WASHINGTON—Republican attacks on workers, particularly union workers, continued as GOP President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary, former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, disavowed her prior support of the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, while members of Congress’ ruling Republicans are again pushing a national “right-to-work”—for less—law.
But in a positive sign for workers and unions, right-to-work went down the drain in the Republican-run New Hampshire legislature on the same day, February 19, that it resurfaced on Capitol Hill.
The barrage began when Chavez-DeRemer not only opposed the PRO Act—a comprehensive pro-worker labor law reform—but supported Trump’s power to cut federal programs and federal funds.
It worsened when Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., announced to the jammed hearing room of the U.S. Senate’s Labor Committee that Trump had issued an executive order asserting monarchical rule over the National Labor Relations Board, the independent agency that decides worker-boss conflicts and runs union elections.
Chavez-DeRemer backtracked from her prior co-sponsorship of the PRO Act. What she didn’t tell senators is she backed it last August, after it was effectively dead. She endorsed it then to ensure her Oregon constituents “could have a seat at the table” on labor laws.
But when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the Senate sponsor of a national right-to-work bill—which the PRO Act would override—bluntly asked her: “Do you no longer support the section of the PRO Act that outlaws state right-to-work laws?” Chavez-DeRemer’s one-word answer was “Yes.”
Republicans beamed. And panel chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., railed against “forced unionism,” a common GOP insult.
“We need a Labor Secretary who makes it easier, not harder, to join unions,” retorted Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., the Senate’s longest and strongest supporter of unions, and the panel’s chair when Democrats ran the Senate.
“My main concern is ‘Will you be able to stand up for workers?’” against Trump, Sanders asked. “Or will you be a rubber stamp?” Chavez-DeRemer danced. She replied she would “present him [Trump] with the facts.”
Says she follows the law
Then Chavez-DeRemer told Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., “The president has the power to determine what he’s going to do” on government spending. She quickly added, “I follow the law and the Constitution and I do not believe the president will ever ask me to break the law.”
Chavez-DeRemer’s statement, which she repeated later, drew Democrats’ disdain and disbelief. They noted Trump has already broken laws and the Constitution.
The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse. It mandates the president must “take care that the laws” Congress passes “be faithfully executed.” That covers all laws, including spending bills.
A ban on such spending, including on labor law enforcement—OSHA, wage and hour violations and the like—is exactly what the criminal corporate class which backs the Republicans want. It lets them line their pockets while continuing to oppress workers.
Chavez-DeRemer, daughter of a 30-year Teamster, has both union—the Teamsters and the Building Trades–and corporate support. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention last year, was in the crowd.
“Working people need someone with her experience leading the agency that is tasked with protecting workers, creating good union jobs, and rebuilding our nation’s middle class. The Teamsters are grateful to President Trump for putting American workers first,” O’Brien said when Trump named her.
“Chavez-DeRemer demonstrated an understanding of challenges facing workers and the vital role the Department of Labor plays in ensuring fair wages, strong workplace standards, and the right to collective bargaining,” North America’s Building Trades President Sean McGarvey added then.
“She has consistently championed policies that strengthen worker protections, expand access to high-quality, middle-class careers, and supports Registered Apprenticeship programs.” Chavez-DeRemer did so again in the Senate hearing. The building trades run registered apprenticeships. Non-union fly-by-night contractors run an alternative, IRAPs.
Despite her newly demonstrated fealty to MAGA, some parts of Trump’s extreme right-wing coalition are unhappy with Chavez-DeRemer, saying she’s too pro-labor and a moderate. Chavez-DeRemer, a former mayor of Grants Pass, Ore., before serving in Congress, told senators she learned then to listen to both sides and to try to find common ground.
Markey heightened the Democratic skepticism with his announcement of Trump’s order taking over the NLRB. Trump’s order covers other independent agencies, too. “Last night, President Trump signed an executive order saying the NLRB will be subservient to him,” the senator said.
The order, while not specifying which independent agencies it covers, puts all agency functions —budget, personnel, enforcement, rulemaking and more—directly under the president and his Office of Management and Budget.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C..—who once yelled “You lie!” at Democratic President Barack Obama during a speech—are again pushing the national Right-To-Work law. Both disregarded the fact that GOP-run New Hampshire killed its version. When RTW has reached full congressional votes in past years, it’s been shot down.
Backed by the criminal corporate class, which sees right-to-work as a key way to starve unions and workers of funds, strength and support, reducing them to the status of serfs, the duo is trying again. The venal, vicious corporate-funded National Right To Work Committee leads the assault.
Right-to-work basically allows non-union members to use union services, including contracts which improve living and working conditions and defense against corporate greed, favoritism, exploitation and unfair discipline, without paying one red cent for them.
The practical effects of right to work are lower union density, lower wages, lesser protections, no pensions, more injuries on the job and sudden firings for no cause, or for promoting unions, or both.
Wilson didn’t notice the New Hampshire defeat. “Every American and their employer should have the power to negotiate the terms of their employment, and no American should be forced to pay union dues or ‘fees’ just to get or keep a job,” he said, wrapping the cause in lies.
That argument fell flat in the New Hampshire House. Twenty-five Republicans defied party dogma to help all the Democrats kill RTW there, 180-200. Under state legislative rules, that means the issue is “indefinitely postponed,” dead for this year and next in both houses.
United Electrical Workers Local 228, the state Teachers/AFT and the state’s Teamster Local 633 took the lead in killing the bill, HB238, ”which would have made New Hampshire the first state in the Northeast to legalize free-riding,” the UE said.
Bucked the corporate line
State Rep. Mike Ouellet, R-Coos, a Republican who bucked the corporate line, told a Local 228 member who called him that the “right to work people” had spent $8 million on the effort. Further evidence showed the so-called National Federation of Independent Business, a key cog of the radical right machine, led the corporate lobbying in New Hampshire for right-to-work.
“This bill is brought to us by outside sources, lobbyists from outside the state.” Local 228 President Jane Shepard O’Connor said in a pre-vote video. “We as UE members have always been strong, we’re proud, and we’re loud. So now’s the time—be loud, be proud, have your presence known. Call up your representative, the time has come to stop this.”
“Lawmakers recognized this effort for what it was: An attempt by out-of-state billionaires to hijack our legislative process so they could force a harmful anti-worker agenda down our throats,” said Jeff Padellaro, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 633. “This was nothing but an attack on working families and we are proud to have stopped it.”
“We spoke out against this legislation because the pay and benefits we bargained for as Teamsters need to be protected,” said Scott Gove, the local’s Recording Secretary who toils for UPS in Northfield. “We don’t want our wages, health care, or workplace safety to decay, so we will continue to tell any outside group that’s pushing ‘right to work’ to get the hell out of our state for as long as we have to.”
There are still other threats to workers on the horizon, though.
The U.S. Senate panel is expected to approve Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination as Labor Secretary in a February 20 vote. And Teamsters for a Democratic Union reports Trump nominated the former safety and health chief for UPS, David Keeling, who later went to work for union-hating Amazon, to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“In 2019, OSHA cited UPS for fire safety hazards and for forcing Teamster members to work in excessive heat,” TDU reported. “The company continues to drag its feet on installing air conditioning in trucks. Teamsters know bosses rarely care about our safety. OSHA is already too weak and toothless. Now more than ever, we need to fight for ourselves.“
And, given Republican control in New Hampshire, AFT state President Deb Howes—who called right to work “a union-busting scam,” warned there’s another anti-union anti-worker brainstorm pending there: Forced annual recertification, with strict standards, of public worker union locals.
It’s an idea circulated among right-wing lawmakers by the corporate lobbyists who make up the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secret corporate-political cabal.
“While we are confident our unions would recertify this is an unnecessary burden meant to weaken the collective power of all our members,” the union’s legislative alert says.
“It would force our local unions to spend time and energy on recertification elections instead of on bargaining the best contracts and advocating for the resources needed to do your jobs well. This is a union-busting bill.”
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