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Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s tenure as head of the US Department of Labor was further embroiled in scandal on Thursday after bombshell New York Times reporting revealed that her husband has been banned from the agency’s headquarters over sexual assault allegations leveled by at least two staffers.

The reporting landed on the same day that a group of Senate Democrats launched an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer’s policy moves at the Labor Department, accusing her agency of showing “disregard for workers’ lives” by “rolling back protections that keep workers safe and hobbling the agency that is tasked with overseeing worker safety.”

The sexual assault allegations against the labor secretary’s husband, Shawn DeRemer, were made by two women “as part of an internal investigation by the department’s inspector general into alleged misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her senior staff,” the Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter and a police report.

“The widening misconduct scandal at the Labor Department has forced several aides and members of the security staff in Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s inner circle onto administrative and investigative leave,” the newspaper continued. “The inspector general’s office is investigating a formal complaint that Ms. Chavez-DeRemer was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate — a member of her security detail — and abusing her office by taking staff to strip clubs, drinking alcohol on the job, and taking personal trips at taxpayer expense. Her lawyer has denied the allegations.”

“This is Trump’s America,” retired US diplomat Ken Fairfax wrote in response to the reporting.

Trump’s War on OSHA Could Spell the End for Biden-Era Heat Protections

Meanwhile, Chavez-DeRemer has been playing a central role in what six Senate Democrats characterized as the Trump administration’s “attack on workers from all sides.”

In a Thursday letter to Chavez-DeRemer and David Keeling, the assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Democrats expressed alarm over the Labor Department’s “ambitious deregulatory agenda that includes many of the regulations that OSHA has promulgated to keep American workers safe.”

The lawmakers pointed specifically to Labor Department efforts to eliminate more than a third of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s offices, roll back “a requirement for employers to provide adequate lighting at construction sites,” and loosen “respirator requirements for workers exposed to dangerous materials like lead, asbestos, and formaldehyde, as well as chemicals known to be carcinogens.”

“But you are not only rolling back rules that protect workers — OSHA also appears to be taking a lighter hand in enforcing even the rules that still exist,” the senators wrote. “According to OSHA statistics comparing the months of April through September 2025 with the same period in 2024, the agency reduced workplace inspections by 20%. Those statistics also show a 42% decrease in the number of ‘willful violations’ found during inspections by OSHA during the months of April-September of 2025 as compared to the same period in 2024.”

Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed as labor secretary last year with bipartisan support and a boost from the Teamsters union given some of her past pro-worker stances, such as support for the PRO Act — which she quickly distanced herself from during the confirmation process.

“Chavez-DeRemer refused to commit to supporting a minimum-wage increase, or paid leave for workers,” The Nation‘s John Nichols wrote following her confirmation hearing last February. “And, of course, she unapologetically declared, ‘The right to work is a fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right-to-work state, and that should be protected.’”

“She has made it abundantly clear that she is not interested in serving as an ally of America’s workers or the unions that represent them,” Nichols added. “In the great struggle between the working class and the billionaire class, Chavez-DeRemer has chosen to side with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the oligarchs.”

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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep.

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