The Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on whether to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer as U.S. labor secretary, a Cabinet position that would put her in charge of enforcing federally mandated worker rights and protections at a time when the White House is trying to eliminate thousands of government employees.
Chavez-DeRemer would oversee the Department of Labor, one of several executive departments named in lawsuits challenging the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to order layoffs and access sensitive government data.
The Labor Department had nearly 16,000 full-time employees and a proposed budget of $13.9 billion for fiscal year 2025. Some of its vast responsibilities include reporting the U.S. unemployment rate, regulating workplace health and safety standards, investigating minimum wage, child labor and overtime pay disputes, and applying laws on union organizing and unlawful terminations.
Several prominent labor unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, endorsed Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination. The former Republican congresswoman from Oregon is the daughter of a Teamster, and during her one term in the House earned a reputation as pro-labor.
During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, several Republican senators grilled Chavez-DeRemer about her decision to co-sponsor legislation that would have made it easier for workers to unionize and penalized employers who stood in the way of organizing efforts.
She declined to explicitly state whether she still backed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, also known as the PRO Act.
Chavez-DeRemer explained she had signed on as a co-sponsor because she wanted a seat at the table to discuss important labor issues. Under further questioning, she walked back some of her support of the bill, saying that she supported state “right to work” laws, which allow employees to refuse to join a union in their workplace.
The PRO Act did not come up for a vote during her time in Congress. Chavez-DeRemer also co-sponsored legislation which sought to protect public-sector workers from having their Social Security benefits docked because of government pension benefits. That bill also stalled because it didn’t have enough Republican support.
Chavez-DeRemer walked a fine line during her confirmation hearing, attempting to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. On the subject of whether the federal minimum wage was overdue for an increase, she said she recognized it hadn’t been raised from $7.25 an hour since 2009 but that she would not want to “shock the economy.”
Some Democratic senators and workers’ rights advocates have questioned how much independence Chavez-DeRemer would have as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary and where her allegiance would lie in an administration that has fired thousands of federal employees.
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