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John C. Brooks says he would be a progressive labor commissioner.

The candidate for the Democratic nomination and former longtime commissioner says he has three top goals if elected to the office:

1. Boost OSHA staff. Brooks would ask the legislature to double the size of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration program, which inspects workplaces. He says the staff is "miserably small" and would take 130 years to inspect each existing business one time.

2. Start a skills academy. He would start a four-year residential college focused on training workers for high-skilled manufacturing jobs beyond the community college level. He would ask the University of North Carolina system to run it, similar to an existing biotech center run by N.C. State.

3. Work with national labor lawyers. A lawyer, Brooks says he would join the American Bar Association's working group on labor law, which has been a leading voice on workplace reforms in recent years. He notes that neither his Democratic opponent, Mary Fant Donnan, or incumbent Republican Cherie Berry could join since they do not have law degrees.

The labor commissioner race is having its moment in the sun.

With Democratic candidates Mary Fant Donnan and John C. Brooks in a runoff next Tuesday for the right to face incumbent Republican Cherie Berry in November, the normally low-profile office is getting a little more attention than usual.

But what does the commissioner do?

As head of the N.C. Department of Labor, the commissioner is responsible for overseeing the health, safety and well-being of more than 4 million workers in the state, including enforcing federal regulations laid down by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The major divisions including Occupational Safety and Health, which enforces federal worker safety laws; Research and Policy, which compiles labor statistics; and Standards and Inspections, which inspects elevators, amusement park rides, and rock quarries, among other things.

The department also protects workers from discrimination based on genetic testing, service in the National Guard, or filing a workplace complaint, though complaints related to race, gender, etc., are handled by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The department was started in 1891, when the legislature created the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's been a full-blown agency since 1931.