Trump's Labor Secretary Pick Is a Union Favorite—and a Threat to Right-to-Work Laws

Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s record shows a troubling pattern of undermining workplace freedom and expanding federal control over state labor policies.

Given the salacious allegations against some of President Donald Trump's cabinet nominations, it is understandable how secretary of labor nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer has mostly flown under the radar. But from a policy perspective, Chavez-DeRemer's voting record is concerning—especially for those who value federalism and coercion-free workplaces.

For most of her political career, Chavez-DeRemer, who lost her Oregon congressional seat in November, has been a polarizing figure. The daughter of a Teamster, her soft spot for unions puts her at odds with her Republican colleagues and right-of-center groups. In a letter to the Senate, president of the National Right to Work Committee Mark Mix wrote that Chavez-DeRemer's judgment is "clearly compromised" and that she "must be rejected as the Secretary of Labor."

The other side of the aisle offers mixed reviews. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) called Chavez-DeRemer "a strong candidate for the job." Yet other Democrats—many of whom contributed to the $20 million campaign against Chavez-DeRemer's reelection bid—think she is "hardly" pro-union.

Even unions seem divided on the potential labor secretary. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien endorsed Chavez-DeRemer's cabinet nomination. But the AFL-CIO gave her record a low-end 10 percent rating—only four points above the average House Republican.

This week, senators asked to confirm Chavez-DeRemer will have to sort all of this out.

Chavez-DeRemer has backed legislation that would disproportionately benefit labor unions at the expense of the workers they purportedly represent. For example, she was one of only three Republicans to cosponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021 (PRO Act). If passed, the PRO Act would effectively repeal right-to-work laws prohibiting mandatory union membership as an employment condition. Currently, 26 states have right-to-work statutes. This legislation would unduly subvert federalism.

The PRO Act would also be devastating economically. States with right-to-work laws report higher rates of employment (especially in manufacturing), business investment, and employee life satisfaction. Research also suggests that per-hour wages—especially for low-income employees—have increased in right-to-work states.

Moreover, the PRO Act would undermine workplace democracy. The bill allows unions to "card check," a questionable union tactic that ostensibly abolishes secret ballot votes for union authorization. If a union can collect a simple majority of "signed cards" from employees, it can become the exclusive representative for workers. Without the anonymity guaranteed by a secret ballot, workers are susceptible to coercion and pressure campaigns to vote favorably for the unions.

When faced with these realities, Chavez-DeRemer eventually abandoned the PRO Act and recently conceded that the legislation was "unworkable." But instead of learning her lesson, she doubled down by cosponsoring the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act of 2024 (PSFNA). If you thought the PRO Act was bad, then Chavez-DeRemer's support of the PSFNA is disqualifying.

If adopted, the PSFNA would set "minimum standards" for how states negotiate with government unions. However, these standards are anything but minimal, mandating unionization rights for nearly all government employees, requiring unelected arbitrators or outside decision-makers, and allowing automatic payroll deduction of union dues. Many states would have to create a new state agency to meet these requirements.

The PSFNA also radically expands the scope of the federal oversight of labor laws. The proposed law would task the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to evaluate each state's labor policies. If the FLRA finds that a state does not meet the minimum standards, the agency can assume regulatory and enforcement control at both the state and local levels. Such authority would also empower the FLRA to oversee every government union election and resolve any labor violations or challenges in arbitration.

To put these standards into perspective, right now, not one state fully meets the PSFNA's minimum standards. In fact, many of its requirements exceed those of union-friendly states like California, New York, and Illinois. Meanwhile, right-to-work states with minimal resources would need to scramble to comply with the litany of PSFNA's unfunded mandates or risk federal intervention in state government workplaces.

Assuredly, working-class voters delivered Trump to the White House. But Chavez-DeRemer's record suggests she is out of step with the president's expressed economic agenda. Moreover, bills like the PSFNA and PRO Act would harm taxpayers and employees alike.

Her hearings may not involve discussion of lewd behavior or conspiracy theories, but Chavez-DeRemer's support of undemocratic legislation should be enough for senators to reject her nomination.

Comments

[Vernon Depner]

If Randi Weingarten, The Worst Person In The World, likes her, that's reason enough to reject her.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

+

[Wizzle Bizzle]

Fully agree. This pick is bad-Trump on steroids. The teachers' union is one of the greatest ills in American society. Somebody needs to slip the prez some ritalin, sit him in a corner and explain this to him.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

You can tell she’s nuts by her choice in eyewear .

[Idaho-Bob]

Goddammit! That's exactly what I came to say.

[mad.casual]

especially for those who value federalism and coercion-free workplaces

That explains why this article was written by someone whose name I've never seen at Reason before.

[JasonT20]

"Right-to-work" is a successful branding label that corporate interests came up with to make workers think that they would benefit from weakening labor unions and labor laws more generally. This is an example of euphemistic naming that is so common that we don't often think about. Everything from the "Affordable Care Act" to the "Patriot Act" to "No Child Left Behind" to "Americans for Prosperity" and "Americans for Job Security" and the "American Future Fund". Do you think you can accurately guess what those laws and political advocacy non-profits do based on their names alone?

What does "right-to-work" mean, in practice? What do those laws actually do?

The main thing that defines "right-to-work" as a labor policy is that no worker that is part of a collective bargaining unit has to pay any dues at all to the union that negotiated their contract. Sounds fair, right? After all, that worker might not want that union to represent them. They might not like their contract. So why should they have to pay the union anything?

Well, not paying any dues to the union doesn't mean that they don't get any of the benefits or protection that the contract offers. It doesn't mean that they can't vote for whether to approve the contract when it comes time to ratify it. They get both of those things. They just don't have to pay anything to support the few full-time employees* the union local has that actually negotiate the contracts. Or the lawyers that do legal work for the unions to make sure that the contract language is beneficial to them and doesn't have loopholes that the employer could exploit.

I see libertarians talk all the time how positive rights are not valid. You don't really have a right to have someone else work to provide you with something. In that sense, no one has a right to have a specific job. No one has a right to have someone else negotiate for them and not have to pay anything to support that effort.

You might think that workers are better off if they can negotiate for themselves. When is that true, though? It is true when the labor market for that set of skills is very favorable to the worker. When the demand for that labor is higher than the supply. If the labor market changes or for most types of jobs that rarely have that kind of scarcity of labor, however, then only a small fraction of the most experienced and productive workers will be in any position to do better than what they could all get if they negotiated collectively. And even then, it maybe be easier and more efficient for a large employer to set compensation, employment conditions, and evaluations in a way that treats all employees the same. States without any collective bargaining for government employees? You think those teachers, police officers, and pencil-pushers negotiate their pay and working conditions individually? Hardly. Their "right-to-work" is a right to take what they are offered or leave it and find a different job.

The "collective" in "collective bargaining" is about trying to gain leverage in negotiations by sticking together, hence why they are called "unions" in the first place. Socialism! Well, working collectively to accomplish a goal is what humans do. Watch stupid reality TV shows like "Naked and Afraid" if you want to see what happens when people truly have to do everything on their own. I mean, what is a publicly traded corporation if not a lot of individual investors working collectively to own a business.

How about we have "right-to-invest" laws? If I buy a share of a corporation, I can keep my share of the profits without having to pay anything out of them to compensate the members of the board or the enormous CEO pay packages that the board hands out. And, how about instead of labor unions and corporations, each individual worker negotiates their compensation and working conditions with each individual shareholder? That way, we really avoid any of that "collectivism" that is so horrible.

*Yes, I was a government employee for 21 years and a voluntary member of a teacher's union for most of that time in a "right-to-work" state. Some of my dues went to the AFT and NEA, but some went to pay the union positions that supported thousands of teachers. The county I worked in with ~5000 teachers? The local union bargaining for all of those teachers had two paid employees. The union president, who got the same pay he would have had as a teacher (only a member of the bargaining unit can be the union president), and one staff member to run the president's office and do all of the other administrative work of the union were the only paid employees of that local union. Everything else was done by members on their own time. The second district I worked in is one of the largest in the country with nearly 20,000 teachers. That union has maybe 10-12 full-time employees, most were teachers and again, make the same salary they would have as teachers. Randi Weingarten, they are not.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

Learn to code.

[Incunabulum]

Hey, that guy over there negotiated how much I pay for groceries. I didn't ask him to do so and I don't like the price or the selection negotiated - but I should be forced to pay him whatever he decided is 'fair'.

Makes perfect sense.

I mean, if the union gets paid whatever it wants for negotiating whatever it wants to negotiate for - then what's the point of the union giving a fuck what the people who are forced to pay them want?

I get enough of that with government and taxes already.

[JasonT20]

Hey, that guy over there negotiated how much I pay for groceries. I didn't ask him to do so and I don't like the price or the selection negotiated - but I should be forced to pay him whatever he decided is 'fair'.

That's not an accurate or valid analogy. It is more like this:

The people in your neighborhood vote to have a co-op that will negotiate prices with the local grocery store. You voted against it, or maybe you moved to that neighborhood after it was created. Either way, each year, you can vote whether to ratify the agreement that the association negotiates. The original association voted, when it formed, to charge a fee of 1% of what you spend at the store in order to cover the costs of these negotiations and to cover the costs of making sure that the store upholds its end of the deal. (That's what my union dues were - ~1% of my salary.)

Maybe you could have gotten better prices on your own, maybe not. Maybe most of the neighborhood is getting a good deal, but the deal isn't as good for you because you buy different things than most residents. But do you have a right to take advantage of that deal if it does benefit you, and yet not pay anything towards the negotiation or compliance efforts?

After all, if it really isn't a good deal for you, maybe it isn't for others, and you can always try and convince them of that so that you can vote for different people to do the negotiating, to charge less for the association fees or make them entirely voluntary and see if enough people are willing to pony up money they don't have to in order to keep the process going, or even to disband the association altogether. If you can convince a majority of the association members to do that, then you get what you want.

My 1% dues were a bargain. There is no way at all that I'd have gotten the few raises and benefits and working conditions that I wanted without a union that would counter the district lowball proposals. Negotiators that would poor through the district budget and point to where they really did have the money for CoL raises after saying that they didn't, and so on. And union reps or lawyers, if necessary, to make sure that the district administration wasn't violating the contract and getting away with it because an individual teacher could never afford a lawyer to challenge them.

[Azathoth!!]

But do you have a right to take advantage of that deal if it does benefit you, and yet not pay anything towards the negotiation or compliance efforts?

I'm not 'taking adavantage' of something if YOU"VE forced everyone to comply with your whims.

I'm forced, like everyone else, to deal with the situation in front of me.

If I don't want it, forcing me to pay for it when you've made it impossible for me to avoid it is wrong.

[m1shu]

You forgot the part where the neighborhood residents decide to shut down the store because they don't like their prices. Then they ostracize you for going to another store.

[Incunabulum]

You like the union because you got an enormous paycheck, working only 5 out of 9 months of the school year, and getting three months off in the summer, all while having to provide no value whatsoever for your students or their parents.

[JasonT20]

You like the union because you got an enormous paycheck, working only 5 out of 9 months of the school year, and getting three months off in the summer, all while having to provide no value whatsoever for your students or their parents.

Right...Teaching is such an easy job that pays "enormous" amounts of money compared to the effort. That is why Florida still has thousands of job openings more than halfway through the school year (over 60% of the already high number of vacancies at the start of the year). Oh, and those 2 1/2 months off in the summer (not a full 3 months sorry) and the time off during the school year (Spring Break, Christmas break, and extra time around Thanksgiving besides that day itself)? Those are not paid vacations. Our paychecks may get spread out over the year so that we don't have gaps that we have to save to get through, but we are not contracted to work during that time, nor is it paid vacation. The distinction is important because an employer that is paying you to be on vacation can take action against you if you do other paid work during that time.

And I did leave teaching because it wasn't worth it anymore. So, that is one less person with a degree in Physics teaching that subject. Good luck finding someone to replace me when people with bachelor's or Master's degrees in science and engineering can make far more (on a weekly basis, even, not accounting for the unpaid time off) for less stress outside of education.

[BYODB]

Right...Teaching is such an easy job that pays "enormous" amounts of money compared to the effort.

Go dig ditches and see how you feel about teaching afterwards.

That is why Florida still has thousands of job openings more than halfway through the school year

Maybe look at the idiotic credentialism for public school teachers and realize it shouldn't take a 4 year degree to teach content you arguably should already know from your own time in High School, or whatever grade you happen to teach.

Sure, we probably don't want homeless people off the streets that failed high school teaching but...that's not really a real risk either.

[JasonT20]

Maybe look at the idiotic credentialism for public school teachers and realize it shouldn't take a 4 year degree to teach content you arguably should already know from your own time in High School, or whatever grade you happen to teach.

Well, sure. Anyone that graduated high school should be able to teach 5th grade math then, right? They don't need to know anything about how children learn at different stages of development, nor do they need to understand why we do long division the way that we do as long as they can get the right answer for 702 divided by 13. They just need to tell the students what they are supposed to do in order to get the right answer and then make sure that they practice it until they can get it right themselves. They don't need to know how to design accurate and reliable assessments, because they knew how to pass them. Or, why even bother with any of that when calculators exist?

They don't need to know how to help students with learning disabilities or that are still learning English. They don't need to know anything about how to recognize signs of child abuse or neglect so that they can meet their legal responsibilities as mandatory reporters.

I could go on for hours, but if you don't get the point by now, you never will. You clearly don't know enough to know how much you don't know.

DeSantis has pushed through all kinds of things that make it easier to teach K-12, especially for veterans, and they still aren't getting enough people to fill jobs in many areas.

[BYODB]

Well, sure. Anyone that graduated high school should be able to teach 5th grade math then, right?

It might amaze you, but that happens every day without a 4 year degree in education.

Tell me, did it take you long to learn how to teach without a four year degree in education or did you go back to school to get your masters in education?

[JasonT20]

You're changing your argument. I can only assume it is because you now realize that it was ignorant.

You had said,

Maybe look at the idiotic credentialism for public school teachers and realize it shouldn't take a 4 year degree to teach content you arguably should already know from your own time in High School, or whatever grade you happen to teach.

When you said that, you were clearly making the case that someone that graduated high school already has the knowledge they need to teach something at that level. I'll give you a hint about why that is wrong. Most high school teachers do not have degrees in education, nor is one required to become a teacher in Florida. But the ones that don't, and only have subject area knowledge like I did, won't become truly effective teachers until they learn new information and skills. Only elementary teachers need an education degree, which is absolutely correct, because they need to understand the cognitive development of young children in order to know how to teach the things that seem so easy to us, but that 5-11 year olds don't just absorb like it really is that easy. It isn't just that we already know it, either, that makes basic arithmetic, reading, the difference between adjectives and adverbs, spelling, etc. It is that our brains are fully developed and we can reason more deeply than a young child can. Thus, we can understand the why's of what we know from those grades, and we can more thoroughly connect those different pieces of knowledge to each other and to the new things that we learn.

I gained that understanding of educational psychology from the few education courses that I needed to take to move from my temporary certificate to teach HS physics to a professional certificate that I could renew every 5 years. (Those courses I had to pay for myself, and complete on my own time, btw. During our unpaid summer 'vacations'.)

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." That is one of the dumbest cliches ever. Teaching is doing. With a degree in physics, I was well qualified to apply physics on the job, or as a base for continuing to learn related subjects and skills. (Optical, electrical, or mechanical engineering, for instance, which have all maintained high demand over the 20+ years since I graduated.) But teaching requires not just having taken and passed introductory physics courses, or even having gotten "A"s in those classes like I did. It takes knowing the physics and how to teach it. I was able to be hired as a physics teacher before I was really prepared to be good at it because Florida wants to be able to fill those positions. And they still have trouble doing so, even after having much easier paths to full certification than most blue states. To answer your question, I didn't feel that I had become even fully competent at teaching until I'd both been on the job for two full years and had those foundational courses under my belt. Becoming good at it took a few more years, and I kept learning something new every year.

There is a very good reason why physics education is its own discipline within many physics departments, with those programs only growing since I was an undergrad in the 90s. Some physicists were really good at researching physics at a high level, but they couldn't explain things well to freshmen and sophomore science and engineering majors or pre-med majors, nor could they design a course curricula that was effective, write a test that was valid with clear instructions, and more. Teaching is a skill of its own, and if you still think that it isn't, then I invite you tell any teachers you know that are friends or family just how easy their jobs are and how anyone with a HS degree should be able to do it. See how they react to that.

If you really want another perspective on this, see what you can find about the teaching profession in those countries that outperform the U.S. on international tests. I think you might be surprised to learn that it is more difficult, and more competitive to become a teacher than it is anywhere in the U.S. And they retain those that do become teachers at much higher rates than the ~50% that stay in the profession here after 5 years.

[BYODB]

The "collective" in "collective bargaining" is about trying to gain leverage in negotiations by sticking together, hence why they are called "unions" in the first place.

Yours is a rather typical screed put forward by pro-union types, but it entirely ignores employers in favor of the workers who have no particular capital tied up in the business nor any particular personal risk in it's continued solvency beyond the inevitable loss of their job once the business goes under.

When that happens, they'll just scurry away like cockroaches to infest some other business and destroy it just as surely.

Just to mention it, no one is forced to work for multinational corporations. If you don't want to work for one because you don't think they are particularly ethical, who is forcing you to work for them?

Is starting a business of your own just beyond the pale, or are you intimidated by all those rules and regulations put in place that employers have to follow or go to jail?

There is a balance to be struck between owners and labor, but the proper place for that is your contract with the business. If you don't like the terms, walk away. Again, no one is putting a gun to your head to work for that organization and I've walked away from plenty of jobs that I felt treated me unfairly with no repercussions.

Something to note is that cartel behavior by corporations is illegal, but somehow forming a cartel of labor is not. That's, simply put, retarded. Both should be prohibited for more or less the same reasons.

[JasonT20]

Yours is a rather typical screed put forward by pro-union types, but it entirely ignores employers in favor of the workers who have no particular capital tied up in the business nor any particular personal risk in it's continued solvency beyond the inevitable loss of their job once the business goes under.

What kind of wealth do you have stashed away that losing your job would not be as much of a personal risk as what the owners of the business that employs you took with their investment? Do you have any idea what percentage of workers in this country live paycheck to paycheck, for whom losing their job could mean being evicted?

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/

Just to mention it, no one is forced to work for multinational corporations. If you don't want to work for one because you don't think they are particularly ethical, who is forcing you to work for them?

You haven't been paying attention to all of the mergers and takeovers then, I see. Too many links and my comment won't go through, but just search for "what percentage of jobs are with large employers" or something like that and you'll find the data that around a third of all workers are employed by companies with 5000 or more employees. That's about the same as those employed by small businesses (fewer than 100), leaving the rest to work for mid-sized employers.

How much choice do they really have in employers if they need a job to not end up homeless?

So, I'm not going to cry for any large company or the poor millionaire and billionaire investors and executives that might not get as big a dividend or bonus because their workers have managed to gain a little bit more leverage.

There is a balance to be struck between owners and labor...

A balance that data consistently shows has been shifting to owners for decades. Gee, I wonder if there is something that happened in labor policy, oh, say, in the 80s that might explain this.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

Do it the smart way. Be an owner, not an employee.

[BYODB]

You haven't been paying attention to all of the mergers and takeovers then, I see.

So what? It's not a zero sum game. The number of corporate entities, and how many people they employ, literally doesn't matter. Trying to imply they are the only people you can work for in the United States is an actual joke, but as a Union man I bet you actually believe it.

You can go start a business tomorrow, see how easy that is compared to getting a job somewhere. As a person that's been on both sides of that, it's honest to god laughable that you aren't aware of how hard it actually is to start a business or what kind of risk you're assuming when you do.

I guess your physics degree didn't translate into much business knowledge, yet you opine on it as if you do. Dunning–Kruger in full effect?

[BYODB]

How much choice do they really have in employers if they need a job to not end up homeless?

In a truly competitive market you should be able to find something that meets your needs, or create it if it doesn't exist.

Employers can't get together and decide to fix prices to benefit themselves, and labor shouldn't be able to get together and fix prices to benefit themselves either. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. A mob of communists shouldn't be allowed to picket my business and assault scabs that I hire to go around their entitled asses, and if I'm a skeezy business owner people are free to not work for me and to boycott my product until I'm out of business. That's the market.

One thing big business and big labor agree on, it's that the market shouldn't be allowed to function naturally. They'd both be fucked.

[JasonT20]

In a truly competitive market you should be able to find something that meets your needs, or create it if it doesn't exist.

That world is libertarian utopia land, not this one.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Shorter version: "Waah".

[DesigNate]

If Elizabeth Warren thinks she’s a “strong candidate for the job”, that’s reason enough to oppose.

[Incunabulum]

The problem. Osbourne, is that 'workplace freedom' is defined - by the Progressive and Left - as 'more federal control over state labor policies.

[Incunabulum]

>Yet other Democrats—many of whom contributed to the $20 million campaign against Chavez-DeRemer's reelection bid—think she is "hardly" pro-union.

Why would we want her to be pro-union? Are we not for workplace freedom?

Unions have crazy amounts of power thanks to state and federal laws that let them run riot, even to the point of violence in some cases.

[BYODB]

Unions have crazy amounts of power thanks to state and federal laws that let them run riot, even to the point of violence in some cases.

The early history of Unions is a history of terrorism, and that really hasn't changed.

[Incunabulum]

>"American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten . . . endorsed Chavez-DeRemer's cabinet nomination.

Welp, this is enough for me to oppose her nomination.

[NM Dave]

I've managed to work my whole career without resorting to banding together with my coworkers to blackmail my employer into paying me more than they can afford. And teachers don't get that there is just so much money. Their employer can't just sell more product or expand their markets, they have to extract more money from the taxpayers who are bleeding already. I had a friend on the school board locally. He commented to me that he'd be happy to double teacher pay, increase benefits, or whatever, but the money simply wasn't available.

[AT]

I've managed to work my whole career without resorting to banding together with my coworkers to blackmail my employer into paying me more than they can afford they're worth.

FTFY.