Employment & Labor Insider

President Trump's Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, has resigned. Keith Sonderling, who was Deputy Secretary of Labor, will be Acting Secretary.

Ms. Chavez-DeRemer had a troubled tenure at the U.S. Department of Labor, which I wrote about in January:

According to the New York Post, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and two of her deputies are the subject of an employee complaint submitted to the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Labor. The complaint reportedly alleges that the Secretary is in an “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate, drinks (champagne, bourbon, and Kahlua) in her office during the regular workday, and asks her deputies to invent “work-related” trips so that she can visit family and friends at the expense of the taxpayers. She was also reportedly described more generally as the “boss from Hell.” The Secretary and the Trump Administration deny the allegations, and the two deputies are on administrative leave while the investigation takes place.

Since I wrote that post, two of Ms. Chavez-DeRemer's deputies resigned, and a third said that she had been forced to resign. And earlier this month, news reports said that three complaints had been made by top officials about Ms. Chavez-DeRemer.

Ms. Chavez-DeRemer said yesterday on X that she will be returning to the private sector.

Sorry to be quoting myself again, but here is what I wrote about Ms. Chavez-DeRemer when she was first nominated:

The Secretary of Labor is in charge of the Wage Hour Division (which interprets and enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act, among other laws), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and more. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was a Congresswoman from Oregon and a Republican, but she is pro-union and was a sponsor of the PRO Act, failed legislation that would have greatly expanded the rights of employees seeking to organize. Her nomination was reportedly promoted by Sean O'Brien, President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who remained neutral in the 2024 Presidential election and spoke at the Republican National Convention. I would call that, in effect, an endorsement of candidate Trump.

And in the same post linked above, here is what I wrote about our new Acting Secretary of Labor when he was named Deputy Secretary of Labor in 2025:

[Keith] Sonderling was a Commissioner with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and before that was Acting and Deputy Administrator of the DOL's Wage Hour Division, all during the first Trump Administration. Constangy was honored to present a webinar in 2022 with Mr. Sonderling, while he was still an EEOC Commissioner, on the use of artificial intelligence in making employment decisions. (I'd link to it, but it is no longer available on our website.) It is good to see Mr. Sonderling back in the federal government.

All the best to Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and to Acting Secretary Sonderling.