Trump’s pro-union labor sec­re­tary pick could be a pro­gres­sive dar­ling

“I plan to hold Pres­i­dent-elect Trump’s feet to the fire for work­ing peo­ple, and I look for­ward to hear­ing more from con­gress­woman Lori Chavez-DeRe­mer (R‑OR),” pro­gres­sive Sen. Eliz­a­beth War­ren (D‑MA) said. “It’s a big deal that one of the few Repub­li­can law­mak­ers who have 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.”

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War­ren isn’t the only one who thinks it’s a big deal that Chavez-DeRe­mer, who nar­row­ly lost her reelec­tion bid in a mod­er­ate Ore­gon House dis­trict this year, sup­ports the pro-union PRO Act. But not every­one is excit­ed about it.

Repub­li­cans have been asso­ci­at­ed with a pro-busi­ness, anti-union stance for decades, but Trump has made inroads with blue col­lar vot­ers that helped him win Wis­con­sin, Michi­gan, and Penn­syl­va­nia en route to a sec­ond term.

His selec­tion of Chavez-DeRe­mer can be seen as a nod to unions like the Inter­na­tion­al Broth­er­hood of Team­sters and the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Fire Fight­ers who broke tra­di­tion by refus­ing to endorse Trump’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent.

Some GOP­ers, how­ev­er, think Chavez-DeRemer’s unabashed­ly pro-union stance is a bridge too far.

“Chavez-DeRemer’s sup­port of Democ­rats’ rad­i­cal Pro Act makes her unfit to serve as Labor Sec­re­tary in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion,” Job Cre­ators Net­work CEO Alfre­do Ortiz said. “This leg­is­la­tion is a Big Labor wish list that tram­ples over the rights of small busi­ness­es and ordi­nary work­ers.”

JCN com­plained that the PRO Act blocks the free speech of small busi­ness­es, would forcibly union­ize some com­pa­nies, end right-to-work laws, and effec­tive­ly ban most sole pro­pri­etor­ships. It says the key dis­tinc­tion for the new work­ing-class GOP is to be pro-work­er, not pro-union per se.

The edi­to­r­i­al board of the con­ser­v­a­tive Nation­al Review lam­bast­ed Chavez-DeRe­mer as a backer of not only pri­vate sec­tor unions but gov­ern­ment employ­ee unions as well, not­ing that she co-spon­sored the Pub­lic Ser­vice Free­dom to Nego­ti­ate Act, which it says would “force the blue-state mod­el of gov­ern­ment unions onto red states.”

“Kamala Har­ris, Bernie Sanders, most Democ­rats in Con­gress, the teach­ers’ unions, AFSCME, the Team­sters, and Lori Chavez-DeRe­mer sup­port the Pub­lic Ser­vice Free­dom to Nego­ti­ate Act,” the edi­to­r­i­al board wrote. “Not one Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor does.”

Indeed, Trump might have more trou­ble get­ting Repub­li­cans to con­firm her nom­i­na­tion than he will with Democ­rats.

Sen. Bill Cas­sidy (R‑LA) weighed in short­ly after Chavez-DeRe­mer was announced say­ing he looks for­ward to speak­ing with her about her vision for the Depart­ment of Labor.

“I will need to get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of her sup­port for Demo­c­rat leg­is­la­tion in Con­gress that would strip Louisiana’s abil­i­ty to be a right to work state, and if that will be her posi­tion going for­ward,” he wrote on X.

Some Repub­li­can sen­a­tors stand behind Chavez-DeRe­mer, such as Sen. Rick Scott (R‑FL), who con­grat­u­lat­ed her on social media and said he looked for­ward to work­ing with her to “cre­ate bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties and bol­ster our econ­o­my.”

But the back­ing she’s received from the Left could make things awk­ward on Capi­tol Hill.

Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers pres­i­dent Ran­di Wein­garten, an almost uni­ver­sal­ly loathed fig­ure among con­ser­v­a­tives, gave an approv­ing post on X when the Chavez-DeRe­mer rumors first heat­ed up.

Per­haps sens­ing the grow­ing intra-par­ty con­flict with­in the GOP, War­ren described her con­fir­ma­tion as a test of met­tle for Sen­ate Repub­li­cans and for Trump him­self.

“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?” she wrote. “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.”

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Dan Bowl­ing, who teach­es labor cours­es at Geor­gia State Uni­ver­si­ty, pre­vi­ous­ly told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er that the Labor Sec­re­tary job is more sym­bol­ic than sub­stan­tive since union-relat­ed mat­ters are often han­dled by the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board rather than the Depart­ment of Labor.

Even so, Chavez-DeRemer’s con­fir­ma­tion bat­tle could be one of the unusu­al coali­tions com­ing togeth­er, with pro­gres­sives like War­ren sup­port­ing her while Repub­li­cans like Cas­sidy voice their skep­ti­cism.