Former Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan didn’t mince words when I asked him about Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Donald Trump’s purportedly pro-labor nominee for secretary of labor: “I think the labor secretary will carry out the wishes and directives of Trump and his billionaire buddies or be replaced.”
Much of the media has portrayed the former one-term Oregon congresswoman as a rare, labor-friendly Republican. That’s largely because she co-sponsored the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, PRO Act for short. Chavez-DeRemer was defeated for reelection last year by Oregon State AFL-CIO-endorsed state Rep. Janelle Bynum.
Kentucky Alliance for Retired Americans President Kirk Gillenwaters shared Londrigan’s skepticism about Chavez-DeRemer: “I’m not labeling her pro-union. How do you label somebody pro-union when they rate 10 percent?”
Gillenwaters meant Chavez-DeRemer’s grade on the AFL-CIO’s Legislative Scorecard. The most current House scorecard listed 10 key votes from 2023. She voted the union position on only one, a stopgap continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.
On Wednesday, Chavez-DeRemer had her requisite hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Based on media reports of her remarks, Londrigan and Gillenwaters’s doubts about her were well founded. A Huffpost headline didn’t pull punches: “Trump Labor Nominee Walks Back Support For Pro-Union Law.”
In his first term, Trump proved to be the the most anti-union president in decades. He vowed to veto the PRO Act, according to the Communications Workers of America.
In his second term, “President Trump has undertaken dozens of actions that harm workers, the economy, and our democracy,” wrote Margaret Poydock in In These Times. “If it feels like déjà vu, it is. Many of these actions were introduced during his first term, when President Trump attacked unions, workers’ wages, and workplace health and safety. But now, equipped with policies from the Heritage Foundation’s far-right Project 2025, Trump is going even further to prioritize the interests of corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk over working people.”
At the hearing, Republican and Democratic lawmakers peppered the nominee with questions about the PRO Act, wrote Rebecca Davis O'Brien in The New York Times. “Asked if she continued to support it, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer demurred, saying she was no longer in Congress and would support Mr. Trump’s agenda,” O'Brien added.
Trump has proved his “agenda” includes more bare-knucks union-busting.
O’Brien quoted the nominee, who proved she’s fluent in Trumpspeak: “‘I do not believe that the secretary of labor should write the laws. It will be up to the Congress to write those laws and to work together. What I believe is that the American worker deserves to be paid attention to.”
Trump, whom Chavez DeRemer praised and endorsed for reelection, is paying plenty of attention to federal workers. He’s firing them wholesale.
Fiercely anti-union Republican committee member Rand Paul of Kentucky — zero on the Scorecard for '23 and 10 percent lifetime — recently reintroduced his National Right to Work Act. He’d been an outspoken “no” on Chavez-DeRemer.
“But in response to questions from ... Paul ... one of several Republican senators who have expressed opposition to her confirmation, she said she no longer backed a portion of the legislation that Mr. Paul said undermined ‘right to work’ states, where unionization efforts face stiff legal and political barriers,” O’Brien wrote.
Ranking Committee Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) (100 percent in ’23 and 98 percent lifetime on the Scorecard) “had expressed cautious openness to Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, and said on Wednesday that her record was ‘very good,’” O’Brien wrote. But the pro-labor Sanders, like committee Democrats, “raised concerns about whether she would uphold federal labor laws or be a ‘rubber stamp’ for the Trump administration.” “I do not believe the president is going to ask me to violate the law,” she replied, according to O’Brien.
Trump thinks he has the legal right to sack all those federal workers. They think otherwise and are taking him to court.
Concluded O’Brien: “Mr. Sanders did not appear encouraged by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s answers about the PRO Act. She called it an ‘imperfect” bill, saying she was ‘no longer a lawmaker’ and would carry out Mr. Trump’s agenda. ‘I support the American worker,’ she said.”
Sanders, according to O’Brien, said, “I don’t mean to be rude. I am gathering you no longer support the PRO Act.”
Gillenwaters wondered if Chavez-DeRemer’s support for the legislation ever was sincere. He pointed out that lawmakers sometimes co-sponsor a bill they know is going nowhere just to curry favor with voters or groups that might support them. “Voting records aren’t based on sponsoring bills,” he said. “It’s how you vote on them.”
In The Hill online, Mark Schoeff Jr. wrote that “Chavez-DeRemer said her co-sponsorship didn’t indicate she would have voted for it. Rather, it ensured she would be part of congressional efforts to update labor laws.”
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