El Senado confirma a Lori Chávez-Dedemer como secretaria del trabajo de Trump
The Senate voted on Monday to confirm Lori Chávez-Dedemer as the United States Secretary, a cabinet position where she will be responsible for enforcing labor rights and government-mandated protection at a time when the White House is seeking to dismiss thousands of government employees.
Chávez-Dedemer will oversee the Department of Labor, one of the various executive departments mentioned in the requirements challenging the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, for its role in ordering layoffs and access to sensitive government data.
The Department of Labor had nearly 16,000 full-time employees and a proposed budget of $13.9 billion for the fiscal year 2025. Some of its vast responsibilities include providing information on the unemployment rate in the United States, regulating health and safety standards, investigating minimum wage violations, workforce and overtime pay, enforcing labor laws, and enforcing union laws.
Several prominent unions, including the Teamsters, have endorsed Chávez-Dedemer’s nomination. The former Republican congressman from Oregon comes from a union background, and during her single term in the House of Representatives, she earned a reputation for being pro-union.
Senators expressed 67 votes in favor and 32 against Chávez-Dedemer’s confirmation.
The Senate has already confirmed all of Trump’s cabinet nominees, except for one.
Last week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee voted 14-9 in favor of supporting her nomination; all the Republicans there,» said Chávez-Demer, Senator Rand Paul. Three Democrats on the committee, Senators John Hickenlooper, Tim Kaine, and Maggie Hassan, voted in the majority.
During the confirmation hearing before the committee, several Republican senators questioned Chávez-Dedemer about her decision to sponsor a bill that would have provided protections to workers from unionized employers and penalized those who thwarted unionization attempts.
She declined to explicitly state if she still supported the right-to-work law.
Chávez-Demer explained that she decided to sponsor it because she wanted a seat at the table to discuss important labor issues. After fielding several questions, she tempered her support for the bill, stating that she backed state «right-to-work» laws, which allow employees to opt out of joining a union at work.
The Pro Law was not subject to a vote while in Congress, but it was reintroduced in the House and the Senate last week.
«As we speak, (President) Donald Trump and his billionaire friends are robbing working families of the American dream, pulling every lever in the billionaire class,» said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. «This is why we need Pro Right, to empower working Americans so they can negotiate better wages, benefits, and working conditions.»
During her time in Congress, Chávez-Dedemer blocked legislation intended to protect public sector workers from having their social security benefits reduced because they already had government pension-related benefits. This bill also stalled due to insufficient Republican support.
Chávez-Dedemer sought to strike a delicate balance during her confirmation hearing, trying to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. When asked if the federal minimum wage should have been raised long ago, she noted that it had remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009 but expressed caution about causing upheaval in the economy.
Some Democratic senators and workers’ rights advocates have questioned how much independence Chávez-Dedemer would have as Trump’s labor secretary and where her loyalty would lie in a government that has laid off thousands of federal employees.
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