Nikki Porcher elected Georgia’s first Black female labor commissioner

Nikki Porcher didn’t sleep Tuesday night.

As Democrats dominated Georgia’s election results, the nonprofit leader made her own history, becoming the first Black woman to ever be elected labor commissioner in the state.

Porcher ousted Republican incumbent Bárbara Rivera Holmes, with Porcher scoring about 55% of the vote. She is also the first Democrat to secure the office since Michael Thurmond served in the role from 1999 to 2011.

“I’m just so positively overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts and plans,” Porcher told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday morning.

“I do know that none of us, from the top to the bottom of the ballot, (are) taking this moment for granted, and we are ready to show up and work for working Georgians,” she later added.

Porcher has never held a government office but said she rose to victory on a grassroots campaign that raised only about $60,000, including beating out a crowded field of Democratic primary candidates.

Porcher is the founder of the Atlanta-based nonprofit Buy From A Black Woman, which supports Black women-owned businesses through events, funding and educational programs. She’s also a U.S. Air Force veteran and former public school educator.

As labor commissioner, Porcher said she wants to address issues with unemployment claims, make the department a better resource for people seeking jobs or training, and have conversations about raising the state minimum wage.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which currently applies in Georgia because the Peach State’s minimum wage is lower than the U.S. rate.

“I think the minimum wage is probably the easiest thing to actually do something to improve the quality of life for those low-wage workers,” Joseph Jones, executive director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy at Clark Atlanta University, said when asked about what Tuesday’s election results could mean for workers in the state.

Labor commissioner is often a job that flies under the radar unless there is crisis. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the department was overwhelmed with an unprecedented number of jobless claims.

Porcher said one of her first priorities would be to assess the department’s unemployment insurance system and be transparent about the findings.

“We know the big pain point is unemployment claims,” she said. “We’re seeing reports of people having issues filing for unemployment.”

Porcher has also questioned the validity of data coming from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, especially after the Trump administration last year fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after some poor monthly jobs reports.

At an Atlanta Press Club debate in October, Porcher said bluntly: “I don’t trust the numbers.”

One of the jobs of the labor commissioner is to collect and report on labor market data, and Porcher said Wednesday that she’s “very curious what it actually looks like” and that she felt “there’s a lot missing.”

Porcher also said during the Atlanta Press Club debate that she was pro-union and that having a “union liaison” at the labor department was “something that’s high on my list because I want to make sure that Georgia workers are protected.”

Georgia is known as a “right to work” state, meaning the law does not require a worker at a unionized entity to join the union or pay dues as a condition of employment.