Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer returns to Washington, DC on the heels of her year-long America at Work tour as an isolated agency leader facing mounting challenges to impart her mark on the department.
The ongoing investigation into claims of travel fraud and other misconduct by the labor secretary, sparked in part by her alleged actions on the tour, has so far resulted in the resignations of two of her closest advisers at the department and sidelined two others. Of the seven people Bloomberg Law identified that Chavez-DeRemer brought to the DOL from her former congressional office, just two remain at the agency.
Several people familiar with internal DOL matters say that without key allies it will be tough for her to stake her claim on initiatives already rolling through the department’s subagencies or direct her own major policy decisions affecting employers and workers, like labor secretaries have traditionally done.
The secretary is effectively starting anew by having to hire key staff and outlining her agenda, said Nicholas Beadle, a former DOL official who spent more than a decade at the agency in various roles.
“If you’ve been isolated and on the road like she has it’s like catching a moving train now,” Beadle said. “That’s the danger of being on the road so much in the beginning. The wheels are already turning.”
Chavez-DeRemer has traveled to every state, meeting with industry leaders and local workers since her Senate confirmation roughly a year ago to promote the department’s push to expand registered apprenticeships. Press coverage about the misconduct investigation has dwarfed her talking points.
DOL spokesperson Courtney Parella said in a statement that the secretary is “deeply engaged” in leading the department and meeting with workers and employers across the country.
“This direct engagement is central to her policymaking approach, ensuring that the needs of Americans affected by federal labor policy are being met in Washington. The Secretary will continue advancing the President’s America First agenda and supporting both labor and business,” she said.
In a press release marking the end of the tour last week, the department said Chavez-DeRemer “fostered partnerships” with unions and business leaders, identified ways to improve workforce development, and promoted “made in America jobs” through her year on the road.
A Policy Agenda?
While the White House has remained outwardly supportive of Chavez-DeRemer, the secretary is battling the perception that she’s an absentee leader.
Her publicly available calendars from 2025 show she was more frequently on the road than her predecessors, averaging nearly 11 days away each month in the first six months of her tenure. Former acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, for comparison, traveled on average three days per month during her first six months in charge of the department.
During the tour, Chavez-DeRemer wasn’t meeting regularly with other DOL leaders, according to her calendars. She did, however, launch a new enforcement initiative known as “Project Firewall” to probe employers’ H-1B visa program compliance—with the labor secretary herself personally certifying the investigations.
Meanwhile, Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling attended nearly weekly meetings with heads of the Wage and Hour Division, Employment and Training Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, along with representatives from the White House, his 2025 calendars show.
Sonderling has spent almost a decade in policymaking positions at the DOL and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He has pushed the usage of DOL opinion letters and recently
outlined his vision for tapping into registered apprentices to staff the AI infrastructure boom in the US.
If Chavez-DeRemer does decide to take a more direct hand in the DOL’s policy initiatives, labor stakeholders said it’s unclear what her policy goals are.
Su and former secretary Marty Walsh leaned on their relationships with unions to settle labor disputes and emphasized workplace safety and modernization in the unemployment insurance system during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chavez-DeRemer, despite being sold to Congress as a labor ally, has yet to wade into any of the labor strikes of the past year, aside from blaming them for slumping jobs figures.
“We know what the department is doing but we don’t necessarily know what she wants to do,” Beadle said. “We knew what Marty Walsh wanted to do, what Alex Acosta wanted to do. I don’t know what Lori wants to do.”
Current Work
With Sonderling handling much of the day-to-day operations at the DOL, the agency has put out proposed rules on independent contractor classification, fee transparency for pharmacy benefit managers, and enforcement around certain workplace hazards.
Other major labor policies haven’t been completed yet. Employers are still waiting on updated policies around joint employer classification, overtime thresholds, alternative investments in 401(k)s, environmental, social, and governance investing for retirement plans, and heat safety.
An employer-side attorney who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly said company-side lawyers are starting to express frustration with the pace of regulation rollout at the DOL.
“The administration’s time is finite. We’re already a year in and these rules take a long time,” the attorney said.
Nathan Mehrens, vice president for regulatory affairs and workforce policy at the American Trucking Association, said the group has been pleased with the proposed independent contractor rule and the department’s push to expand registered apprenticeships.
“I would assume that’s a big distraction in the secretary’s suite and probably not helpful,” he said of the investigation. “But in my interactions with staff, they’re focused on what they need to do. Everyone’s got their marching orders and I don’t think this necessarily affects that.”
Losing Allies
The growing internal investigation of Chavez-DeRemer and her staff has cost the labor secretary three top advisers and a security guard, leaving her without key allies.
The inspector general’s probe involves accusations that she had an inappropriate relationship with a security guard on her detail, took staff members to a strip club, and drank in the office. The security guard was also placed on administrative leave.
She brought seven staffers to DOL from her congressional office. With five on the sidelines, that leaves her with just two close advisers left.
Jihun Han was her congressional chief of staff and transitioned to be her DOL chief of staff. Rebecca Wright was her congressional district director and transitioned to be her DOL deputy chief of staff. Both resigned this month after being on administrative leave since the end of January.
“These folks were basically your brain stem in terms of enacting your policy and imposing your will on the department,” Beadle said. “Those guys are gone now.”
Peyton Rollins, who started as an intern on Chavez-DeRemer’s staff and then moved over to digital content manager for the Labor Department, garnered widespread criticism online and among DOL employees for crafting social media posts allegedly containing nationalist rhetoric.
Rollins moved over to the Department of Homeland Security in February, according to his LinkedIn profile. Joe MacFarlane was tapped as a legislative officer and liaison at the DOL after being Chavez-DeRemer’s legislative director. He now works in government affairs at Adobe Inc. Hayley Fernandes was Chavez-DeRemer’s Congressional agriculture legislative assistant and then policy adviser in DOL’s office of immigration policy. She left the department in December to work for Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.).
The members of Chavez-DeRemer’s congressional staff remaining at the DOL are Peyton Smith, the secretary’s director of scheduling, and Aaron Britt, who heads the office of public affairs.
Melissa Robey, who accompanied Chavez-DeRemer throughout her nationwide tour, was placed on administrative leave while in Hawaii for one of the secretary’s last tour stops. Robey wasn’t a member of the secretary’s congressional staff.
Tre'Vaughn Howard, Brett Samuels in Washington and Rebecca Klar in Washington also contributed to this story.
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