President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Labor Secretary has backing from two unions with serious sway in the U.S. supply chain.
On Nov. 22, Trump nominated Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) to the cabinet position, in what is seen as a surprising pick due to her co-sponsorship of multiple pieces of pro-union legislation—often atypical of Republican lawmakers.
Both the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) have thrown their support behind the pick.
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In an op-ed written in online political magazine Compact, Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien endorsed the Labor Secretary nominee, calling her the “exact type of champion for the American worker that Republicans should get behind if they are serious about becoming the working-class party.”
O’Brien noted that Chavez-DeRemer, whose father was a Teamsters member, expressed support for the union during its negotiations with UPS last year, which netted more than 340,000 members a new five-year contract.
Chavez-DeRemer is one of three Republicans in Congress to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which has been largely in limbo since its introduction to the House of Representatives in February 2021.
That legislation was aimed at outlawing union-busting tactics like mandatory “captive audience” meetings, curtailing independent contracting and abolishing “right-to-work” laws that prohibit mandatory union fees. Forty-three out of the 53 GOP senators who will vote on Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination next year represent right-to-work states.
Beyond the PRO Act, Chavez-DeRemer also was one of eight Republicans who co-sponsored the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would guarantee the right of public sector employees to unionize even in states where they currently cannot.
If confirmed by the Senate, Chavez-DeRemer could be thrust immediately into a potential labor firestorm at the East and Gulf Coast ports. If the ILA and their employers at the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) don’t reach a new contract by Jan. 15, union dockworkers will go on strike for the second time since they walked off the job for three days to start October.
That date is just five days before Trump gets sworn in as president on Jan. 20, meaning a strike could still possibly play out by the time the new administration begins.
It is unclear what kind of role Chavez-DeRemer would play in the event of a work stoppage if one were to occur and last into the start of her tenure. But current Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su reportedly held discussions with the ILA and USMX in New Jersey during the strike before the leaders agreed to extend their current contract—illustrating that Chavez-DeRemer could potentially be on the front lines of the negotiations early on.
With less than two months until the contract expires again, ILA international president Harold Daggett wrote a letter to Trump on Nov. 24 praising the nomination of Chavez-DeRemer, citing her “strong pro-worker record” as a Congresswoman in “protecting their rights to organize.”
The nomination even garnered cautious optimism from stark Trump critic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who called it “a big deal” that a Republican who endorsed the PRO Act could lead the Department of Labor.
“If Chavez-DeRemer commits as labor secretary to strengthen labor unions and promote worker power, she’s a strong candidate for the job,” Warren said in a Tuesday statement. “But this nomination is an early test: will Trump stand strong with workers or bow down to his corporate donors and the Republican establishment’s opposition? And if Republican Senators block Trump’s labor nominee for standing with unions, it will show that the party’s support for workers is all talk.”
Not every major union was moved by the pick.
The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which is the country’s largest federation of labor unions with over 12.5 million members across 60 organizations, remained focused on the president-elect.
“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,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler in a statement.
Despite Shuler’s hailing of Chavez-DeRemer as building a pro-labor record in Congress, the AFL-CIO gave her a 10 percent “lifetime score” on pro-worker voting records in 2023.
Shuler shared her concerns with several of Trump’s other cabinet nominees due to their ties to Project 2025, a presidential transition project that includes a 900-page policy agenda outlining the overhaul of the federal government.
Trump has distanced himself from the project, which was published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. Shuler was most critical of the agenda’s proposals that “would strip overtime pay, eliminate the right to organize and weaken health and safety standards.”
