Milledgeville Career Center - Phone: 478.445.5465 Fax: 478.445.2040

This page serves as the official page for the Milledgeville Career Center, affiliated with the Georgia Department of Labor. Please visit our official Facebook page at www.facebook.com/GeorgiaDOL.

The Department of Labor is charged with the following areas of responsibility. They are:

• To administer the state’s unemployment insurance program.

• To refer workers in need of additional skills into the proper job training program.

• To administer rehabilitation services, including providing physical rehabilitation, job training and job placement of people with disabilities. The state's Division of Rehabilitation Services was merged into the department on July 1, 2001. Prior to the merger, rehabilitation services under the administration of the Georgia Department of Human Resources.

• To assist those who are seeking jobs in their quest for satisfactory and productive placement and to aid employers in their search for qualified workers.

• To administer laws relating to working conditions, employee safety and child labor and inspect amusement rides, elevators, escalators, dumbwaiters, manlifts, moving sidewalks, boilers, pressure vessels, safety glass and high voltage lines to assure that the public is protected.

• To gather, maintain and report labor market information.

The Georgia Department of Labor, administered by State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, was established in 1911. Known then as the Department of Commerce and Labor, it had broad authority over industrial and occupational safety and administration of labor laws. The department’s first administrator was Harris McCall Stanley, who served from 1912-37.

In 1920, when the Georgia General Assembly enacted the state’s first workmen’s compensation law, responsibility for administration of its provisions also went to the department.

Executive authority for the state Department of Commerce and Labor was assigned to the state Board of Industrial Relations in 1931. The board was comprised of two directors appointed by the governor and a chairman elected by the people. The chairman was chief administrative officer. Tolly Eugene Whitaker served in that capacity from 1937-38.

The Wagner-Peyser Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1935, mandated a federal-state partnership for operation of employment service agencies. As a result, the Georgia General Assembly enacted the Employment Security Law of 1937, officially creating a Georgia Department of Labor. The agency was placed under control of an elected commissioner. Ben T. Huiet, who served from 1938-67, was Georgia’s first elected commissioner and a State Constitutional officer.

The Board of Industrial Relations was retained until 1943 to administer the workmen’s compensation program. It then was abolished and the Georgia Board of Workmen’s Compensation was created.

The department has been administered by nine commissioners. They are:

Ben T. Huiet, 1938-67.

Sam Caldwell, from 1967-84.

Joe Tanner, 1984-90.

Ray Hollingsworth, 1990-91.

Al Scott, 1991-92.

David Poythress, 1992-98.

Marti Fullerton, 1998-99.

Michael Thurmond, 1999-2011.

Mark Butler, the first Republican State Labor Commissioner, became Georgia’s ninth labor commissioner on Jan. 10, 2011.

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