The Honeymoon Is Over: Trump’s Pick for Labor Secretary Is a Teachers’ Union Fave
Well, that didn’t last as long as I would have liked. President-elect Donald Trump had been on a roll with his choices for roles in his next administration. On Thursday, he ruined the good vibes with one horrible, horrible Cabinet pick.
In Tuesday’s Morning Briefing, I celebrated Trump’s nomination of Linda McMahon to be Secretary of Education. Her strong views on school choice rattle the people in charge of the teachers’ unions, who are the biggest obstacle to education reform because they’re powerful leftist political lobbies. I noted that substantive progress with school choice would be “a direct shot at the heart of the Democrats’ main source of funding.”
On Thursday, Trump did something to make the teachers’ unions happy.
Hard to believe, but Donald Trump on Friday night nominated a favorite of teachers union chief Randi Weingarten as his Labor Secretary. Why would Mr. Trump want to empower labor bosses who oppose his economic agenda and spent masses to defeat him?
Mr. Trump’s regrettable choice is Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Ms. Weingarten on Thursday tweeted her support for the freshman Republican. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, has also been pulling for her. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said she’ll work toward “historic cooperation between Business and Labor.” But Ms. Chavez-DeRemer has backed union giveaways like the Pro Act, which are not “cooperation.”
I’ll get to the Pro Act in a moment. For the moment, let us focus on the fact that Randi Weingarten is a vile human being. She was the face of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and championed keeping them closed far longer than even the other tyrants thought was necessary. Weingarten wrecked a generation of public school children, forcing them into a brutal game of “catch up” that many will never win.
Then she lied about her role in all of that.
She’s Team Trump with the Chavez-DeRemer choice though:
It is significant that the Pres-elect nominated Rep. Chavez-DeRemer for Labor. Her record suggests real support of workers & their right to unionize. I hope it means the Trump admin will actually respect collective bargaining and workers’ voices from Teamsters to teachers.
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓🟣 (@rweingarten) November 23, 2024
When one of the most clinically insane leftists in America thinks that a Republican politician did a good thing, it means that the Republican just did a clinically insane leftist thing.
For any conservative who had high hopes for the Trump 47 administration, Weingarten’s approval of Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination undoes a lot of the goodwill that had been built up. That’s not the worst thing about this choice, however. Chavez-DeRemer (an annoying name to type repeatedly, by the way) is one of only three Republicans in the House to support the execrable PRO Act. Its full title is: The Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
The PRO Act is a sop to Big Labor that got its start with California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) back in 2018. AB5 was a major effort to upend the freelancer-driven gig economy — specifically rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft, which had long been targets politicians who are funded by labor unions. My Townhall Media colleagues in California would have been adversely affected by AB5 as well. The bill was so noxious that the left-leaning California electorate passed a proposition in 2020 that carved out exceptions to AB5.
AB5 was one of the worst ideas to come out of California’s progressive fever dream, and the PRO Act seeks to make a version of it federal law.
The PRO Act is the latest attempt in Big Labor’s years-long effort to do away with secret ballots in union voting and do things via an insidious process called “card check” which, per the Wall Street Journal, will implement “a coercive process whereby organizers confront employees individually and relentlessly, at work and at home, until they sign a petition card. If the union can collect cards from half of the workforce, it gets certified without a vote.” In other words, it legalizes union thuggery.
Card check was one of the big issues that we were fighting against back in the Tea Party days. It remains such a high priority for the unions that they’re still working on making it law over a decade later.
Rep. Chavez-DeRemer not only shouldn’t be Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor, he should never have considered her in the first place. Yes, she’s a Republican, but she is a Republican from a deep blue state. More often than not, that means “moderate Democrat.” From a conservative perspective, Chavez-DeRemer is carrying red flags in both hands.
Yeah, it was cool to have the Teamsters guy speak at the Republican National Convention, that doesn’t mean that Trump has to dole out favors to him, which this seems to be.
Throughout this year, I have praised Trump’s decision-making. This choice, however, is so stunningly awful that I have to wonder how many other lefties have his ear.
It’s a most sobering thought.