UNION LEADERS URGE CAUTION IN JUDGING TRUMP PICK FOR LABOR SECRETARY
President-elect Donald Trump’s designated appointment of Congresswoman Lori Michelle Chavez-DeRemer as Secretary of Labor in his incoming administration has been hailed in some quarters as an act friendly to labor. Others, however, were saying, “not so fast.”
Her labor-friendly bona fides come from the fact that she was only one of three Republicans in the House of Representatives who co-sponsored the pro-labor Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The act was defeated in the face of Republican opposition.
But AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler was skeptical that it would mean that the Trump administration would be friendly to workers. “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,” noted Shuler. “Despite having distanced himself from Project 2025 during his campaign, President-elect Trump has put forward several cabinet nominees with strong ties to [anti-union] Project 2025.”
And Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, pointed out that it is the National Labor Relations Board that is charged with preventing union busting, not the Department of Labor. “During his first term, Trump appointed anti-worker, anti-union National Labor Relations Board members,” said Pringle. “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.”
As if to reinforce the perception that the Chavez DeRemer-appointment may be more symbolic than substantive, Trump quickly took pains to reassure the business community that his anti-union views have not changed. After business leaders expressed “alarm” at the appointment, he promised that he would pick a more “business-friendly” appointee for Deputy Secretary of Labor to run the day-to-day operations of the department.
In his first term, his appointees to the NLRB gave companies more time to fight unionization campaigns, more discretion over who gets overtime pay and more control over workers’ tips. He is expected to immediately fire the General Council, who has the authority to decide what sorts of cases the agency prosecutes. A new counsel there could work quickly to unwind cases including the agency’s recent efforts to hold Amazon.com Inc. liable for the treatment of its subcontracted drivers, whom the Teamsters are trying to organize.
