Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Thursday advanced the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer to become the Trump administration Labor secretary on a 14-9 vote. Three Democrats voted for her.
Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., said during the committee vote he hopes for a "pro-America agenda that puts workers first."
He added Chavez-Deremer "demonstrated her commitment to this mission."
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the sole Republican voting against Chavez-Deremer. He cited her past support for pro-labor policies as the reason he voted against her.
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Democrats voting to advance her nomination were Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia and John Hickenlooper of Colorado.
Sen. Hassan said in statement, "Though we may not agree on everything, after meeting with Representative Chavez-DeRemer and listening to her testimony during her confirmation hearing, I believe that she is qualified to serve as the next Secretary of Labor and I look forward to working with her to support New Hampshire's workers and small businesses."
While serving a single term in the House, Chavez-Deremer was a co-sponsor of the Protecting The Right To Organize Act but has since called that legislation imperfect.
She also said she supports so-called Right To Work state laws passed by anti-union members of Congress over President Harry S. Truman's veto.
That law weakened the original union rights given workers in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act and gave more power back to employers.
The NLRA created the legal right for American workers to organize unions, collectively bargain for wages and working conditions and to strike.
The NLRA declared it was the policy of the United States to encourage "the practice and procedure of collective bargaining."
When workers vote to join a union under the NLRA their workplace becomes unionized because a majority of the workers vote to do it.
To respect that worker democratic decision, the 1935 labor law provided for union security by requiring workers hired into union shops to join the unions, since majorities of workers in those shops voted to form the union.
The Taft-Hartley Act weakened both unions and those worker rights by circumventing union security provisions and other rights for workers in the original 1935 law.
Chavez-Deremer told the Senate Feb. 19 she would work to ensure "a level playing field for businesses, unions and, most importantly, the American worker."
