Misrule of Law

Labor unions are not pro-worker, and improving the status of America’s blue-collar middle class does not depend on fealty to union bosses.

This essay first appeared in Civitas Outlook, the new online journal of the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas-Austin, on December 17, 2024 (here). Civitas Outlook is edited by my friend (and former editor at Law & Liberty), Richard Reinsch. Thanks to George Leef at National Review Online (here) and Real Clear Markets (here).

President Trump’s nomination of pro-union back-bencher Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his Secretary of Labor—a pick celebrated by far-left teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten–was a big disappointment to voters who backed the MAGA agenda. Chavez-DeRemer was one of only three Republicans in Congress who co-sponsored the radical PRO Act of 2023 legislation, which would have gutted the longstanding federal framework regulating unionization and collective bargaining, tilting the playing field decisively in favor of unions. (Fortunately, the PRO Act did not pass.)

Chavez-DeRemer’s main “qualification” to be Labor Secretary seems to be the support of  Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention.  The Teamsters did not endorse President Trump, but—unlike some other unions, which backed Biden–remained neutral in the presidential election. The nomination of Chavez-DeRemer may have been intended as a political bone to organized labor, but GOP Senators should carefully scrutinize her thin record before confirming her to helm the consequential Department of Labor.

Chavez-DeRemer’s support of the PRO Act demonstrates a contempt for rank-and-file workers. That, and her complete lack of relevant experience, should be disqualifying.

Chavez-DeRemer Not Qualified

Chavez-DeRemer is without question the least qualified of Trump’s cabinet nominees. As a one-term member of Congress from Oregon representing a district that extends from Portland to Bend, she was defeated in her bid for re-election by Democrat Janelle Bynum on November 5. Prior to her election to Congress in 2022, she served on the city council and as mayor of a small town in Oregon.

Unlike Trump’s outstanding first-term Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia (son of the legendary Supreme Court Justice), Chavez-DeRemer has no previous experience in the field of labor and employment law. Her resume consists of being the daughter of a Teamsters member. For this reason alone, the Senate should refuse to confirm her. She is utterly unqualified.

Background of DOL

The U.S. Department of Labor is a vast bureaucracy with a budget of almost $14 billion and nearly 16,000 employees. The DOL is responsible for enforcing complex federal laws dealing with payment of overtime and the minimum wage, child labor, family and medical leave, occupational safety and health, mine safety, pension benefits, job protections for federal contractors, veterans’ rights, plant shutdowns, and many other areas. It is absurd to put an inexperienced neophyte—a former small-town mayor who served in Congress for only two years–in charge of an important cabinet department demanding specialized expertise.

As Secretary of Labor, Chavez-DeRemer could—subject to Trump’s direction–exercise considerable discretion in the application of federal laws under the DOL’s jurisdiction. Left to her own devices, Chavez-DeRemer would likely run the DOL as if Joe Biden had won a second term. Fortunately, the National Labor Relations Board, which plays the primary role in overseeing labor-management relations, is not under the authority of the DOL.

PRO Act Summary

The business community is understandably alarmed at Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination, in light of her co-sponsorship of H.R.20, the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2023 (the “PRO Act” for short). The bill was named after the late head of the United Mine Workers and, later, the AFL-CIO. The PRO Act represents a wish list of special privileges for labor unions, designed to offset unions’ declining market share of the private-sector workforce (public employee unions are booming) and inability to win secret-ballot representation elections. Labor unions represent a miniscule (and declining) percentage of private-sector employees, who increasingly reject union representation because of the high dues, rampant corruption, and left-wing politics of Big Labor.

American workers are not dumb. They recognize what I described as “the growing obsolescence of the New Deal’s collective-bargaining model in an era of an educated, largely mobile, white-collar workforce that enjoys significant protections by state and federal laws—without having to pay union dues.” Rent-seeking factions such as labor unions often seek government-enforced “solutions” when they experience failure in the marketplace, and the PRO Act is no exception. Opponents of the PRO Act tend to focus on the bill’s abolition of state right-to-work laws–a feature of federal law since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act–that allow states to forbid union security agreements that require employees to pay union dues (or equivalent fees) as a condition of employment. Currently, 26 states have enacted right-to-work laws (including Texas), and ten have even enshrined the concept in their state constitutions. 

This aspect of the PRO Act alone would constitute a radical (and imprudent) change in federal law, but the PRO Act contains numerous other “goodies” that benefit union bosses without improving the status of blue-collar workers. For example, the PRO Act would dramatically alter the rules for conducting union representation elections by, among other things, prohibiting employers from participating in (i.e., opposing) union elections in the workplace.

Other provisions in the PRO Act would: drastically narrow the definition of “independent contractor,” bringing many jobs (including long-haul truck drivers) within the reach of union organizers; codify various short-lived Obama-era innovations, such as “joint employer” rules that would lump together legally-distinct entities such as franchisors and franchisees; prohibit arbitration agreements, exposing employers to class-action lawsuits; prevent employers from permanently replacing striking workers; allow unions to engage in secondary boycotts; replace secret-ballot elections with easily-coerced authorization cards; and a host of other provisions that dramatically alter the architecture of federal labor law put in place by the 1935 Wagner Act.

The PRO Act has been condemned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which calls it “a litany of almost every failed idea from the past 30 years of labor policy. The PRO Act would undermine worker rights, ensnare employers in unrelated labor disputes, disrupt the economy, and force individual Americans to pay union dues regardless of their wishes.”

The PRO Act is truly an extremist measure that would—if enacted—transform labor law beyond recognition. Support of this extraordinarily one-sided legislation demonstrates fealty to union bosses, unsuitable for a Republican administration. Chavez-DeRemer’s support of the PRO Act was not a fluke. She also co-sponsored the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act of 2024, which would bring public-sector unionization—now governed solely by state law—under the authority of the federal government. This undoubtedly played a role in the National Education Association’s ecstatic reaction to Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination.

Unions Are Not Pro-Worker

Being pro-union is not the same as being pro-worker. Labor unions do not serve the interests of the working class generally. To the contrary, workers benefit from a strong economy, low inflation, merit-based opportunity, and American competitiveness. Unions can temporarily distort wages within industries, but in the long run unionized businesses end up like the Detroit automakers—with shrinking profits, declining market share, and in some cases bankruptcy. This does not benefit American workers. As I wrote in Law & Liberty a few years ago, “The biggest threat to middle-class wage-earners is forcing them to compete against vast numbers of low-paid, unskilled immigrants (not just the millions here illegally); [and] ill-considered and one-sided trade deals that decimated once-prosperous manufacturing centers by exporting jobs to China, Mexico, and other countries.”

If America’s employers were denied access to illegal alien labor, the market-clearing wage rate for even unskilled jobs would increase. Employers would have to pay more—possibly substantially more—than the minimum wage to attract employees, across the board. Without millions of illegal aliens in the labor force, willing to work for substandard wages, citizens willing to work would earn higher wages—without a union.

Trump’s vow to Make America Great Again for workers does not require their membership in corrupt unions (such as the UAW) and the obligation to pay onerous union dues. American workers would benefit from repeal of the electric vehicle (EV) mandates (and tax credits) that are destroying the U.S. auto industry, closing the southern border, mandating E-Verify for employers nationwide to ensure applicants’ eligibility to work in the U.S., forbidding DEI and other forms of racial preferences, ensuring fair trade with global partners, and controlling inflation by reducing the federal deficit. The ultimate goal of Trump’s labor policy should be to restore upward mobility in the form of a booming economy.   

A pro-worker Republican Party should emphasize employee choice and a competitive economy unhindered by excessive regulation.

Conclusion

Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination represents a 180 degree change in direction from Trump’s first-term DOL leadership and policies, which contributed to the robust economy and low unemployment that prompted many voters to return him to the White House. Inexplicably, Trump’s nomination of Chavez-DeRemer signals a retreat from the economic record that he successfully ran on. The Senate should exercise its “advice and consent” carefully, and confirm this dubious nominee only if it concludes that Chavez-DeRemer will be closely-tethered to the President’s America First—not a Union First—agenda. Voters elected Donald Trump on November 5, not Richard Trumka, Sean O’Brien, or Randi Weingarten.