The Department of Labor is one of the numerous federal departments that ought not to exist. The feds have no constitutional warrant to intervene in labor markets and employment relationships. It does nothing to help but can do plenty to get in the way of efficiency.

Sadly, Trump has designated Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his nominee for Secretary of Labor. She is bereft of any qualifications for the job but apparently has the backing of the president of the Teamsters Union. Apparently, that’s enough for Trump to want a labor secretary who adheres to the big labor agenda.

In this piece, attorney Mark Pulliam makes a strong case against her nomination. We should want someone who is pro-growth and pro-freedom, not pro-union.

Pulliam writes,

Chavez-DeRemer is without question the least qualified of Trump’s cabinet nominees. As a one-term member of Congress from Oregon representing a district that extends from Portland to Bend, she was defeated in her bid for re-election by Democrat Janelle Bynum on November 5. Before her election to Congress in 2022, she served on the city council and was mayor of a small town in Oregon.

Unlike Trump’s outstanding first-term Labor Secretary, Eugene Scalia (son of the legendary Supreme Court Justice), Chavez-DeRemer has no experience in labor and employment law. Her resume consists of being the daughter of a Teamsters member. For this reason alone, the Senate should refuse to confirm her. She is utterly unqualified.

She is one of the very few Republicans to support the big-labor “PRO Act,” which further intrudes on freedom in labor markets to help unions get their way. That alone is disqualifying. If we must have a labor secretary at all, let’s have one who is a proponent of liberty and competition and not someone who will help the unions get what they want through bureaucratic meddling.