Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer is not qualified to be Labor Secretary

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President-elect Donald Trump is considering Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) for the position of Labor Secretary on the advice of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien. Trump should reconsider. Chavez-DeRemer has no obvious qualifications for the role and her support for the ill-named Protecting the Right To Organize (PRO) Act suggests she has a dim understanding of labor issues. The president should look elsewhere for his pick.

Chavez-DeRemer represented her northwestern Oregon district for a single term before narrowly losing her re-election bid this year. Prior to that she was a mayor of a town of 25,000 people for eight years. She has no particular background in union-related activity as a worker, activist, or attorney aside from serving on the Education and the Workforce Committee during her single term in Congress. During that brief period, she did not distinguish herself on labor-related issues. She is, in short, not qualified for the position of Labor Secretary.

She is nevertheless lobbying for the job, telling Fox News, "I'd be honored to have the opportunity to support President Trump's mission to empower and grow our nation's workforce. Hardworking Americans finally have a lifeline with the president, and I'd work tirelessly to support his impressive efforts to remake the Republican Party into the Party of the American worker." She has reportedly met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Union leaders are backing Chavez-DeRemer's potential appointment. A Teamsters spokesperson told Politico, "[W]e think she would be an excellent choice." American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten touted her on X as "a significant appointment."

O'Brien, Weingarten, and others in the labor movement appear to be pulling for her based on the fact that Chavez-DeRemer was one of only three Republicans to co-sponsor the PRO Act. The legislation is a wish list of items for union leaders.

The PRO Act would do little to expand the rights of individual workers. Instead, its main provisions would give organized labor greater power to compel workers to join unions to keep their jobs. The legislation would, for example, nullify all right-to-work laws, stripping workers in 27 states of their existing right to opt out of paying union dues if they feel the organization doesn't properly represent them. Under the PRO Act, workers could be forced to join unions if they wanted to remain employed.

Chavez-DeRemer added her name as a co-sponsor in August, according to the Northwest Labor Press. Tellingly, the publication reported that she had in 2023 expressed concerns to its reporters "about some elements of the PRO Act" such as its "joint employer" provisions. Joint employer would make a corporation liable for actions taken by other businesses if the corporation had "indirect control" over them, a term with no clear meaning under the law. Franchisor businesses fear the vast expansion of legal liability they would face under such a change.

Despite her concerns, Chavez-DeRemer nevertheless signed on to the bill three months before the fall election, likely hoping that would win her union support for her re-election bid.

She was also one of eight Republicans to co-sponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, legislation that would expand public sector union power. Like the PRO Act, this legislation would give union leaders more power over their members. One provision would, according to the authors, "free [workers] from forced recertification elections of their already-recognized representative." In other words, limit the opportunities for workers to dissolve unions if they're dissatisfied with them.

That's the extent of Chavez-DeRemer's record on labor issues. While it is hard to predict what she would do as a Cabinet member, what we do know is not encouraging. In any event, Cabinet secretary shouldn't be a place for on-the-job training. Trump should keep on looking.

The Labor Department was, in fact, one of the bright spots of the first Trump term. Any number of the veterans from that time, such as former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia or Patrick Pizzella, who served prior to Scalia as acting secretary for a period, would be solid picks.