Donald Trump’s cabinet picks have been mostly stellar. They have signaled Trump’s administration will enforce U.S. immigration law, pursue a firm but less adventurous foreign policy, and most importantly, empower the people at the expense of the federal leviathan, as exemplified by the new Department of Government Efficiency. All of this makes Donald Trump’s Friday announcement of soon-to-be-former Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., as his prospective Secretary of Labor incomprehensible and unacceptable. Donald Trump should force her to withdraw immediately. If not, the Senate should reject her appointment.
The main reason for Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination to head the Labor Department is that Sean O’Brien, the leader of the Teamsters Union, likes her. O’Brien attempted to ingratiate himself with Trump by speaking at the Republican National Convention this summer. But O’Brien’s presence there doesn’t change the fact that his union is thuggish and corrupt, with widespread kickbacks, stolen worker dues, and prevalent intimidation of workers opposed to leadership. O’Brien’s affinity for Chavez-DeRemer comes from her compliance with union bosses’ priorities as a congresswoman, not her advocacy for workers themselves.
Chavez-DeRemer was one of only three House GOPers to co-sponsor the PRO Act, which would have overturned all right-to-work laws in the United States. You read that correctly. Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Labor aided and abetted an almost unanimously Democratic effort to nullify the right-to-work laws that have attracted capital and workers to conservative states like Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona. She supported trampling federalism along with liberty and prosperity.
Right-to-work laws are popular. Consider that only one right-to-work law in the United States has ever been repealed, and that was by the signature of Michigan Gov. Gretchen “Dorito Communion” Whitmer, who is not exactly an exemplar of populist conservatism. The PRO Act also would have allowed union organizers to demand the names and addresses of business’ workers, presumably so that union cronies could intimidate workers in public spaces and at their personal residences before union certification elections.
The main counterargument from misguided proponents of unionization is that supporting unions is “pro-worker.” Hogwash. Supporting workers’ freedom and an economic environment of prosperity, where workers keep more of their paychecks while Uncle Sam and useless union bosses skim less, is pro-worker. Supporting corrupt union bosses’ ability to force union membership as a condition of employment, thereby restricting entry into the skilled trades that foster upward economic mobility for blue-collar men and stealing the wages of those they allow through the door, is anti-worker.
This isn’t confusing — and workers aren’t confused. That’s why millions have immigrated away from states with restrictive labor laws to pro-growth states, only six percent of non-government employees belong to unions, and pro-union Republicans underperform. Case in point: Chavez-DeRemer herself. In an overwhelmingly positive year for Republicans, she was the only Republican incumbent outside of New York and California (where the GOP had unusually good results in 2022) to lose. Voters like freely choosing employment more than the prospect of being forced into unions for their own supposed good.
A few weeks ago, the youth pastor at my church (formerly a professional welder) advised one of our high schoolers to avoid union shops upon finishing his own welding apprenticeship. His reasoning? “In a union, everyone makes the same even if you work harder. You get pressured not to make other people look bad by being too good a welder or getting the job done too fast.”
He spoke from decades of experience, in sharp contrast to the “New Right” luminaries insisting that Middle America yearns for stronger unions despite never working outside the coastal intelligentsia.
Does anyone seriously believe that Trump voters want less freedom? To be more easily harassed by union organizers? To be forced to pay dues that overwhelmingly flow to Democrats and progressive social activism? The question answers itself. Republicans don’t want that. Regular people don’t want that. Randi Weingarten wants that.
Weingarten, in case you are fortunate enough to have forgotten her, is the cretinous leader of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). She has used teacher dues to support 100 percent Democratic candidates and liberal causes in recent years and consistently opposes commonsense cultural conservative priorities like ridding elementary schools of gender indoctrination and limiting the chemical castration of children. The fact that she is celebrating this pick is revealing.
President Trump: the real blue-collar America likes its freedom, especially the freedom to earn money with God-given talents without asking a union’s permission. It tolerates and respects unions, but not being coerced into them or enabling their corruption. Millions of people like the youth pastor at my church elected you president of the United States. People like Randi Weingarten did not. Want to forge a “pro-worker” Republican Party? Then take the side of your own voters rather than decadent goons like Sean O’Brien. Retract the nomination of Chavez-DeRemer immediately.
Nathan Richendollar is a 2019 summa cum laude graduate of Economics and Politics from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. His work has also appeared in the Daily Caller, Foundation for Economic Education, Live Action, and the American Spectator. He lives in Southwest Missouri and works in the financial sector.
