Sure.

- Look at your name and they go "Is he for the man that owns the factory or is he for the person working for the man," if you will?

- I'm for both and you need to be for both.

- Okay.

- Right?

You can't be pro-worker if you don't care about their jobs.

You want every worker in this state to have a safe, good-paying, high quality job and that's the way I approach this job as Labor Commissioner.

You need a balanced approach to drive the economy forward here.

It's our businesses that create the jobs.

It's our workers that keep the businesses running and the Labor Department needs to take a balanced approach that doesn't favor one side too much or the other because then things get out of kilter.

I want a balanced equation in how we enforce our laws and I think that signals to people this is a place you wanna do business, bring your jobs here.

- Cherie Berry was an externally-focused Labor Commissioner.

People knew her, they wrote the song about her and there was some fun with that several years ago.

Josh Dobson was a very quiet leader it seemed.

Put his head into the department, worked hard and is handing it off to either you or the Democrat.

What kind of leader are you and if you're elected, are you gonna be someone that we're gonna see out in the public sphere or is the best work quietly done inside the department?

- It's a mix of both.

People deserve to know who their Labor Commissioner is, who's out there working for 'em.

- What's your style though?

- Yeah.

I would say my style is a mix of both.

I want to be out there rolling up my sleeves, digging into the technical issues of the department.

That's what my background is in.

So I am well-prepared to deal with the hard technical issues that the department faces but I also want to be out there with the folks learning their jobs, learning the industries that the department regulates.

I think that is so key and that's what I've been doing in my campaign.

We visited farms, factories, manufacturing plants, construction sites.

I think the Labor Commissioner needs to understand the full range of what this department does and the work that our workers are doing and the industries that we have in North Carolina and I'm already doing that.

- Do you think Labor Commissioners should be at the General Assembly advocating for certain laws, certain business and employment laws or should it lay back, allow the General Assembly to pass legislation and then interpret it and enforce it?

- Well, the General Assembly is the policymaking branch of government in this state and that's their primary responsibility.

The primary responsibility of the Labor Commissioner is to carry out those laws and so my primary focus is gonna be doing the job that the State Constitution assigns to me, which is enforcing our state's labor and employment laws.

But were there a need for tweaks where there's a need to be an advocate, for instance, vocational technical education.

You will always find me being a strong advocate for that, whether it's at the General Assembly, whether on the Board of Community Colleges.

I think we need to get back to helping people get jobs where they work with their hands.

That has been marginalized in our society and that's something I'll be advocating for as Labor Commissioner.

- I've heard that plank of people's platforms probably going back eight, 10 years.

- [Luke] Yeah.

- To bring back high-paying but very skilled labor.

But we still talk about it in 2024.

So it's one thing for someone to propose and it's another to have families believe that a two-year associate's degree in the trades is a valuable investment.

- Sure.

- How do we get society to follow along with what Democrats and Republicans say about two-year degrees?

- I think you demonstrate very clearly that, for instance, construction.

Construction makes more millionaires than any other industry.

It's something where you can take two years, a two-year degree or two years of vocational and technical training and education and turn that into something where in 10 or 15 years, you can have a business that you can sell and we need leaders who are pushing that and so the Labor Commissioner serves on the Board of Community Colleges.

I'll be there every step of the way saying "Our community colleges need to be focused on creating these kinds of jobs and preparing people for those kinds of jobs."

'Cause they're not the kind of thing that's gonna go away with AI, right?

Lawyers may get replaced by AI but plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, they're not gonna be losing their jobs.

- Would you weigh in on Federal issues?

If there's an immigration debate and an immigration crackdown, it's going to affect blue collar job positions in this state, no doubt about it.

Where do you see your role in that.

A, if immigrants come in, they're taking some jobs and if immigrants roll out, they're opening holes that may not be filled?

- Well, the number one job of the Labor Commissioner is to keep our workforce safe and healthy and to look after the general wellbeing of the workforce in North Carolina and that's a sacred responsibility, right?

Our people in North Carolina are our strength and I will always be advocating for what's best for the workers in North Carolina to keep 'em safe, healthy and prosperous.

- Is there one policy you would like to absolutely see passed and implemented as Labor Commissioner that as a lawyer, you say this is a missing part of labor regulations that is needed and it's sensible?

And there's a million regulations out there.

I don't want to put you on the spot but is there somewhere you'd like to see legislators sort of massage to make it either better for workers or better for workers and employers?

- I think the policy that we need to advocate most strongly for is making sure we've filled all the positions in the Labor Department, right?

We have a Labor Department, there are some vacancies there and it makes it harder to carry out our job.

It puts more strain on the people who are in the department now, the employees there.

If you've got eight people doing the job of 10, that's tough.

So the number one priority as a policy perspective for me is to make sure we've filled all the vacancies and that we have an adequate number of safety and health inspectors for our workers.

Also our elevator inspectors, amusement ride inspectors, you mentioned that earlier.

So that's the number one thing I'll be focused on from a policy perspective is making sure positions are filled and the job's getting done for the people in North Carolina.

- Is there any chance you could work smarter?

Because small government means less jobs, means make it work with what you have.

- Absolutely, we will do what we can with the resources we've got and I do think that sometimes we just have to do more with less.

This is a common problem in the public sector, private sector.

It is hard to fill jobs right now and we will do more with less and we'll be creative.

Maybe there's some uses for technology, AI or algorithms to help us direct health and safety inspections to those employers that are most likely to violate our health and safety laws and I'm certainly open to doing that.

You're right, that's a conservative approach.

But I think filling those vacancies is probably as a policy matter the number one.

- The COVID era has passed us.

The pandemic has passed us as a pandemic and so I don't want to re-litigate three or four years ago with policies that were controversial but public health is an issue.

You brought it up during the primary and your campaign literature talks about masking, vaccines, paid time off, state rules that could address a future pandemic.

- Yes.

- How closely should you work with the Department of Health and Human Services of either type of administration, Republican or Democrat, to keep workers safe if that requires mandates?

- Yeah, we will listen to anybody out there and we'll take stock of what the stakeholders say.

But this department's gonna be focused on carrying out our mandate which is to keep the workers safe and healthy and I think without bankrupting businesses in the process.

As I say, we've got to have a balanced approach to protecting workers to drive the economy forward.

You mentioned vaccines and things like that.

That's something, raised it in the primary and it's something we're gonna keep an eye on.

We're gonna make sure that workers are protected but without being overburdened by mandates, masks and things like that.

- Where do you see the economy going and the workforce going in North Carolina the next, say, we'll with four years, let's look out to eight?

- Well, the plan is to get in there as your next Labor Commissioner and keep our workforce safe and healthy with common sense regulation that drives job growth.

That's what people have to understand is jobs don't just materialize out of nowhere, right?

They're created and they're created under certain good conditions.

We have good conditions in North Carolina.

We need to keep those conditions going.

- A lot of businesses will come to you and to the legislature and say "Well, if you regulate us at all, it's gonna cost jobs."

How do you weigh the point-counterpoint to make good, sensible regulatory decisions?

- Absolutely.

- How do you do that?

- That's what I'm saying, it's a balanced approach.

We need some regulation of course, of course and we have a lot of regulations on the books.

It's about common sense enforcement of them and effective enforcement of 'em in a way that protects our workers and so you do that by targeting the people most likely to do bad things.

There are absolutely bad apples and bad actors out there and when I'm Labor Commissioner, they're gonna get the book thrown at them.

But everybody else, we want to work with them to help them do the right thing to keep their employees safe and healthy.

- This is Luke Farley, GOP nominee for North Carolina Labor Commissioner.

He'll be on your statewide ballot down just a bit from Harris and Trump but be there nonetheless.

Stick through it, cast a vote either way and fill that ballot out.

Mr. Farley, thank you so much for being on this show.

- Thanks again for your interest in the race.

- Good to see you.

- Pleasure to meet you and we are interested in the race.

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