Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, is one of his worst cabinet picks. During her one term in Congress, she supported Democratic legislative proposals for private-sector and public-sector unions. To read more about why she’s a bad selection, you can read NR’s editorial here.
Trump’s pick for deputy secretary of labor, though, is much better. On Wednesday, he tapped Keith Sonderling for that role. Sonderling was a Republican member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 2020 to 2024. In the first Trump administration, he worked in the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor, including serving as acting administrator.
Sonderling knows the DOL and federal employment law inside and out. At the Wage and Hour Division, Sonderling wrote an opinion letter clarifying that “gig economy” workers are independent contractors, not employees, for the purposes of federal labor laws. The Biden administration withdrew that letter, likely at the behest of unions, who want more workers to be classified as employees so that they can organize them. Sonderling’s return to the DOL is good news for independent contractors, 80 percent of whom prefer their job situation over traditional employment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Frankly, Sonderling would have been a better selection for secretary. To really see which direction Trump is going on labor policy, watch his nominations for the National Labor Relations Board.
The NLRB has much more direct power than the secretary of labor in questions about labor unions. The Biden administration has used the NLRB to pursue organized-labor goals, such as undermining secret-ballot elections for union certification and ordering do-over elections when unions lose.
NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has been especially aggressive in her pro-union activism within the agency, interpreting labor law in ways contrary to the plain meaning of the Taft-Hartley Act and to the First Amendment. In an unprecedented move, Biden fired Peter Robb, the prior general counsel, and Alice Stock, Robb’s deputy, to install Abruzzo. Courts upheld those firings, giving Trump precedent to fire Abruzzo and replace her with someone better. Robb and Stock are part of Trump’s transition team this time around, and Stock could be the next general counsel.
In addition to replacing Abruzzo, Trump will be able to appoint two NLRB members, giving Republicans a 3–2 majority. Democrats typically appoint pro-union lawyers to the NLRB. Republicans typically appoint pro-business lawyers. Biden tried to renominate the current pro-union chairwoman, Lauren McFerran, during the lame-duck session of Congress, but the Senate rejected her. The two formerly Democratic, now independent, senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, voted with the Republicans to defeat her nomination.
Given that unions have not changed their political orientation toward Republicans, Trump should not feel any obligation to give them more representation on the NLRB. Chavez-DeRemer is a poor choice for secretary of labor, and the Senate should reject her. But the nomination of Sonderling as deputy and, one hopes, pro-business NLRB members would still indicate at least some continuity with previous, successful, conservative labor policy.