Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Announced as Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his nominee for Secretary of Labor. Chavez-DeRemer was recently defeated in her 2024 re-election bid for Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. She is considered by some to be a pro-labor Republican, but her record on labor issues is mixed. Additionally, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler noted that although “Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a pro-labor record in Congress, including as one of only three Republicans to cosponsor the Protecting The Right To Organize (PRO) Act and one of eight Republicans to cosponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act,” “it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as secretary of labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda.”
Some right-wing organizations and business groups have criticized Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination. Chavez-DeRemer, however, received a 10% score in the AFL-CIO’s 2023 legislator scorecard database, which is “only slightly higher than the 6 percent score for the average House Republican.” Chavez-DeRemer took several votes that adversely affect working people, including voting in favor of a bill that would, per AFL-CIO, “penalize unemployment insurance (UI) recipients for inadvertent errors in program administration” and in favor of repealing a Department of Labor rule that allows Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria to be considered by “private sector retirement plan trustees” when making investment decisions. Chavez-DeRemer has supported policies friendly to labor, including allowing workers to deduct union dues and against policies that would weaken the regulatory powers of the National Labor Relations Board.
Chavez-DeRemer was one of three Republican Members to cosponsor the PRO Act, adding her name to the bill in July 2024 while running for re-election in a competitive district. She previously refused to back the law when asked about her position in 2023. Though the PRO Act contains a provision that would hold companies like fast food franchisors “accountable for workers they don’t directly employ,” Chavez-DeRemer voted against an effort by the Biden administration to restore a regulation enacting this rule. She has also been criticized for not attending and defending organized labor at a series of hearings held by a Republican-controlled House subcommittee that “devolved into union-bashing.”
A former employee of Chavez-DeRemer’s district office filed a lawsuit against her office for “[retaliating] against her for filing a sex discrimination complaint and [firing] her for seeking work accommodations for her disability.” If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer purview would include overseeing the Department of Labor’s workplace discrimination review.
When running for re-election in 2024, Chavez-DeRemer was supported by the local Teamsters Union and nine other labor unions, but some of the bigger labor unions in Oregon, like the Service Employees International Union and United Food and Commercial Workers, endorsed or indicated alignment with her opponent. The head of communications at SEIU Local 49 expressed that “SEIU in Oregon has had very little experience working with Ms. Chavez-DeRemer since she has declined to engage directly with our 85,000 members.”
Chavez-DeRemer has supported abortion restrictions and voted for several anti-choice bills that would limit access to abortion, but she opposed a Republican bill that would prohibit plans covering abortion procedures from being offered on Affordable Care Act exchanges. Chavez-DeRemer also voted in favor of the Spending Reduction and Border Security Act stop-gap spending measure, which “endanger[ed] the vital programs Americans rely on by making reckless cuts to programs, regardless of the consequences for critical services from education to food safety to law enforcement to housing to public health.”
WHAT DOES PROJECT 2025 SAY ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
THE POLICIES
— Fire the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel “on Day One,” threatening the NLRB’s ability to protect workers trying to organize for good, middle-class jobs.
— Gut the capacity of the Department of Labor (DOL) to protect workers by calling for state waivers from key** **labor standards such as the minimum wage, overtime pay, and the right to organize.
— Remove DOL’s hazard-order regulations to allow teenagers to work “inherently dangerous job[s].”
— Weaken overtime pay requirements.
— Rescind labor protections including those “prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.”
— Work with Congress to “amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to authorize collective bargaining to treat national employment laws and regulations as negotiable defaults.”
PRECEDING CONTEXT FOR PROJECT 2025
— Trump’s NLRB adopted rules that made it easier for large corporations to evade liability for labor violations and to avoid bargaining obligations by relying on smaller intermediary companies—including franchisees, temporary staffing agencies, and labor contractors—to supply labor.
— Trump’s NLRB made rules that make it harder for workers to unionize by giving anti-union corporations more opportunities to fight workers’ organizing campaigns and reduce the likelihood of union victory.
— Florida passed an anti-union bill requiring most public sector unions to boost the rate of members paying dues or be disbanded. If fewer than 60 percent of eligible employees are members, their unions would have to be recertified as bargaining agents.
HOW ARE PROJECT 2025’S POLICIES POSSIBLE?
— Amending the NLRA to authorize collective bargaining to treat national employment laws and regulations as negotiable defaults will require congressional approval, since the current system is based on statute.
— Many of Project 2025’s proposed labor policies will require simple rulemaking (no congressional action needed), and Trump’s DOL already achieved some. The Biden Administration then rescinded those policies.