As our editor Bob Hoge reported, the Senate confirmed Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor on a 67-32 vote. Seventeen Democrats folded like cheap suits when they saw someone who could gum up the workings of President Trump’s America First agenda even further, as I asserted in the article Labor Nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s Confirmation Hearing Showed the Uniparty Falling in Line. If the Democrats were truly interested in “resisting,” and rejected Trump’s secretary of labor nominee as they have his previous ones, then the three NO votes from Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Budd (R-NC), and surprisingly, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would have put the nomination in jeopardy and forced Vice President JD Vance to break the tie.
Props to @RandPaul, @SenMcConnell, and @SenTedBuddNC for demanding better for workers.
And thank you to the tens of thousands of Right to Work supporters who forced Chavez-DeRemer to recognize that repealing Right to Work is bad politics.
We will be watching closely to see… https://t.co/rVkAygoP98
— National Right to Work Committee (@Right2Work) March 11, 2025
Props to @RandPaul, @SenMcConnell, and @SenTedBuddNC for demanding better for workers.
And thank you to the tens of thousands of Right to Work supporters who forced Chavez-DeRemer to recognize that repealing Right to Work is bad politics.
We will be watching closely to see whether her views have genuinely shifted toward worker freedom, or whether she still wants to hand more government power to union bosses the way the PRO Act, a bill she cosponsored and never fully denounced, would have done.
That should have been what happened; instead, those 17 Democrat members ensured her nomination made it over the top, which I believe was the intention in the first place.
✅ I’m deeply honored to be confirmed as the 30th @USDOL Secretary under President @realDonaldTrump.
As promised, I’ll work tirelessly to put American Workers First by fighting for good-paying jobs, safe working conditions, and secure retirement benefits.
Let’s get to work 💪🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/epDdruYXf9
— Lori Chavez-DeRemer (@LChavezDeRemer) March 10, 2025
As promised, I’ll work tirelessly to put American Workers First by fighting for good-paying jobs, safe working conditions, and secure retirement benefits.
Let’s get to work.
Notice there is no mention from Chavez-DeRemer of working tirelessly for independent professionals or small businesses. Her language remains couched and carefully phrased, and fails to encompass a true America First agenda. You cannot put “American Workers First,” if you overregulate and actively work to ruin the over 64 million Americans who represent the engines of the economy and who actively employ these workers she claims she wants to protect.
Even Chavez-DeRemer’s home state of Oregon, where she used to be a congressional representative, is not at all impressed with this confirmation. Like many of us who have opposed this nomination, even they clearly see her lack of qualifications and her duplicitous dance between the Trump administration aims and her labor unions allegiances. So much so that the two Democrat senators from Oregon voted NO to her confirmation.
WOW.
One-term Oregon congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer successfully turned her election loss and closer-than-typical relationship with some unions into a post in President Donald Trump’s cabinet. The U.S. Senate voted 67-32 on Monday to confirm Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, with 17 Democrats supporting her and three Republicans rejecting her nomination. It’s a huge step up for Chavez-DeRemer, whose only political experience before her single term in Congress was losing two state House races and serving as mayor of the small Portland suburb of Happy Valley.
[…]
Oregon’s two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, voted against Chavez-DeRemer, but several other Democrats supported her nomination in both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and on the floor. Both Democratic senators from Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia voted for her, as did Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, Adam Schiff, D-California and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island.
As if on cue, a week prior to Chavez-DeRemer’s confirmation vote, Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA) reintroduced the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. As opposed to Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA)’s four-page “Modern Worker Empowerment Act” which seeks to secure the right and freedom for Americans to be independent contractors through revising the language of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the 56-page PRO Act seeks to cede more power and regulatory authority to the National Labor Relations Board to not only ensure more forced unionism, but to eliminate the 27 right-to work states in the country. Here’s the dark icing on this guano cake: the PRO Act still includes language that codifies the restrictive ABC Test, a set of arbitrary requirements which destroys independent contractors ability to work as they see fit. Finally, it intrudes on the relationship between those who provide opportunities and those who want to pursue the opportunities set before them.
As the House Committee on Education and the Workforce warned:
Union membership is at a record low and union membership has declined over the past 60 years.
Despite the growing disillusionment among the American workforce, Committee Democrats re-introduced the PRO Act this week – a radical bill that caters to union leaders and ignores the free-will of workers. If enacted, the PRO Act would force workers into union contracts regardless of what a worker wants. Workers and employers would have their rights trampled.
The economic damage could also be severe. According to the American Action Forum, if the PRO Act becomes law it would “increase weekly employment costs by anywhere from $21.5–$71.6 billion and put up to $2.6 trillion of gross domestic product at risk.”
So what is this really about? Money, obviously. From 2010-2018, unions sent more than $1.6 billion in member dues to left wing groups like Progressive Democrats of America and Planned Parenthood. Those dues should go towards member representation and collective bargaining, but union leaders spent workers’ hard-earned paychecks on political activism instead.
The PRO Act is also about control. The misguided bill severely infringes on the rights of workers and job creators, leaving them with virtually no recourse to challenge illegal union activities. The PRO Act would allow union leaders to hold elections at locations outside of the business – an unprecedented move that would let union organizers engage in harassment and coercion of workers with virtually no consequences. Employers would also be forced to fork over workers’ private information – like their phone numbers and home address – creating new opportunities for union organizers to track down, harass, or threaten workers.
Every part of the PRO Act aims to give union bosses more power to force workers to pay union dues. It isn’t an “imperfect” attempt to be pro-worker, it is a blatant union bosses power grab that Congress should reject. https://t.co/Aba9gMLKVq pic.twitter.com/hQDJywNKA5
— National Right to Work Committee (@Right2Work) March 7, 2025
The PRO Act was reintroduced with 208 Dem and 2 Republican cosponsors.
Dems who didn’t co sponsor:
Sam Liccardo (CA-16)
Jim Costa (CA-21)
Lou Correa (CA-46)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34)
Cleo Feild (LA-06)
Jim Clyburn (SC-06) pic.twitter.com/VgE0CgrhA9— Alec (@CincinnatiDem24) March 9, 2025
Having 209 Democrats co-sponsor this craptastic piece of legislation, which has failed over three times in both the House and the Senate, is no great surprise. However, a closer look at the Democrats who have not signed on is more illuminating. Three are from California, the birthplace of the disastrous AB5, which outlawed independent contracting in the state.
Sam Liccardo (D-CA), former San Jose mayor, sided with Republicans in supporting the state’s Prop 22, which exempted app-based independent contractor jobs from AB5, after seeing the damage that would be caused to both independent contractors and the general public if Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and others were forced to classify their drivers as employees. In addition, his District 16 covers part of the San Joaquin Valley and Santa Clara, which are full of independent farms and small businesses. With the damage done to independent professionals and small businesses through AB5, a PRO Act would further erode the economic sustainability of this region. The same with Jim Costa (D-CA)’s District 21 which also encompasses the San Joaquin Valley, and Lou Correa (D-CA)’s District 46 in Orange County, a still red-leaning county in a blue state.
Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) represent farmers and ranchers who would also be adversely harmed by the PRO Act. Cleo Feild (D-LA) and even Jim Clyburn (D-SC) know that destroying right-to-work in their states would destroy the small businesses in their states, a good majority minority-owned and run.
Then there are the not-so-bright light Republicans who are thrilled over their sponsorship of the act; just as Chavez-DeRemer was two years ago. In her confirmation hearings, Chavez-DeRemer still refused to disavow her sponsorship of the act. The GOP congresspersons who have signed on to the PRO Act are Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Christopher Smith (R-NJ). In 2024, the AFL-CIO contributed $12,500 to the “Bringing America Together” PAC, which is affiliated with Fitzpatrick, contributing $10,000 to his campaign. Smith’s PAC affiliation: “Citizens Strengthening Our Majority in the House,” receives contributions from many labor PACs, including the Sheet Metal Union and the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union. The PAC has only contributed to one candidate: Chris Smith, Republican from New Jersey.
I know, shocker.
Now that there is yet another union ally as labor secretary, Democrats and Republicans who are pro-labor and anti-worker and business freedom can breathe safely and carry on with business as usual: doing the bidding of the unions which contribute to their campaigns and lifestyle. The bat signal went out when the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer was put forth: unions and Democrats will now have an ally in the Trump administration who will do their bidding. Now that Chavez-DeRemer has been confirmed as Secretary of Labor, what this portends for the continued fight of independent professionals and small businesses, as well as the battles that will no doubt be waged within the U.S. Department of Labor remains to be seen.
