President Trump’s first month back in office has seen a blitz of executive and legislative promises, threats, proposals and actions. So, let’s take a step to slow down, focus on what’s happened and see what Trump’s early moves signal about labor policies and how things will be in the next four years.
Surprise Labor Secretary Pick
Late last year, Trump made one of his most surprising moves since being re-elected: He named a relative unknown as his nominee for secretary of labor, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Oregon). The main surprise, though, wasn’t her relative lack of notoriety, but whom that notoriety was with: Chavez-DeRemer’s limited career included a co-sponsorship on the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a.k.a. the PRO Act — a stalled piece of legislation that would have wiped out state-level right-to-work laws and made it easier for public-sector employees to form unions.
To say the nomination of a Teamsters-friendly representative was a step away from the usual Republican ballgame for unions might be an understatement. Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said he was initially “stunned” at Trump’s choice for labor and offered an explanation.
“This particular nomination flows from what appears to be a very substantial amount of influence by Sean O’Brien,” Mix said.
Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters union, most recently made headlines by appearing at the Republican National Convention in 2024. According to Mix, multiple names were well through parts of the nomination process before president-elect Trump, based on “a phone call” from O’Brien, named Chavez-DeRemer, who was not previously under consideration.
In February, the Teamsters released a strong endorsement of Chavez-DeRemer, who has a family history with the Teamsters.
“As the daughter of a Teamster, Lori Chavez-DeRemer knows the importance of carrying a union card and what it means to grow up in a middle-class household,” O’Brien said in the endorsement, and praised Trump for “putting American workers first” with the nomination.
Yet, despite O’Brien’s praise for and Mix’s consternation with the pick, other labor-side politicians and sources seem more skeptical. During her confirmation hearings in late February, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) mostly grilled Chavez-DeRemer on whether or not she would be “subservient” to President Trump. In prepared remarks, Sanders praised Chavez-DeRemer for her record, including her support for the PRO Act — only for her to disavow much of the legislation she had cosponsored, in particular the portion that most troubled Mix. Under questioning by Senator Rand Paul, Chavez-DeRemer said she no longer supported the section of the Act that would have overturned state right-to-work laws.
David Rosenfeld, a union-side labor attorney with Weinberg, Roger & Rosenfeld, told IW in an interview that he didn’t expect Chavez-DeRemer to change much about Trump’s actual stance towards organizing rights, and noted that, as an inexperienced legislator, she’s more likely to follow the GOP party line than defy it.
“She’s somewhat of an unknown, that’s the problem,” Rosenfeld said. “She’s not in a position to do anything of importance, other than perhaps run a little interference.”
National Labor Relations Board Changes
A better indicator of the direction the Trump administration plans to take labor policy is indicated by a series of actions taken by the executive on the National Labor Relations Board, the quasi-judicial body in charge of resolving unfair labor practices and overseeing union elections. As expected, upon taking office, President Trump fired its general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, and replaced her with acting General Counsel William B. Cowen.
That was an expected move after President Biden fired Trump’s first NLRB general counsel, Peter Robb, upon taking office in 2021. What was more surprising was what Trump did next: He fired NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox.
Labor relations lawyers at McDermott, Will & Emery were surprised by the move. Chris Foster, head of the firm’s labor group, said Wilcox’s dismissal — which she has sued the Trump administration to reverse — was a sign of uncharted waters ahead.
“These removals send a clear signal that it won’t be business as usual at the NLRB in the next four years,” Foster said. He noted that, if Wilcox’s firing holds, Trump’s actions could pave the way for the first-ever NLRB with four Republican-appointed members.
For Rosenfeld, this may actually be a sign of an attempt to effectively cripple the labor board.
“If he really had a plan in mind, he would’ve terminated her and then nominated some others to sit on the board. But he sabotaged the board by reducing it to two members,” rendering it legislatively inert.
Despite the potential for Trump to leave the NLRB without its quorum, Foster predicts the second Trump administration, perhaps belying the hopes of Teamsters leadership, will be much like those of a traditional Republican presidency: Without recourse to unfair labor practice charges, unions will be more likely to elect for harder-nosed tactics like strikes and walkouts, while companies may see expanded employer free-speech rights around dissuading their employees to join unions.
Several days after dismissing Wilcox, Trump’s new acting general counsel issued a new general counsel memo, rescinding Biden-era instructions to the Board and indicating possible future directions for how the second Trump Board will rule on various issues, including indications the board will attempt to reverse Biden-era policies on when unions can form and noncompete agreements. But when those judgments will go into effect will rely on two factors: When the NLRB can reinstitute a quorum, and when it faces a case that calls its previous judgments into question.
According to Tony Torain, another labor attorney with McDermott, that general counsel will provide a roadmap the NLRB is likely to follow once it can issue judgments again. Using the Biden administration as an example, Torain noted that Abruzzo issued a memo on confidentiality and non-compete agreements before the NLRB ruled in its McLaren Macomb decision they constituted unfair labor practices.
“In terms of the NLRB’s priorities, the general counsel’s memos generally set a standard for how they’re going to operate,” Torain said. “Even if it’s not substantive law, we can look at what the general counsel’s memos say and see how the NLRB is going to prosecute cases.”
While the process resembles how the judicial branch and the Supreme Court set precedent by ruling on cases, in practice the NLRB also has discretion over enforcing unfair labor practices. “In the short term, the general counsel has unrenewable discretion about what kinds of complaints you can pursue, and so there can be a quick pulling of the plug on any big complaints that are in the works,” said Foster.
Repeats of Term 1?
Despite the precedent-breaking dismissal of Wilcox and the head-turning nomination of Chavez-DeRemer, in terms of labor policy, Trump’s second term labor policies appear likely to appear similar to that of his first term, which saw 2021’s “Striketober” begin with increased union activity in a series of Deere & Co. strikes and then never really ended, even as President Biden visited picket lines and the UAW issued its nation-wide strike. Ironically, despite dramatic change at the top, it may be that the labor picture for the next four years will be more of the same.
