The Senate voted Monday to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer as U.S. labor secretary, a Cabinet position that puts her in charge of enforcing federally mandated worker rights and protections at a time when the White House is trying to eliminate thousands of government employees.

Chavez-DeRemer will oversee the Department of Labor, one of several executive departments named in lawsuits challenging the authority of billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to order layoffs and access sensitive government data.

The Labor Department had nearly 16,000 full-time employees and a proposed budget of $13.9 billion for fiscal year 2025. Some of its vast responsibilities include reporting the U.S. unemployment rate, regulating workplace health and safety standards, investigating minimum wage, child labor and overtime pay disputes, and applying laws on union organizing and unlawful terminations.

Several prominent labor unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, endorsed Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination. The former Republican congresswoman from Oregon is the daughter of a Teamster, and during her one term in the House earned a reputation as pro-labor.

The Senate voted to confirm Chavez-DeRemer 67-32, with 17 Democrats voting yes and three Republicans voting no.

The Senate has now confirmed all but one of Trump’s picks for his Cabinet. Its Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions had voted 14-9 in favor of her nomination last week, with all Republicans except Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky giving Chavez-DeRemer their support. Three Democrats on the committee — Sens. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire — voted with the majority.

During her confirmation hearing before the committee, several Republican senators grilled Chavez-DeRemer about her decision to co-sponsor legislation that would have made it easier for workers to unionize and penalized employers who stood in the way of organizing efforts.

She declined to explicitly state whether she still backed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, also known as the PRO Act.

Chavez-DeRemer explained she had signed on as a co-sponsor because she wanted a seat at the table to discuss important labor issues. Under further questioning, she walked back some of her support of the bill, saying that she supported state “right to work” laws, which allow employees to refuse to join a union in their workplace.

The PRO Act did not come up for a vote during her time in Congress, but the legislation was reintroduced in the House and Senate last week.

“As we speak, Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies are stealing the American dream away from working families, rigging every lever of society in favor of the billionaire class,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. “That’s why we need the PRO Act, to empower hardworking Americans to bargain for better wages, benefits, and safer working conditions.”

During her time in Congress Chavez-DeRemer also co-sponsored legislation which sought to protect public-sector workers from having their Social Security benefits docked because of government pension benefits. That bill also stalled because it didn’t have enough Republican support.

Chavez-DeRemer walked a fine line during her confirmation hearing, attempting to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. On the subject of whether the federal minimum wage was overdue for an increase, she said she recognized it hadn’t been raised from $7.25 an hour since 2009 but that she would not want to “shock the economy.”

Some Democratic senators and workers’ rights advocates have questioned how much independence Chavez-DeRemer would have as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary and where her allegiance would lie in an administration that has fired thousands of federal employees.

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By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new rule from the Biden administration that would have expanded access to overtime pay to millions more salaried workers across the U.S.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan sided with the state of Texas and a group of business organizations that argued the Labor Department exceeded its authority when it finalized a rule earlier this year to significantly expand overtime pay for salaried workers — ruling that the department could not prioritize employee wages over job duties when determining eligibility.

Under the federal law, nearly all hourly workers in the U.S. are entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours a week. But many salaried workers are exempt from that requirement — unless they earn below a certain level.

The Labor Department’s now-scuttled rule would have marked the biggest increase to that cap in decades. Employers were required pay overtime to salaried workers who make less than $43,888 a year in certain executive, administrative and professional roles as of July 1 — and that was set to rise to $58,656 next year.

The Labor Department estimated that an additional 4 million lower-paid salary workers would become eligible for overtime protections in the first year under the new rule. An additional 292,900 higher-compensated workers were also expected to get overtime entitlements through separate threshold increases.

Now, the previous threshold of $35,568 — which was set in 2019 under the Trump administration — is poised to go back into effect.

A spokesperson for the Labor Department did not immediately comment when reached by The Associated Press Friday. It was unclear if the department would attempt to appeal the decision from Jordan, who was nominated to his seat by Republican President-elect Donald Trump during his first term.

At the time of the in April, acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su stated that the administration was “following through on our promise to raise the bar” — noting that it was “unacceptable” for lower-paid salaried workers to do the same job as their hourly counterparts with no additional pay.

Following the finalization of this year’s rule, legal challenges bubbled up. A handful of trade groups argued the move would harm businesses and lead to costs that would potentially result in employers’ needing to cut jobs or limit their workers’ hours.

David French, executive vice president of government relations for the National Retail Federation — one of the groups that challenged the Labor Department’s rule — maintained in a statement Friday that the changes “would have curtailed retailers’ ability to offer the most flexible, generous and tailored benefits packages to lower-level exempt employees across the industry.”

Friday’s ruling is a bit of déjà vu. In 2016, an Obama-era effort to similarly expand overtime pay eligibility was ultimately shot down in court after facing pushback from some business leaders and Republican politicians.

The Trump administration later brought a smaller raise through, marking the first increase since 2004. Advocates pushing for higher overtime pay have stressed that it’s far from enough — arguing that too many salaried workers are still cheated out of their time — but potential changes under Trump’s upcoming second term are unlikely to meet the level of those demands.

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BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) — A Beaverton sheet metal company must pay $98,000 in back wages to 51 employees after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that TT&L Sheet Metal didn’t account for time its workers spent driving each week and so didn’t pay them full overtime when they worked long hours.

The department also said the firm based overtime pay on the lowest pay rates workers earned during the week rather than a weighted average of the rates they earned.

It says workers earned different pay on different jobs.

TT&L did not respond to a message seeking comment.

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