To watch the full exchange, click here.
Washington, D.C. – Today, Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, questioned Secretary of Labor nominee Lori Chavez-DeRemer on her commitments to supporting America’s workforce – including federal workers and the future of work. As Delaware’s former Secretary of Labor, Blunt Rochester pressed Chavez-DeRemer on the Trump Administration’s reckless, recent mass layoffs of public servants in critical roles across the federal government.
Senator Blunt Rochester: “I know you are following the reports, the over 10,000 federal employees, civil servants, who have been fired in recent weeks, including staff at the FAA, the NIH, HHS, the Department of Education, and more. To me, beyond the harmful impacts that those individuals are feeling, and their families are experiencing, [this] is having ramifications across the country. Everything from our plane safety to biomedical research, to measles outbreaks that I just heard on the news earlier today, to the avian flu. All of this while the cost of eggs [is] not going down. People are feeling the impact. I am also concerned – I shared with you I had the opportunity to serve in Delaware as Secretary of Labor, and so labor is so important to me.”
“But [I also served as] State Personnel Director, and just from a workforce planning perspective, a lot of this doesn’t even make sense – to get rid of some employees that are protecting our national security, our nuclear safety, all of these things, and our health just doesn’t make sense…”
Senator Blunt Rochester: “So far, we know we need more workers to grow our economy. Do you have a plan to prepare workers for careers in emerging industries like biotech and AI?”
Ms. Chavez-DeRemer: “Senator, I really did appreciate our meeting as well. I know you have the knowledge from a labor department in Delaware and that you ran that. I hope we work together, and you will share with me some of the tips and tricks of the trade because I don’t need to reinvent the wheel in a lot of places. I just need to make sure that we’re respecting and honoring your story as well and for Delawareans…But this is important…So, under the Department of Labor, it’s going to be my responsibility to make sure we’re investing in that workforce development.”
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Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester represents Delaware in the United States Senate where she serves on the Committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Environment and Public Works; and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.