Trumps labor pick is toxic anti-conservative RINO who is too close to unions, critics allege: Not serious

President-elect Trump’s nomination for labor secretary is a “toxic” anti-conservative RINO with cozy ties to unions, outraged critics told The Post Saturday.  During her single term on the Hill, Rep.Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) has backed a laundry list of boiler-plate liberal policies at odds with longstanding Republican orthodoxies, including strengthening unions’ efforts to organize the private sector, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and championing expanding government employee unions. “The signaling effect alone from this nomination would be that the Trump administration is not serious about deregulation or economic growth,” Ken Girardin, labor expert at the conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, told The Post. One of the biggest red flags for critics is the fact that Chavez-DeRemer was one of only three House Republicans who co-sponsored the radical, union-backed PRO Act.The bill, which failed to pass out of the House in 2023, would have banned right-to-work laws in over two dozen states, which allow employees to opt of paying union dues; devastated the gig economy by restricting independent contractor classifications; and forced employers to hand over their workers’  personal information.“In this woman’s America, every worker would have to have a boss and pay the union for the privilege of working,” said Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform. “This is an outrage, This is not mildly bad.

This is a huge thing that she voted for.”Teamsters President Sean O’Brien — who met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January and spoke at the Republican National Convention despite not endorsing him in his 2024 White House run — pushed for Chavez-DeRemer to clinch Cabinet post, a Trump world insider said.  “Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters did that,” the insider said.“Trump and O’Brien are closer than people understand.”Union support was a crucial factor for Trump’s election win in November.

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