Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer: Three EEO Complaints, One Toxic Office

April 20, 2026

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is now facing at least three formal Equal Employment Opportunity complaints from her own employees, according to reporting by MS NOW, HR Brew, and Politico this month. The complaints allege that she created a hostile workplace, threatened staff, and retaliated against women who came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against her husband.

Her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, was banned from the Labor Department headquarters in Washington after two young female staffers alleged he inappropriately touched them late last year while they were working at the agency. Federal prosecutors reviewed the case, including security camera footage, and declined to bring charges. That decision closed the criminal matter. The workplace problem is still open.

Trump, according to Politico, has expressed "frustration and disappointment" with Chavez-DeRemer. A lawyer quoted by multiple outlets on April 19, 2026 predicted she is the next cabinet member to go.

What the complaints say

The three women allege that after they reported Dr. DeRemer's conduct, Chavez-DeRemer and her senior aides turned on them: threats, retaliation, and demands that young staffers be used as personal servants to the Secretary and her family. New York Times reporting, cited by HR Brew, describes text messages in which Chavez-DeRemer's husband and her father, Richard Chavez, sent messages to young female staff after Chavez-DeRemer and her chief of staff instructed the staff to "pay attention" to the men.

One allegation is that Chavez-DeRemer required staff to clean out closets at her apartment. Another is that she directed employees to run personal errands. These are not corner-case complaints. They are core to what a federal agency cannot legally demand of its workforce.

Why this belongs in the Bootlickers file

Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed because she voted for the PRO Act and had union backing in the House, which let Trump claim a pro-worker flank for his labor pick. What the country got instead is a Department of Labor that is, by the accounts of its own employees, a place where young women are expected to babysit the Secretary's family, tolerate harassment, and face retaliation if they speak up.

The pattern across this cabinet is consistent. Noem was removed in March after months of damaging headlines. Bondi was removed shortly after when Trump "soured" on her ability to do the job of Attorney General, though not before she fired the DOJ's top ethics adviser and the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility. Chavez-DeRemer's alleged conduct sits on the same spectrum: the top of an agency using it as personal staff while the actual mission (in her case, protecting American workers) sits on the back burner.

What "bootlicker" buys you

The Trump cabinet was selected for loyalty, not competence or ethics. That tradeoff has a cost, and the Labor Department is paying it in staff resignations, EEO filings, and workplace trauma. The agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law is the agency that cannot hold its own leadership to federal labor law.

This is not a niche story. The Department of Labor administers wage protections, OSHA, the Employee Benefits Security Administration, and the Women's Bureau. Every one of those mandates relies on career civil servants being able to do their job without being threatened by political leadership. Three EEO complaints say they cannot.

The likely next move

If reporting holds, Chavez-DeRemer will be removed within weeks and replaced by another Trump pick. The cycle will reset. The staff will brace for the next one. The actual accountability question (what the Labor Department is supposed to do for American workers, and why none of the last three years' picks have been positioned to do it) will stay unanswered.

Call your senator. Ask whether the next Labor Secretary nominee will face a real hearing, or whether loyalty to Trump is once again going to be the only qualification tested.