The wrong choice from the start
The reporting landed on the same day that a group of
Senate Democrats launched an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer’s policy
moves at the Labor Department, accusing her agency of showing “disregard for
workers’ lives” by “rolling back protections that keep workers safe and
hobbling the agency that is tasked with overseeing worker safety.”
The sexual assault allegations against the labor secretary’s
husband, Shawn DeRemer, were made by two women “as part of an internal investigation by the department’s inspector
general into alleged misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her senior staff,”
the Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar
with the matter and a police report.
“The widening misconduct scandal at the Labor Department has forced several aides and members of the security staff in Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s inner circle onto administrative and investigative leave,” the newspaper continued. “The inspector general’s office is investigating a formal complaint that Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate—a member of her security detail—and abusing her office by taking staff to strip clubs, drinking alcohol on the job, and taking personal trips at taxpayer expense. Her lawyer has denied the allegations.”
“This is Trump’s America,” retired US diplomat Ken
Fairfax wrote in response to the reporting.
Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer has been playing a central role in
what six Senate Democrats characterized as the Trump administration’s “attack
on workers from all sides.”
In a letter to Chavez-DeRemer and David Keeling, the
assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
and other Democrats expressed alarm over the Labor Department’s “ambitious
deregulatory agenda that includes many of the regulations that OSHA has
promulgated to keep American workers safe.”
The lawmakers pointed specifically to Labor Department
efforts to eliminate more than a third of the Mine Safety and Health
Administration’s offices, roll back “a requirement for employers to provide
adequate lighting at construction sites,” and loosen “respirator requirements
for workers exposed to dangerous materials like lead, asbestos, and
formaldehyde, as well as chemicals known to be carcinogens.”
“But you are not only rolling back rules that protect
workers—OSHA also appears to be taking a lighter hand in enforcing even the
rules that still exist,” the senators wrote. “According to OSHA statistics
comparing the months of April through September 2025 with the same period in
2024, the agency reduced workplace inspections by 20%. Those statistics also
show a 42% decrease in the number of ‘willful violations’ found during
inspections by OSHA during the months of April-September of 2025 as compared to
the same period in 2024.”
Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed as labor secretary last year
with bipartisan support and a boost from the Teamsters union given some of her past pro-worker
stances, such as support for the PRO Act—which she quickly distanced herself from during the confirmation
process.
“Chavez-DeRemer refused to commit to supporting a minimum-wage
increase, or paid leave for workers,” The Nation‘s John Nichols wrote
following her confirmation hearing last February. “And, of course, she
unapologetically declared, ‘The right to work is a fundamental tenet of
labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a
right-to-work state, and that should be protected.’”
“She has made it abundantly clear that she is not interested
in serving as an ally of America’s workers or the unions that represent
them,” Nichols added. “In the great struggle between the working class and
the billionaire class, Chavez-DeRemer has chosen to side with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the
oligarchs.”
