Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer official photo, 118th Congress – Public Domain
US politics is often defined by populism in rhetoric and elitism in practice. This is especially evident with the so-called “realignment” within the two major parties, as large swaths of working class voters flee the Democratic party and switch to the Republicans, whose own form of right-wing populism succeeded in the 2024 elections. However, voters may feel a sense of buyer’s remorse, as the Trump Administration has gone full-speed ahead into its anti-worker, anto-democracy agenda. From widespread layoffs and budget slashing to his unqualified support for tax cuts for the wealthy, Trump appears to be nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing for the working class.
These contradictions are especially evident in his choice for Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. As a congressman from Oregon, she supported the Protecting the Right to Organize Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, or the PRO Act, which is the most significant piece of labor legislation out of congress since the Wagner Act 90 years ago. It would dramatically improve the rights of workers to create, join, and strengthen unions. During her confirmation hearings, she distanced herself from the PRO Act and even agreed with Senator Rand Paul that “right-to-work” laws, which are fundamentally about dismantling rights for workers to collectively bargain, should be protected. As the Trump administration builds its state apparatus to immiserate workers and the poor, his Labor Secretary nominee is backing away from her (nominally) pro-worker positions to fall in line with the new orthodoxy.
We’ve seen this time and time again from the labor movement in the United States— from the racial segregation of the AFL in its early years to the later AFL-CIO’s complicity in purging socialists and communists from its ranks and collaborating with the CIA. As Adam Barrington writes in Jacobin, “In 1962, the AFL-CIO established the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) to continue disrupting international left-wing labor movements.” AIFLD provided Brazilian students with courses in anti-communism that proved essential in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President João Goulart and the installation of a military dictatorship.
Today, we see the larger unions like the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, and others dampen their militancy in the service of the American Empire. Sean O’Brien, the head of the Teamsters, spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2024 and has decided to work closely with the Trump Administration and is backing Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination, despite his initial criticism of Trump. While there is no doubt that workers are better off belonging to a union rather than having no protections at all, it is evident that the large, mainstream unions are more interested in maintaining their relative power than actually using it to challenge ruling-class policies.
What is needed now, more than ever, is for unions to fight back against Trump’s extreme, authoritarian policies, using any leverage they have in stopping his most egregious, anti-worker policies. We see the militancy that can emerge even from larger unions, such as Shawn Fain’s UAW to Sara Nelson’s Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (which is a part of the AFL-CIO, but definitely not like it) as an example of challenging Trump’s assault on the American workforce. Unions should stay independent, not endorsing politicians unless they agree to certain demands and holding them accountable if they renege on said promises. For the fight ahead for democracy and the working class, unions should care less about preserving their bureaucracy and more about supporting the rank-and-file. A strong, class-conscious labor movement is essential to the development of a genuine resistance to Trump and his unadulterated destruction of workers rights.
