DOL leadership in place, future less clear

With the confirmation of Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Secretary and Keith Sonderling as Deputy Secretary, the leadership team at the Department of Labor (DOL) is finally in place. However, numerous questions about the department’s future course persist.

New heads

Former U.S. Representative Chavez-DeRemer was an unexpected nominee. A Teamster-supported advocate for unions and a rare Republican vote for the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, Chavez-DeRemer was closely questioned by a dubious Republican-dominated Senate committee. During her nomination hearing, Chavez-DeRemer retreated on several of the specific elements of the PRO Act and insisted she would back the administration’s positions. 

Sonderling, a former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) commissioner and long a fixture in Republican workplace regulation, faced a barrage of questions from Democratic Senators because of his inability to explain the newly created, Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) activities at DOL, even though he was in place as a senior advisor to the department.

Regulatory issues abound