Trump’s Labor secretary pick is surprisingly pro-union. It doesn’t mean his administration will be

Despite some union leaders welcoming the nomination of Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Labor Department, there is still trepidation as to what lies ahead for the rules, regulations and enforcement strategy for American workers.

This week ended with President-elect Donald Trump nominating one of the most pro-union Republican members of Congress to be his secretary of Labor. But it began with a company owned by one of his more ardent supporters, Elon Musk, arguing in court that a key federal labor agency, the National Labor Relations Board, was unconstitutional and shouldn’t be able to enforce findings against employers. So that’s one of the reasons that despite some labor leaders welcoming the nomination of Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Labor Department, there is still trepidation as to what lies ahead for the rules, regulations and enforcement strategy for American workers. “Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a pro-labor record in Congress,” the AFL-CIO, the nation’s major federation of unions, said in a statement Friday. “But Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States — not Rep. Chavez-DeRemer — and it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as Secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda.” Specifically, the AFL-CIO and others in the labor movement are concerned that moves by the Biden administration to help unions and working Americans will be rolled back. Those rules include limitations on what employers can say at mandatory meetings with workers when there is an impending election to unionize, as well as a rule that will allow about 4 million salaried workers to qualify for overtime pay. Another rule in the works would protect the health and safety of workers exposed to high heat. Trump received more support from rank-and-file union members in this election than he had in past elections. Despite labor leaders’ strong support for Vice-President Kamala Harris, 45% of voters from households with a union member voted for Trump, according to CNN exit polls. That’s up from the 40% who voted for Trump in 2020, when he ran against Joe Biden, who had stronger ties to the union movement than Harris. It’s also a jump from the 42% who voted for Trump in 2016. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012, received 40% of the vote from union households.