The choice of Chavez-DeRemer reflects the growing political importance of labor after an election in which working-class voters delivered a strong turnout for Trump and the GOP.
Chavez-DeRemer, who lost her own reelection bid in November in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, is one of only three Republicans in Congress who backed the PRO Act, the wide-ranging labor law that would rein in the so-called gig economy and boost organizing rights.
While that legislation in its current form has little chance of moving forward in a Republican Congress, the decision to place one of their few Republican supporters at the top of the Labor Department is an unusual move from conservatives, labor experts told The Hill, and one that could indicate some shifting power dynamics.
The AFL-CIO, a top U.S. labor federation, threw some cold water on the nomination, describing the incoming administration as “dramatically anti-worker.”
“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,” the group said in a statement.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more here.
