Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DOL NEWS—Chavez-DeRemer departs Labor, (Apr 21, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:AFL-CIO | U.S. Attorney General
By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.
She is the third female leader to depart from Trump’s hand-picked cabinet in a six-week period.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, formerly the U.S. Secretary of Labor, announced her departure from that position yesterday. She was sworn in on March 11, 2025, as the 30th Labor Secretary. She is the third cabinet-level appointee to leave, as well as the third female appointee to do so in the past several weeks. Kristi Noem was fired from the Department of Homeland Security in March and Pam Bondi left her post as U.S. Attorney General earlier this month.
According to Steven Cheung, Assistant to the President & White House Director of Communications, Chavez-DeRemer is leaving to take a position in the private sector and Keith Sonderling will take on the role of Acting Secretary of Labor.
Responses. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09) and members of the Congressional Black Caucus issued a scathing response to the announcement.
“Amid reports of misconduct, another Trump cabinet secretary is out. Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer was unqualified to lead our nation’s Labor Department, and by many measures, led the agency in the wrong direction.
“Before taking office, Donald Trump promised to prioritize and protect American workers, but that was unsurprisingly untrue. Instead, the Department of Labor under Secretary Chavez-DeRemer’s leadership, has carried out President Trump’s anti-labor policies—rolling back workplace discrimination enforcement, reducing workers’ wages, dismantling programs and benefits for working families, and attacking workers’ union and collective bargaining rights. These actions are not at all in the interest of hard-working American families.
“Particularly alarming is the persistent disparity in unemployment rates for Black workers, which has remained consistently higher than the national average. Rather than addressing these inequities with meaningful policy solutions, the Trump Administration has weakened the very protections and programs designed to close those gaps.
“Secretary Chavez-DeRemer's departure couldn’t have come sooner.”
Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (Ore-01) responded similarly, stating that the former Secretary “failed to protect workers, jeopardized the Department of Labor's work to support the economy, drove down morale among agency staff, and abused federal government resources to serve her own whims.”
The AFL-CIO’s response, issued by its President Liz Shuler, was that “When we’re in a crisis of costs going up, job insecurity due to AI and technology, and uncertainty across the economy, we need a labor secretary who understands working people and will work to make our lives better—not just be a rubber stamp for corporations’ wish lists and gut the protections we count on.”
Former Secretary sounds different note. For her part, Chavez-DeRemer, in announcing her departure, stated, “At the Department of Labor, I am proud that we made significant progress in advancing President Trump’s mission to bridge the gap between business and labor and always put the American worker first. We created new pathways to mortgage-paying jobs, prepared workers to excel in the age of AI, took steps to lower prescription drug costs, promoted retirement security, and so much more.”
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