President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate outgoing U.S. Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the U.S. Labor Department, choosing a Republican whose unusually pro-union record has rankled some of his business allies.
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 U.S. 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.”
