President-elect Donald Trump made major inroads with union voters this year, and has now picked union-friendly Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) as labor secretary to match.
“Lori has worked tirelessly with both Business and Labor to build America’s workforce, and support the hardworking men and women of America,” Trump said as part a flurry of Friday night nominations.
“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,” he added.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien had been pushing for Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) to get the nod, saying she’s “the exact type of champion for the American worker that Republicans should get behind if they are serious about becoming the working-class party.”
While Chavez-DeRemer is a Republican, she’s a decidedly pro-labor one, giving her a unique perspective in an increasingly working-class GOP. Fox News reported that she jetted this week to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has been conducting his Cabinet vetting.
Chavez-DeRemer is one of just three House Republicans who backed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, and word of her possible nomination earned an approving post on X from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, normally a top target of conservative ire.
Chavez-DeRemer did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner, though she reacted on X, saying “working-class Americans finally have a lifeline with [Trump] in the White House. It’s time to bring our economy to new heights and secure a prosperous future for all hardworking Americans.”
O’Brien celebrated the news by sharing a picture of himself with Trump and Chavez-DeRemer.
“Thank you [Trump] for putting American workers first by nominating Rep. Lori Chavez-DeReminer for US Labor Secretary,” he wrote.
However, despite Trump’s inroads with union households, it was far from unanimous that he should go in such an explicitly pro-organized labor direction. For one, Chavez-DeRemer lost her reelection bid to Democratic Rep.-elect Janelle Bynum even though she’d received a host of union endorsements.
The vast majority of House Republicans opposed the PRO Act, including the GOP-led Education and Labor Committee, which dubbed it the “PRO-Union Bosses Act.”
“The biggest challenge for Trump is dealing with government unions as he tries to get rid of a lot of bureaucratic deadweight in the federal government,” GOP strategist John Feehery said before the announcement was made. “Does he need somebody who will kick ass and take names, or does he need somebody who will play nice and maybe get rolled?”
Feehery would rather have seen someone like Patrick Pizzella, who served as acting labor secretary during Trump’s first term and “really understands how to trim government fat.” Other names in the mix were Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) and George “Bryan” Slater, Virginia’s labor secretary.
A related matter is that most labor unions endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris this year, and even those that didn’t, such as the Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters, merely held out their endorsements rather than backing Trump.
In July, O’Brien became the first Teamsters president to ever speak at the Republican National Convention and was subsequently ghosted by Democrats when he asked to speak at their convention later that summer. However, even though internal polling found that Teamsters preferred Trump two-to-one over Harris, the union opted to remain neutral.
The National Right to Work Committee sent a letter to Trump urging him to look elsewhere for a labor secretary.
“Chavez-DeRemer failed because she didn’t recognize the stark divide between union bosses and ordinary workers,” the committee’s president, Mark Mix, wrote. “To represent workers does not mean to copy the views of union bosses.”
With the political winds of blue-collar voters blowing to the right, Dan Bowling, who teaches labor courses at Georgia State University’s law school, said choosing Chavez-DeRemer could send a powerful signal.
“It can be seen as a thank you to the unions and the union voters who supported Trump and helped solidify what seems to be a growing part of his base,” he said.
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However, Bowling stressed that the labor secretary has relatively little power over union-related matters, which are often handled by the National Labor Relations Board. Instead, the Labor Department deals with things like workplace safety, Fair Labor Standards Act compliance, and enforcing laws that protect worker rights.
“Trump may be looking strategically at a way to reward the Teamsters and others for their support without really changing labor law,” Bowling said.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
