Longtime Kentucky union activist Kirk Gillenwaters could have said “I told you so” when he turned on his TV and saw Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer fawning over Donald Trump at a recent cabinet meeting.
“Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Labor Department because you are really the transformational president of the American worker,” she gushed.
Trump is indeed a “transformational president of the American worker” — transformational for the worse.
Said Gillenwaters: “There never was a more opportunistic group than that bunch. They knew from his first term what it would take to maintain their status as cabinet secretaries.”
In an especially Orwellian twist, “PUTTING AMERICAN WORKERS FIRST” is emblazoned on the banner below Trump’s mug. “What a mockery it is to have Trump’s face on a banner on the side of the Department of Labor,” said Gillenwaters.
At first, some top-ranking labor officials boosted Chavez DeRemer – or were at least cautiously optimistic that she might step to her own drummer. They pointed out that as a member of Congress from Oregon, she was just one of just three GOP lawmakers to co-sponsor the Protecting The Right To Organize Act, PRO Act for short. Some in the media tagged her “Trump’s pro-union pick“ and “Donald Trump’s Pro-Union Labor Secretary Pick,” according to The Nation’s John Nichols.
Gillenwaters, president of the Kentucky Alliance for Retired Americans, wasn’t cheerleading for Chavez-DeRemer.
He cited a recent musing from Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik: “The labor leaders who saw a glimmer of light in Chavez-DeRemer’s appointment have seen their hopes dashed,” he wrote. “Until recently, one might have said that the jury was out on whether she would be a good Labor secretary or another MAGA cabinet member. Now, sadly, the jury’s verdict is in.”
From the start, Gillenwaters pegged Chavez-DeRemer as another toady for Trump, a “right to work” fan who in his first term proved to be one of the most — if not the most — anti-labor presidents. He’s taken up where he left off, perhaps most notably trying to wipe out federal government unions, a move which AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called “the single biggest act of union-busting in history.”
Chavez-DeRemer gleefully joined the truckling to Trump. Each of his secretary-sycophants took turns in a round robin reprise of unrestrained unctuousness from the president’s first term. Back in ‘17, with TV cameras rolling, “each of those Cabinet secretaries lavished praise on Trump, which he accepted without comment but with a broad smile,” wrote CNN’s Chris Cillizza. He suggested that the gathering “while totally inconsequential in terms of actual policy” was “deeply revealing about who Trump is and how he views himself, the people who work for him, and the world. And how he views all of those things is this: With Trump at the center and everyone else a spoke emanating from his hub.”
The sequel to the The-Emperor-Has-Such-Dazzling-Duds-Show moved MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, a former Biden press secretary, to claim the cloying conclave “would make North Korean leaders like Kim Jong Un or Russian President [Vladimir] Putin blush.”
In 2022, Chavez-DeRemer’s election helped the GOP flip the House, thus dooming the PRO Act, versions of which House Democratic majorities had passed. Gillenwaters said lawmakers sometimes co-sponsor a bill they know is going nowhere just to curry favor with voters or groups that might support them. “Voting records aren’t based on sponsoring bills,” he said. “It’s how you vote on them.”
Besides, he added, “How do you label somebody pro-union when they rate 10 percent?”
He meant Chavez-DeRemer’s grade on the AFL-CIO’s Legislative Scorecard, which shows where “lawmakers stand on issues important to working families, including strengthening Social Security and Medicare, freedom to join a union, improving workplace safety, and more.” The current House scorecard lists 10 key votes from 2023. She voted the union position on only one, a stopgap continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.
Anyway, Democrat Janelle Bynum (endorsed by the Oregon State AFL-CIO) ended Chavez-DeRemer’s House tenure last year after one term.
Gillenwaters’ doubts about Chavez-Remer proved well-founded at her Senate confirmation hearing where she backed away from the PRO Act and promised to support Trump’s agenda, which includes opposition to the PRO Act. Chavez-DeRemer also said she was fine with state “right to work” laws, which are on the books in 26 states, including Kentucky. (Pushed by conservative Republicans and allied conservative industry and business groups including the Chamber of Commerce, “right to work” laws are calculated to weaken unions and discourage workers from joining unions. Under a “right to work” law, an employee at a unionized workplace can enjoy union-won wages and benefits without joining the union or paying the union a service fee to represent them.)
In Roll Call online, Mark Schoeff Jr. wrote that “Chavez-DeRemer said her co-sponsorship didn’t indicate she would have voted for it. Rather, it ensured she would be part of congressional efforts to update labor laws.”
Nichols wrote that Chavez-DeRemer’s “opening statement saw the nominee distancing herself from the PRO Act, which she dismissed as ‘imperfect,’ and her previous pro-union stances. Instead, she declared without hesitation that ‘my job will be to implement President Trump’s policy vision.’”
Since she took over the Labor Department, Chavez-DeRemer has followed the Project 2025-Trump playbook. Proving she’s bilingual in Orwellianese and Trumpspeak, the secretary bragged in a news release, “One of President Trump’s very first actions was directing his cabinet to dismantle the mountain of outdated rules that have held back American workers and businesses for far too long. The Department of Labor is proud to lead the way by eliminating unnecessary regulations that stifle growth and limit opportunity. These historic actions will free Main Street, fuel economic growth and job creation, and give American workers the flexibility they need to build a better future.”
Concluded Hiltzik: “Chavez-DeRemer’s actions as Labor secretary resemble less the image she fostered as a member of Congress than the policymaking of Trump’s first term.”
Prophesied Gillenwaters after Chavez-DeRemer got 45-47’s nod: “... All Trump wants from the people around him is loyalty, and loyalty means not to cross him. If you do, you’re gone.”
So go ahead, Kirk, say “I told you so.” You earned the right.
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THIS JUST IN: While Trump is trying to fire Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lisa Cook for alleged “mortgage fraud,” ProPublica has discovered that at least three of his cabinet members, including Chavez-DeRemer, are guilty of the same purported “crime.” Click here to get the scoop.
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