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Policy Week in Review - February 21, 2025
The Policy Week in Review, prepared by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), sets forth WPI’s updates on federal, state, and local matters, as well as Littler’s published in-depth analyses of the prior week.
Congressional and Administrative News
Labor Secretary Gets Hearing; Deputy Secretary of Labor Hearing Scheduled
On February 19, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be secretary of labor. DeRemer, who previously served one term as a U.S. Representative from Oregon, has drawn scrutiny from both sides of the aisle. While in Congress, she was the only Republican member of the House to support the so-called “PRO Act,” union-supported legislation dramatically reforming federal labor law to favor organized labor, and at least one Republican senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, has publicly stated he will not support her nomination. Democrats in turn have focused on the question of whether Chavez-DeRemer would be sufficiently independent of the White House and safeguard the integrity of the agency. If Democratic senators on the Committee unanimously oppose her, a single Republican “no” vote would prevent her nomination from proceeding to the Senate floor for final confirmation. Separately, the HELP Committee announced that is has scheduled a hearing on the nomination of Keith Sonderling to be deputy secretary of Labor immediately following its vote on Chavez-DeRemer.