U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Labor made clear during her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that she no longer supports legislation known as the PRO Act, which would bolster worker organizing and dramatically weaken anti-union "right-to-work" laws currently in place in over two dozen states.
Asked by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) whether she still supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act—a bill she co-sponsored while in Congress—former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) said she signed onto the bill because she "wanted to be at that table," not because she was fully supportive of its provisions.
Chavez-DeRemer answered "yes" when Paul—the lead sponsor of the National Right to Work Act—specifically asked her to confirm that she no longer supports "the aspect of the PRO Act that would have overturned state right-to-work laws."
"The right to work is a fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right-to-work states," said Chavez-DeRemer.
"How very not pro-worker of you, Lori," the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO wrote in response.
Watch the exchange:
In so-called right-to-work (RTW) states, employees in unionized workplaces can opt out of paying union dues while still benefiting from the union's collective bargaining efforts.
An Economic Policy Institute study published last year found that RTW states "have lower unionization rates, wages, and benefits compared with non-RTW states."
"RTW laws...
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