On November 22, 2024, Trump announced his intention to nominate Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon to lead the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in the next administration. Who is she?
- Chavez-DeRemer was elected to Congress in 2022 and serves on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which conducts oversight of the DOL. She lost reelection on November 5, 2024.
- Her U.S. House biography describes her as a “small businesswoman” who, along with her husband, an anesthesiologist, “founded an anesthesia management company and opened several other medical clinics in the Pacific Northwest.”
- From 2011 to 2019 she was mayor of Happy Valley, a suburb of Portland.
- Most significantly, in 2023 Chavez-DeRemer was the only Republican to co-sponsor, and one of only three Republicans to vote for, the Democratic-led Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which is strongly opposed by business groups. If enacted, the legislation would amend the National Labor Relations Act to give workers additional advantages when bargaining with employers and when organizing or joining unions. It would also weaken state right-to-work laws and codify a strict employment classification test that would make it harder for employers to use independent contractors. The PRO Act has passed the House and the Senate Committee on Education and the Workforce, but it has no chance as a practical matter of getting a favorable vote in the Senate.
Despite her position on the PRO Act, Trump intends to formally nominate Chavez-DeRemer once he is sworn in on January 20, 2025.
If confirmed by the Senate, Chavez-DeRemer will take over an agency that under the current administration proposed sweeping changes to wage and hour, safety and health, independent contractor classification, and other regulations—most of which were opposed by the business community and some of which were struck down by the courts.
That said, the first Trump administration implemented an increase in the salary threshold for the “white collar” overtime pay exemptions, and the new administration may seek an additional increase—though smaller than the one that was in a DOL rule a federal judge just blocked.
Next, employers look forward to finding out who Trump will appoint as National Labor Relations Board General Counsel (GC). The current GC has pursued an activist pro-labor agenda. She can be replaced, and the new GC can take up his or her duties, as of Inauguration Day.
