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lori chavez-deremer
Good Riddance to Trump's Horrible, No Good Labor Secretary
The disgraced Lori Chavez-DeRemer is what you get when you have a president and White House staff who don’t give a rat’s ass about whom they appoint to positions of power except for their loyalty to Trump and how they look on television.
Apr 21, 2026
Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned Monday as secretary of labor [translated: she was told to resign by the White House], after facing investigations by the department’s inspector general into multiple allegations of misconduct.
She’s alleged to have been drinking during the workday from a “stash” of alcohol in her office, arranging official trips for herself that were extended vacations, taking subordinates to an Oregon strip club while on one such trip, showing no interest in the work of the department, and having an affair with a member of her security team.
Sources have described Chavez-DeRemer as the “boss from hell,” saying she demanded staffers run personal errands for her or perform other menial tasks unrelated to their government jobs. More than two dozen department employees from across the political spectrum described in interviews with The New York Times a toxic workplace characterized by an absentee secretary, hostile aides, and a deeply demoralized staff.
In other words, Chavez-DeRemer was turning the great department I once headed and loved into shit. And I hold Trump responsible because he appointed her.
As I shared with you a few weeks ago, I loved the Department of Labor from the moment I entered the Frances Perkins Building on Constitution Avenue as secretary of labor in January 1992. I loved its mission: to protect and raise the standard of living of working Americans.
I loved its history. The first secretary of labor, Frances Perkins — appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 — was also America’s first female Cabinet secretary. She was the guiding light behind the creation of Social Security, the 40-hour workweek, the National Labor Relations Act, and much more.
I hung the painting of Frances Perkins behind my desk in my huge second-floor office. Whenever I felt discouraged, I looked at her, and she bucked me up. (Although I’m Jewish, I called her Saint Frances.)
I admired the Department of Labor’s career staff, who were dedicated to helping American workers. I was deeply impressed by the assistant secretaries, the deputy secretary, the chief of staff, and other appointees with whom I toiled, often six or seven days a week from early morning to late at night.
Never before or since have I had the privilege of working with such talented people who cared so much about what they were accomplishing for the American people, and who made such a positive impact on so many lives.
We raised the minimum wage for the first time in many years, even under a Republican-controlled Congress. We implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act. We fought against sweatshops. We took on big corporations that were cheating their employees. We kept workers safe. We … well, I could go on and on. (And I have, in my book Locked in the Cabinet, which you can also find here, but please don’t order from here.)
But like so much else Trump has done, he’s turned what was once a great department into a fucking mess. And it frankly breaks my heart.
It’s what you get when you have a president and White House staff who don’t give a rat’s ass about whom they appoint to positions of power except for their loyalty to Trump and how they look on television.
Trump and his White House assistants don’t mind if his appointees wreck our government because they don’t care about government. Hell, they came to government to wreck it. If the public loses confidence in, say, the Department of Labor, that’s perfectly fine. If Congress slashes its funding, so much the better.
What they do mind is if a Cabinet member makes Trump look bad, which is why Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are now history — along with Chavez-DeRemer.
It infuriates me, because I’ve seen government work for the people. I’ve witnessed public servants who care deeply and bust their asses in service to this country. I know how important government can be if it’s doing the job it should be doing.
I loved the Department of Labor because it has improved the lives of millions of Americans. I worked like hell as secretary of labor because I believed in what we were doing. That it’s been treated like crap is an insult to generations of hardworking DOL employees, to American workers, to America.
The least we can all do is flip Congress in November, so senators and representatives who care about this country can oversee the departments of the government and try to remedy some of the wreckage that Trump and his appointees have wreaked on America.
In the meantime, goodbye and good riddance to Madam Secretary Chavez-DeRemer.
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Trump Loses Another Cabinet Secretary as 'Scandal-Ridden' Chavez-DeRemer Resigns
"Chavez-DeRemer failed to protect workers, jeopardized the Department of Labor's work to support the economy, drove down morale among agency staff, and abused federal government resources to serve her own whims."
Apr 20, 2026
President Donald Trump's "scandal-ridden" Department of Labor leader, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned from her post on Monday, making her the third member of his Cabinet to leave since the beginning of the year, following the firings of former US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Confirming reports of the latest departure, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said that "Chavez-DeRemer will be leaving the administration to take a position in the private sector. She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives."
Her deputy, Keith Sonderling, "will take on the role of acting secretary of labor," Cheung added.
As Politico noted Monday, "Chavez-DeRemer has been under scrutiny since January, when DOL Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito opened an investigation into allegations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail, that she drank on the job, and that top aides concocted official events to facilitate her personal travel plans."
That probe led to allegations—initially reported by The New York Times in February—that the secretary's husband, Shawn DeRemer, "has been barred from the department's headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them." DeRemer denied the claims, and police have reportedly closed a related investigation.
As NOTUS reported Monday:
A source close to the president told NOTUS last week that the White House viewed Chavez-DeRemer as an effective spokesperson for the president's economic message and implementer of workforce policy. But the tales of the labor secretary's alleged scandals had become palace intrigue among people close to and inside of the White House.
Two Republicans who speak with President Donald Trump told NOTUS they expected him to pull the trigger on removing Chavez-DeRemer on Wednesday, when she was due for what was expected to be a bruising hearing in Congress. Some inside the White House anticipated Democrats at the hearing would focus on Chavez-DeRemer's alleged transgressions.
Responding to the resignation on social media, the Democratic Party highlighted Bondi and Noem's ousters, and declared, "This administration is imploding."
Before joining Trump's Cabinet, the outgoing secretary represented Oregon's 5th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat who serves the state's 1st District, said that "Chavez-DeRemer failed to protect workers, jeopardized the Department of Labor's work to support the economy, drove down morale among agency staff, and abused federal government resources to serve her own whims. She should be held accountable for the damage that occurred on her watch."
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'This Is Trump's America': Scandals Engulf Labor Secretary as She Guts Worker Protections
A group of Democratic senators accused Lori Chavez-DeRemer's Labor Department of showing "disregard for workers’ lives."
Feb 20, 2026
Lori Chavez-DeRemer's tenure as head of the US Department of Labor was further embroiled in scandal on Thursday after bombshell New York Times reporting revealed that her husband has been banned from the agency's headquarters over sexual assault allegations leveled by at least two staffers.
The reporting landed on the same day that a group of Senate Democrats launched an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer's policy moves at the Labor Department, accusing her agency of showing "disregard for workers’ lives" by "rolling back protections that keep workers safe and hobbling the agency that is tasked with overseeing worker safety."
The sexual assault allegations against the labor secretary's husband, Shawn DeRemer, were made by two women "as part of an internal investigation by the department’s inspector general into alleged misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her senior staff," the Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter and a police report.
"The widening misconduct scandal at the Labor Department has forced several aides and members of the security staff in Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s inner circle onto administrative and investigative leave," the newspaper continued. "The inspector general’s office is investigating a formal complaint that Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate—a member of her security detail—and abusing her office by taking staff to strip clubs, drinking alcohol on the job, and taking personal trips at taxpayer expense. Her lawyer has denied the allegations."
"This is Trump's America," retired US diplomat Ken Fairfax wrote in response to the reporting.
Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer has been playing a central role in what six Senate Democrats characterized as the Trump administration's "attack on workers from all sides."
In a Thursday letter to Chavez-DeRemer and David Keeling, the assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Democrats expressed alarm over the Labor Department's "ambitious deregulatory agenda that includes many of the regulations that OSHA has promulgated to keep American workers safe."
The lawmakers pointed specifically to Labor Department efforts to eliminate more than a third of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's offices, roll back "a requirement for employers to provide adequate lighting at construction sites," and loosen "respirator requirements for workers exposed to dangerous materials like lead, asbestos, and formaldehyde, as well as chemicals known to be carcinogens."
"But you are not only rolling back rules that protect workers—OSHA also appears to be taking a lighter hand in enforcing even the rules that still exist," the senators wrote. "According to OSHA statistics comparing the months of April through September 2025 with the same period in 2024, the agency reduced workplace inspections by 20%. Those statistics also show a 42% decrease in the number of 'willful violations' found during inspections by OSHA during the months of April-September of 2025 as compared to the same period in 2024."
Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed as labor secretary last year with bipartisan support and a boost from the Teamsters union given some of her past pro-worker stances, such as support for the PRO Act—which she quickly distanced herself from during the confirmation process.
"Chavez-DeRemer refused to commit to supporting a minimum-wage increase, or paid leave for workers," The Nation's John Nichols wrote following her confirmation hearing last February. "And, of course, she unapologetically declared, 'The right to work is a fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right-to-work state, and that should be protected.'"
"She has made it abundantly clear that she is not interested in serving as an ally of America’s workers or the unions that represent them," Nichols added. "In the great struggle between the working class and the billionaire class, Chavez-DeRemer has chosen to side with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the oligarchs."
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'Let's Bring in the Real Secretary': Sanders Wants Elon Musk to Appear for Senate Hearing
"Let us understand that reality and not play along with this charade," the Senate HELP committee ranking member said before a vote on the labor secretary nominee.
Feb 27, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday urged colleagues to reject Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump's nominee for labor secretary, and hold hearings to examine Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk's outsized role in the Republican president's administration.
Chavez-DeRemer, a former GOP U.S. congresswoman from Oregon was
approved by a 14-9 Senate vote by members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
"Let us understand that reality and not play along with this charade," said Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking HELP member.
Sanders used the occasion of the panel's vote, however, to make the broader point about key members of Trump's cabinet and the absurdity of the amount of power that has been bestowed on Musk.
"Today, we are not voting on who the next secretary of labor is," Sanders said. "The next secretary of labor, the next secretary of education, the next secretary of housing, the next secretary of the treasury is Elon Musk. Let us understand that reality and not play along with this charade."
Sanders continued:
We have a situation where people all over this country understand that joining a trade union is a way to get better wages and working conditions. Millions of workers all over this country say, "I want to join a union." And yet we have large corporations acting illegally to deny workers the right to join unions, which is why one of my major priorities and the priority of many members on this side of the aisle is to pass the :[Richard L. Trumka] Protecting the Right to Organize PRO Act.
Last year, Sanders led the reintroduction of the PRO Act, legislation which would give unionswhich would, give unions and employers the ability to override state-level so-called "right to work" laws, enhance strike protections, ban anti-union "captive audience" meetings, and empower the National Labor Relations Board to impose monetary penalties on companies that violate workers' rights.
"Today, tens of millions of American workers are earning starvation wages, $12, $13 an hour," Sanders noted. "Nobody in any part of this country can survive on $12, $13 dollars an hour. And yet the minimum wage—the federal minimum wage of $7.25—has not been raised in a very, very long time."
"So what we need is a secretary of labor who is going to stand up and say we are going to take on powerful special interests," the senator continued. "We are going to stand with the working class of this country. Unfortunately... Chavez-DeRemer is not that person."
"Just yesterday, the president held a meeting with his cabinet," Sanders noted. "And who was the star of the meeting? Was it the secretary of the defense? Was it secretary of state? No, it was an unelected official who happens to be the wealthiest person on Earth. It was Elon Musk."
"If any cabinet official has courage to stand up to Mr. Musk and disobey his edicts, they are gone," the senator added. "So... my request to you is a simple one. Let's be honest. The American people understand it, and it’s time that we understood it as well."
"If you want to discuss policies in the Department of Labor," Sanders said, "let's bring in the real secretary. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully request that this committee bring Elon Musk before this committee so that we can really hear what's going on with the government."
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'He's Selling Out': Teamsters President Faces Backlash for Cozying Up to GOP
One labor journalist called his comments regarding right-to-work "shameful" and "embarrassing."
Feb 20, 2025
International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien faced backlash from labor movement voices on Wednesday for expressing his support for U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Labor and for appearing to take a softer stance on so-called "right-to-work" laws—policies generally decried by organized labor because they allow employees to opt out of union expenses while working at a unionized establishment.
Labor journalist Alex Press called his comments regarding right-to-work "shameful" and "embarrassing."
Over the summer, Press spoke with rank-and-file Teamsters members about recent actions from O'Brien that signal a rightward shift, such as his decision to headline the first night of the 2024 Republican National Convention. "Some are undoubtedly thrilled," wrote Press, though "a growing number of members believe their president is offering a straightforward, if not always explicit, endorsement of a political party that wants to destroy them."
On Wednesday, O'Brien attended the Senate confirmation hearing of Oregon Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump's labor pick, during which Chavez-DeRemer said she would support Trump's agenda, according to The New York Times. Chavez-DeRemer also told senators that she no longer supports a section of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—sweeping Democratic labor legislation that was introduced in Congress but never passed—which would have weakened state right-to-work laws.
Speaking later Wednesday on Fox News, O'Brien said of Chavez-DeRemer, "Not only do we support her appointment, we are going to the mat to make sure that she gets confirmed."
When asked about Chavez-DeRemer's stance on the right-to-work section of the PRO Act, O'Brien said that he is working with senators such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to come up with a version of the PRO Act that "may not include that."
"That's the beauty of having conversations with people from the other side, where you can collaborate and actually find out what works for that state, what doesn't work for it—but more importantly, what's going to work for the American worker," O'Brien said.
A clip of these comments was reposted by the National Right to Work Committee, a group dedicated to "combating the evils of compulsory unionism," according to its website.
"The Teamsters union is as decentralized as the country. Like the median voter, most Teamsters aren't closely following what Sean O'Brien is saying," wrote labor journalist Luis Feliz Leon in response. "The press should ensure they know how he's selling out members to cozy up to anti-worker politicos and bolstering the power of bosses."
In the same Fox News interview, O'Brien also said the Teamsters do not want to see anyone losing their job, but that "[Trump] thinks he's within his right," when asked about the personnel-slashing Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration's widely decried deferred resignation program for nearly all federal employees. Multiple federal employees unions are currently battling the Trump administration in court over its actions targeting federal workers and federal agencies.
"What a shame. Teamsters deserve better than this," wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in response on Bluesky.
Another labor journalist, Kim Kelly, denounced a video posted Wednesday by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)—whom O'Brien nearly physically fought during a Senate hearing last year—in which Mullin and O'Brien chum it up and both express support for Chavez-DeRemer.
Also in response to the video, an observer on X with username katy, who indicates they are a part UFCW Local 371, wrote, "class traitor."
"I was raised in a Teamsters household, survived because of union benefits, and still do. I'd rather starve than lick a boot," katy wrote. "We're the union."
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Trump Labor Secretary Pick Vows to Defend Anti-Union 'Right-to-Work' Laws
"How very not pro-worker of you," the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO said in response to Lori Chavez-DeRemer's remarks.
Feb 19, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Labor made clear during her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that she no longer supports legislation known as the PRO Act, which would bolster worker organizing and dramatically weaken anti-union "right-to-work" laws currently in place in over two dozen states.
Asked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) whether she still supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act—a bill she co-sponsored while in Congress—former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) said she signed onto the bill because she "wanted to be at that table," not because she was fully supportive of its provisions.
Chavez-DeRemer answered "yes" when Paul—the lead sponsor of the National Right to Work Act—specifically asked her to confirm that she no longer supports "the aspect of the PRO Act that would have overturned state right-to-work laws."
"The right to work is a fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right-to-work states," said Chavez-DeRemer.
"How very not pro-worker of you, Lori," the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO wrote in response.
Watch the exchange:
Rand Paul: "You no longer support the aspect of the PRO Act that would have overturned state right to work laws?"
Trump Labor Secretary Nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer: "Yes, sir." pic.twitter.com/L5v9StcEhD
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) February 19, 2025
In so-called right-to-work (RTW) states, employees in unionized workplaces can opt out of paying union dues while still benefiting from the union's collective bargaining efforts.
An Economic Policy Institute study published last year found that RTW states "have lower unionization rates, wages, and benefits compared with non-RTW states."
"RTW laws are designed to diminish workers' collective power by prohibiting unions and employers from negotiating union security agreements into collective bargaining agreements, making it harder for workers to form, join, and sustain unions," the study noted. "Consequently, workers in states with RTW laws have lower wages, reduced access to health and retirement benefits, and higher workplace fatality rates. On average, workers in RTW states are paid 3.2% less than workers with similar characteristics in non-RTW states, which translates to $1,670 less per year for a full-time worker."
In her opening remarks to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Wednesday, Chavez-DeRemer said her job if confirmed "will be to implement President Trump's policy vision"—which has thus far been glaringly anti-worker.
"In his first few weeks back in office, Trump fired the [National Labor Relations Board's] acting chairperson, leaving the board without a quorum to enforce laws that protect workers' right to unionize," Steven Greenhouse, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, wrote Tuesday. "Trump has designated [Elon] Musk, a vehemently anti-union billionaire, to launch an all-out war against the federal bureaucracy and workforce, and Trump and Musk have essentially treated the nation's 2 million-plus federal employees as if they were disposable, low-quality widgets."
Trump also removed former NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who was strongly pro-labor. The president's acting replacement has moved quickly to roll back NLRB guidance issued during Abruzzo's tenure, including a memo declaring that anti-union "captive audience meetings" amount to an "unlawful threat" aimed at deterring union organizing.
During Wednesday's hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised Trump's termination of former NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, who argues her dismissal was illegal and is suing Trump in federal court.
Sanders said he also views Wilcox's firing as unlawful and asked Chavez-DeRemer if she agrees.
In response, Chavez-DeRemer said that Trump "has a right to exercise his executive power."
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Over $1.5 Billion in Workers' Stolen Wages Recovered From 2021-23
"Workers who can least afford to bear the cost of lost earnings—particularly low-wage workers—are disproportionately vulnerable to wage violations," according to Economic Policy Institute researchers.
Dec 23, 2024
A report published Friday by the progressive-leaning think tank the Economic Policy Institute found that federal, state, and local efforts were able to recover more than $1.5 billion in stolen wages between 2021 and 2023.
Wage theft, which includes things like paying workers less than the legal minimum wage or denying workers their legal meal breaks, "is pervasive across all industries and income levels," according to the report's authors, "but workers who can least afford to bear the cost of lost earnings—particularly low-wage workers—are disproportionately vulnerable to wage violations."
Wage theft is extremely costly to workers. Prior research cited by the EPI report estimates that workers lose $15 billion annually from minimum wage violations alone. For comparison, FBI data shows that robberies accounted for $598 million in losses in 2018, and $482 million the year after, so less than $2 billion over a two-year period, according to the report.
Action at multiple levels of government can help recover what's lost. At the federal level, the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division reports that it recovered $659.8 million between 2021 and 2023, which comes out to wage recovery for 510,534 workers, and an average of $1,292 in recovered wages per worker.
As an example of this kind of enforcement effort, the authors recounted that the Department of Labor (DOL) went after four Los Angeles sewing contractors, which yielded $1.1 million in back wages and damages for over 160 garment workers.
Meanwhile, at the state level, 34 departments of labor and attorneys general recovered a total of $203.3 million over those three years. The other 16 states either did not respond, did not have the requested data, or could not provide the requested data.
Class action settlements are another important avenue for wage recovery. According to the authors, the value of the top ten wage and hour class action settlements tallied $641.3 million in 2021—putting it on par with the DOL wage recovery for the full 2021-2023 period. The report, which includes class action settlement research done by the firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP, does not include class action data for 2022 and 2023.
"This class action data illustrates that workers are more effective in recovering stolen wages on a collective versus individual basis. However, many workers are barred from joining class action cases, because they are subject to forced arbitration agreements," the authors wrote.
When it comes to policy solutions, the authors noted that there have been a number of positive enforcement changes at the state level. For example, "many states have strengthened penalties for wage theft violations, enforcing them as criminal statutes" while some have "established laws allowing victims of wage theft to obtain a lien on employer property to ensure payment of back pay."
At the federal level, the authors advocated for increased funding for DOL’s Wage and Hour Division in order to boost enforcement efforts. The division has not seen a significant funding increase in over a decade, they wrote. The authors also argue in favor of a number of pieces of legislation, including the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act and the Protecting Right to Organize (PRO) Act—which would strengthen the right of private sector workers to unionize and collectively bargain.
While many in the labor movement expect U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to advance an anti-worker agenda, his pick to head the Department of Labor was met with cautious optimism by some corners of the labor world. Trump tapped Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) for the role. She co-sponsored the PRO Act in 2023—though at least one critic called this move "mostly symbolic."
In response to the news that Trump had picked Chavez-DeRemer, EPI's Celine McNicholas wrote in November that if workers truly have an ally in her, she "will advance policies that improve workers' lives."
According to McNicholas, those include funding the Department of Labor and protecting workers' overtime pay—as well as refusing to reinstitute the Payroll Audit Independent Determination program that was instituted during the first Trump administration, which mandated that if "if an employer proactively notified DOL of the failure to pay minimum wage or overtime or for taking illegal deductions from workers' paychecks, then DOL waived all penalties and liquidated damages," according to McNicholas.
The program "essentially permits employers who have stolen workers' wages to confess and get out of jail free," she wrote.
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5 Ways Trump's Labor Secretary Pick Can Prove She's Really Pro-Worker
If workers truly have an ally in Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), she will advance policies that improve workers’ lives.
Nov 27, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump recently announced his nomination of Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to serve as secretary of labor.
She is one of only three House Republicans to cosponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and one of only eight Republicans to cosponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. Both bills would help reform our nation’s badly broken system of labor law. While Rep. Chavez-DeRemer’s support for these needed reforms is encouraging, if confirmed, she will be secretary of labor for a president who steadfastly pursued an ambitious anti-worker agenda during his first term in office.
Chavez-DeRemer has stated that “working-class Americans finally have a lifeline” with President-elect Trump in the White House. If workers truly have an ally in Chavez-DeRemer, she will advance policies that improve workers’ lives. Here are a few policies that will reveal whether the second Trump administration will actually aid working-class Americans or be a continuation of his first administration’s agenda attacking workers’ rights.
If confirmed as secretary of labor, Chavez-DeRemer should not follow the playbook of Trump’s first administration that used populist pro-worker rhetoric while advancing an anti-worker agenda that proved deeply harmful to U.S. workers.
Win funding for the Department of Labor (DOL) that enables the agency to serve the U.S. workforce: DOL and other worker protection agencies have been chronically underfunded. As the workforce has grown, the budgets of these agencies have shrunk, leaving workers without effective enforcement of basic minimum wage and overtime and health and safety protections. Chavez-DeRemer should fight for and secure at least a $14 billion budget to ensure that U.S. workers have health and safety inspectors and wage and hour investigators on the job to enforce their rights.
Protect workers’ overtime: Overtime pay ensures that most workers who put in more than 40 hours a week get paid 1.5 times their regular pay for the extra hours they work. Most hourly workers are guaranteed the right to overtime pay, while salaried workers’ eligibility is based on their pay and the nature of their duties. DOL recently issued a rule to raise the pay threshold for salaried workers to be eligible for overtime, which stands to benefit 4.3 million workers. Despite this benefit to U.S. workers, corporate interest groups and conservative states challenged the rule in court. Chavez-DeRemer should fight for workers’ right to overtime and continue to defend this rule in litigation. She should not allow the Trump administration to, once again, institute a low-salary threshold for overtime eligibility that leaves millions of workers without these protections and forced to work long hours for no additional pay.
Refuse to reinstitute the Payroll Audit Independent Determination program: This program was instituted during Trump’s first administration and essentially permits employers who have stolen workers’ wages to confess and get out of jail free. If an employer proactively notified DOL of the failure to pay minimum wage or overtime or for taking illegal deductions from workers’ paychecks, then DOL waived all penalties and liquidated damages. Wage theft is rampant, costing U.S. workers as much as $50 billion each year. Any program that makes it easier and less costly for employers to steal workers’ wages is a program that hurts U.S. workers and their wages. Chavez-DeRemer should make it harder for employers to steal workers’ wages, not easier.
Promote policies to protect workers’ health and safety: DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is responsible for ensuring U.S. workers are safe on the job. Still, 344 workers die each day from hazardous working conditions. Under the prior Trump administration, OSHA scaled back safety inspections. Chavez-DeRemer should ensure that OSHA does not repeat this under her watch and instead expands inspections to ensure that all workers have a safe workplace. Further, she should fight to protect safety standards like the recently proposed standard protecting workers from extreme heat. Workers’ health and safety must be a priority for any secretary of labor and administration claiming to be pro-worker.
Hold employers accountable for exploiting workers: Some employers use workers’ immigration status as leverage to exploit workers, threatening them with deportation if they report violations of labor and employment laws. For workers in labor disputes, the current administration granted deferred action, which is a determination to defer removal (deportation) of an individual from the U.S. In order to qualify for deferred action, a worker’s employer must be the subject of an open investigation at a labor agency, like DOL, and the labor agency conducting the investigation must submit a letter supporting deferred action to the Department of Homeland Security which oversees the program. Deferred action helps hold lawbreaking employers accountable, and Chavez-DeRemer should continue to support this for workers whose employers are being investigated for violating the law. If she is confirmed, she should fight to ensure the Trump administration provides deferred action for workers whose rights have been violated and should work to issue letters in support of deferred action for eligible workers.
These are just a few actions Chavez-DeRemer could take to demonstrate her commitment to workers. If confirmed as secretary of labor, Chavez-DeRemer should not follow the playbook of Trump’s first administration that used populist pro-worker rhetoric while advancing an anti-worker agenda that proved deeply harmful to U.S. workers.
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Unions Note Chavez-DeRemer's Record, 'But Donald Trump Is the President-Elect'
The DOL pick has sparked debates about how much she will actually "do right by workers" and whether "Teamsters president Sean O'Brien and Donald Trump are effectively dividing the labor movement."
Nov 23, 2024
Amid a flurry of Friday night announcements about key roles in the next Trump administration, one stood out to union leaders and other advocates for working people: Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, for labor secretary.
Chavez-DeRemer, who lost her reelection bid to Democrat Janelle Bynum earlier this month, "has built a pro-labor record in Congress, including as one of only three Republicans to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and one of eight Republicans to co-sponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler in a statement.
"But Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States—not Rep. Chavez-DeRemer—and 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," she stressed. "Despite having distanced himself from Project 2025 during his campaign, President-elect Trump has put forward several Cabinet nominees with strong ties to Project 2025. That 900-page document has proposals that would strip overtime pay, eliminate the right to organize, and weaken health and safety standards."
"You can stand with working people, or you can stand with Project 2025, but you can't stand with both."
"The AFL-CIO will work with anyone who wants to do right by workers, but we will reject and defeat any attempt to roll back the rights and protections that working people have won with decades of blood, sweat, and tears," added Schuler, whose group endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and developed a guide detailing how the right-wing initiative would be catastrophic for working people. "You can stand with working people, or you can stand with Project 2025, but you can't stand with both."
Seth Harris, a Northeastern University professor who served as acting secretary of labor under former President Barack Obama, told Bloomberg that "the president-elect has nominated a unicorn: a genuine pro-labor Republican."
"This is about the best nomination for the Labor Department that Democrats could have hoped for," he said, but "we don't know if she's going to be given the freedom to carry out the agenda that she supported in Congress."
Some skeptics and critics highlighted that Chavez-DeRemer—who only entered the U.S. House of Representatives last year—has just a 10% lifetime score from the AFL-CIO. Among them was longtime labor reporter Mike Elk, who warned, "This is divide and conquer politics at its worst as Trump prepares for an attack on federal workers unions!"
Others, such as Progressive Mass policy director Jonathan Cohn and University of California, Los Angeles historian Trevor Griffey, have suggested that Trump's U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) nominee supporting the PRO Act was simply her "posturing in a swing district."
Like the AFL-CIO, the nation's two largest teachers unions shared nuanced reactions to Trump choosing Chavez-DeRemer. Alongside many other labor groups, both backed Harris after President Joe Biden left the race—though Trump's victory has ignited heated debates over the Democratic Party's failure to win over working-class voters in a cycle that featured Trump cosplaying in a Pennsylvania McDonald's and a garbage truck while cozying up to the world's richest man, Elon Musk, and praising him for firing striking workers.
National Education Association president Becky Pringle said in a statement that "across America, most of us want the same things—strong public schools to help every student grow into their full brilliance and good jobs where workers earn living wages to provide for their families."
Noting Chavez-DeRemer's co-sponsorship of "pro-student, pro-public school, pro-worker legislation" and votes "against gutting the Department of Education, against school vouchers, and against cuts to education funding," Pringle asserted that "this record stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump's anti-worker, anti-union record, and his extreme Project 2025 agenda that would gut workplace protections, make it harder for workers to unionize, and diminish the voice of working people."
"During his first term, Trump appointed anti-worker, anti-union National Labor Relations Board members," she continued. "Now he is threatening to take the unprecedented action of removing current pro-worker NLRB members in the middle of their term, replacing them with his corporate friends. And he is promising to appoint judges and justices who are hostile to workers and unions."
Trump's track
record also includes nominating agency leaders and U.S. Supreme Court justices with histories of siding with companies over employees, gutting DOL regulations intended to protect workers' wages and benefits, and giving major tax cuts to wealthy individuals and corporations—policies he plans to extend with the help of an incoming GOP Congress.
"Educators and working families across the nation will be watching Lori Chavez-DeRemer as she moves through the confirmation process," said Pringle, "and hope to hear a pledge from her to continue to stand up for workers and students as her record suggests, not blind loyalty to the Project 2025 agenda."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten called Chavez-DeRemer's selection "significant," given that "her record suggests real support of workers and their right to unionize."
"I hope it means the Trump [administration] will actually respect collective bargaining and workers' voices from Teamsters to teachers," Weingarten added, referring to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The Teamsters notably declined to endorse in the U.S. presidential contest after the group's general president, Sean O'Brien was widely criticized by labor advocates including his predecessor for speaking at the Republican National Convention. O'Brien lobbied Trump to choose Chavez-DeRemer and welcomed the Friday development on social media, posting a photo of himself with the pair and thanking the president-elect "for putting American workers first."
"Nearly a year ago, you joined us for a Teamsters roundtable and pledged to listen to workers and find common ground to protect and respect labor in America," O'Brien wrote. "You put words into action. Now let's grow wages and improve working conditions nationwide. Congratulations to Lori Chavez-DeRemer on your nomination! North America's strongest union is ready to work with you every step of the way to expand good union jobs and rebuild our nation's middle class. Let's get to work!"
Washington Post labor reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley described Trump's decision as "a coup for the Teamsters" and New York Times labor reporter Noam Scheiber called it "a bona fide win" for the union, though he added that "the way you'll know if they have substantive influence or mostly cosmetic influence is if Trump's NLRB continues pressuring Amazon to bargain with unionized workers and drivers, who the Teamsters represent."
Meanwhile, Labor Notes staff writer Luis Feliz Leon said: "Lori Chavez-DeRemer for labor secretary isn't a win for the labor movement. The PRO Act is dead. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans have party discipline. What's noteworthy: Teamsters president Sean O'Brien and Donald Trump are effectively dividing the labor movement."
Some right-wing leaders and groups have already expressed disapproval of Trump's nominee, a sign that she may need some Democratic support to get confirmed by the Senate—if the president-elect doesn't pursue recess appointments.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who serves as Senate Appropriations Committee chair and president pro tempore until Republicans take over in January, said Friday that "Americans deserve a labor secretary who understands that building a stronger economy means standing up for workers, not billionaires and giant corporations."
"We need a labor secretary who will protect workers' rights, help ensure everyone can have a secure retirement, make sure every worker gets paid the full paycheck they've earned, and that all workers are treated with dignity and respect. And as an original author of the PRO Act, I'm glad to see Rep. Chavez-DeRemer is a co-sponsor," she continued. "I look forward to carefully evaluating Rep. Chavez-DeRemer's qualifications leading up to her hearing and a thorough vetting process."
In a statement announcing the nominee, Trump said: "Lori has worked tirelessly with both Business and Labor to build America's workforce, and support the hardworking men and women of America. I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand Training and Apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions, to bring back our Manufacturing jobs."
"Together, we will achieve historic cooperation between Business and Labor that will restore the American Dream for Working Families," he added. "Lori's strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success—Making America Richer, Wealthier, Stronger, and more Prosperous than ever before!"
Other key picks announced Friday included former Office of Budget and Management Director Russ Vought, a Project 2025 architect, to return as the agency's leader, and ex-professional football player Scott Turner of the Trump-allied America First Policy Institute to helm the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Trump also chose billionaire hedge fund manager
Scott Bessent, who supports his tariff plan, to run the U.S. Treasury Department. That followed the president-elect naming billionaire Wall Street CEO Howard Lutnick as his nominee for commerce secretary, meaning he will lead tariff and trade policy.
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