Who is Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the pro-union Latina picked by Trump to be his Labor secretary?

President-elect Donald Trump continues to court the working class following his election victory. To lead the Labor Department he has picked an outspoken advocate for union activity: Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Latina congresswoman from Oregon who lost her re-election bid in November, but has made her position on workers’ rights clear in Washington, something that could clash with traditional alliances between the Republican Party and business interests.

“I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand Training and Apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions, to bring back our Manufacturing jobs,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last Friday.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, 56, began her political career in 2002 as a member of the Parks Committee in the city of Happy Valley, Oregon. She later joined the City Council, which she eventually chaired. In 2010, she made history by becoming the municipality’s first Latina mayor (a position to which she was re-elected and held until 2018). In 2022, she was elected the first Latina woman to represent Oregon’s fifth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.

With the unions on her side

Chavez-DeRemer has earned the trust of labor groups. In the past, she has received support from steelworkers, firefighters, carpenters and the Teamsters, of which her father was a member. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien declared his enthusiasm for her nomination. “Congratulations to Chavez-DeRemer on your nomination! North America’s strongest union is ready to work with you every step of the way to expand good union jobs and rebuild our nation’s middle class. Let’s get to work!”

The Teamsters Joint Council No. 37, which represents thousands of industrial workers in Oregon, Idaho and Washington, also endorsed her. It was the first time in 20 years that the group openly supported a Republican candidate for Congress. In those years, Chavez-DeRemer championed the PRO Act, legislation that would make it easier to unionize at the federal level (passed by the House but stalled in the Senate), and co-sponsored another bill to protect public employees from Social Security benefit cuts. House Speaker Mike Johnson went so far as to declare that no one has had more union support in the Republican party than she has.

But the challenge facing the former mayor is considerable. She will be moving in a cabinet full of billionaires, including Elon Musk, appointed head of the Department of Government Efficiency and happy to fire any worker who goes on strike. She will also face bureaucrats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose figures on the economy and unemployment have been harshly attacked by Trump. But the biggest challenge will be managing Trump’s plan to undertake the largest deportation in the country’s history, in the face of demands from economic sectors and companies that depend on the immigrant workforce.

Latin roots and a love of animals

One of the keys to Chavez-DeRemer’s success has been to maintain a public profile as an unpretentious public servant on the side of the average citizen. Her Mexican origins have also kept her close to the causes and interests of those most in need. “I am proud of my Latin roots and the achievements of the Hispanic community in our great country,” she once posted on her Facebook account. On her social networks, she can be seen receiving recognition from the NFIB (an organization that defends small businesses in the 50 states of the union), as a spokesperson for the fight against breast cancer or celebrating National Dog Day.

She has been married for three decades, is the mother of 28-year-old twins, and has never been involved in any scandal. Together with her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, she founded an anesthesia management company with which she has opened several medical clinics in the country.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition