‘We Did Blow It Out Of The Water’: Labor Sec. Lori Chavez-DeRemer Touts Workforce Growth Progress

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer spoke about progress in U.S. workforce growth since the Trump Administration came into office.

Transcript

00:00The chair now recognizes Representative Bice. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you

00:06to Secretary Chavez-Dreamer for being with us this morning and thank you for

00:12speaking with me recently about my initiative of filing legislation on paid

00:17family leave that I introduced. I am excited to be part of the bipartisan

00:22paid family leave working group where we spent a year and a half talking to

00:26stakeholders and crafting legislation to address the lack of paid family leave

00:30options in what I believe is a responsible way. The More Paid Leave for More

00:35Americans Act H.R. 3089 will provide a modest incentive for states to establish

00:40their own family leave programs using a public private partnership model and to

00:46be clear this bill is not a mandate it is an incentive that recognizes that states

00:50are already leading the way in many spaces and we want to support that and

00:54there is a tie-in certainly with the Department of Labor potentially having

00:59a an oversight of this particular program so thank you for giving me some time to

01:03talk to you about that. Secretary Oklahoma like 26 other states is a right-to-work

01:09state and President Biden issued an executive order 14063 in 2022 requiring

01:16the use of project labor agreements on all federal construction projects over 35

01:21million. This actually limits competition for the projects and results in many

01:26projects bringing in crews from out of state. Earlier this year the Federal Court of

01:31Federal Claims ruled that the collective bargaining agreement requirement

01:35violated the Competition and Contracting Act by excluding responsible offers that

01:40are capable of performing the contract. I am working on legislation to ensure that

01:45no further PLA agreements are placed on federal contracts in the future with only 11% of the workforce

01:51unionized. Will you continue to support a free market and ensure fair competition

01:55across the workplace? Yeah thank you. I wanted to go back just quickly on the

02:00legislation and the Department of Labor again as was mentioned will provide any

02:05technical assistance that we can offer as you move legislation through Congress

02:09anything that we can do to help out on that because you're right as an

02:13oversight if it was to come to fruition would be through the Department of Labor so

02:16thank you because we understand you know that is a growing concern amongst a lot of

02:25our working families. The U.S. is one of seven developed nations in the world that

02:29does not have a structured paid family leave program and so my colleagues and I

02:34bipartisan and bicameral actually are looking to try to solve that and we look

02:37forward to working with your department. Great and thank you and and then again on

02:41right to work as was mentioned in my hearing and mentioned here today you know it's a

02:45fundamental tenet of labor law that states have a right to choose if they want to

02:51be a right-to-work state or if they want to unionize and and again from the

02:55secretary's office you know that's left up you know to those states. Now on this

03:02that the specific specific PLA that you're talking about was not really a

03:05Department of Labor law but we want to work with every state in order to

03:10understand that we want to grow the workforce that has been really at the

03:14fundamental core of President Trump's agenda is to grow this economy and not

03:19get out get out of our own way so to speak and so from the secretary's office

03:23we want to make sure that we're supporting growing that workforce in any

03:26way that we can. Well speaking of the workforce in April the jobs report beat

03:30expectations by 40,000 jobs showing that President Trump has strengthened the

03:35private sector and is growing Main Street America. Can you describe your work on

03:39removing some of the burdensome regulations that have allowed wages to

03:42grow and how the committee can partner with you to keep the momentum going. Yeah

03:46thank you and again I would like to go back even one month prior to that and you

03:50know we did we did blow it out of the water and I think that that's what's

03:52important to answering the call of the market and what's happening 228,000 jobs

03:58in one and then 177,000 jobs and and those are above expectations and I would

04:04imagine we will continue down that road and growing this workforce because of the

04:10flexibility and modernization of labor law and I think that that's been key for

04:14not only my agency but but with our business and our labor wherever they are

04:19in the continuum that we will continue to reduce those barriers so we can grow the

04:23American workforce first and stay focused on the American worker and every

04:26conversation that I had with each and every one of you will always come from the

04:29pinnacle of the American worker first. Very much appreciate that that's an

04:33important aspect of the tentative small business but also of your organization

04:37so we appreciate your time in dedication to the country thank you for your

04:41service and with that madam chair I yield.

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