Trump Picks Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary
(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate outgoing US Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the US Labor Department, choosing a Republican whose unusually pro-union record has rankled some of his business allies.
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Chavez-DeRemer was one of the few Republicans to co-sponsor sweeping pro-union bills including the PRO Act, which would restrict union-busting tactics and make it much harder for companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. to classify staff as independent contractors rather than employees.
“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,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform on Friday. “Together, we will achieve historic cooperation between Business and Labor that will restore the American Dream for Working Families.”
Chavez-DeRemer was the first Republican woman to represent Oregon in the US House but lost her campaign for reelection earlier this month. In the House, she serves on the Agriculture and Education and the Workforce Committees as well as Transportation and Infrastructure.
If confirmed, she’ll be charged with managing Trump’s relationship with labor after the Republican was able to make inroads with union voters during the 2024 campaign. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien appeared at the Republican National Committee and his organization ultimately declined to endorse a candidate, despite years of support for Democratic politicians.
O’Brien publicly championed her for the job.
“The president-elect has nominated a unicorn: a genuine pro-labor Republican,” said Seth Harris, who served as acting secretary of Labor under President Barack Obama and is now a professor at Northeastern University. “This is about the best nomination for the Labor Department that Democrats could have hoped for.” Still, he added, “we don’t know if she’s going to be given the freedom to carry out the agenda that she supported in Congress.”
Chavez-DeRemer’s record has drawn concern from business advocates, with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, whose members include the US Chamber of Commerce and numerous trade groups, issuing a statement earlier this week saying it was “alarmed” that the president-elect was considering her.
The Labor Department is responsible for administering federal laws to guarantee workers’ rights, including receiving a minimum wage and unemployment insurance. It reports applications for jobless benefits every week, which are widely followed by economists on Wall Street and at the Federal Reserve for the most frequent data on the labor market.
The department is also the parent agency of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes inflation and jobs data that are often the two biggest market-moving events of any given month. The BLS has been in the spotlight this year related to a number of botched releases that have renewed questions about the procedures for disseminating some of the world’s most sensitive economic information.
The BLS — as well as other principal statistical agencies spread throughout the government — has struggled with tight budgets for decades, and which has now been compounded by the more recent problem of declining response rates. The latter makes it more expensive and difficult to compile the data.
Up until recently, the agency was planning to cut the sample size of a key jobs survey that informs the unemployment rate because of budget constraints. That plan has been paused, at least for now, thanks to a short-term boost from Congress, but officials say a longer-term increase in funds is still needed to maintain the sample as well as invest in necessary upgrades.
The BLS is currently led by Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, who started a four-year term in January. The role is appointed by the president and requires Senate confirmation.
(Updates throughout with details on Chavez-DeRemer)
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