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Union leaders have described President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Labor as a friend of organized labor. But as her confirmation hearing begins Wednesday, advocates for workers’ rights question whether Lori Chavez-DeRemer will be able to uphold that reputation in an administration that has fired thousands of federal employees.Chavez-DeRemer, a former Republican member of Congress from Oregon and former mayor of a small city on the edge of liberal-leaning Portland, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, the first stop in her confirmation process.During her one term as a congresswoman, Chavez-DeRemer’s voting record earned her strong union support. Some political observers surmised that Trump picked her as his labor secretary as a way to appeal to voters who are members of or affiliated with labor organizations. She is the daughter of a Teamster member.Before she lost her House reelection bid in November, Chavez-DeRemer backed the PRO Act, legislation that would allow more workers to conduct union organizing campaigns and penalize companies that violate workers’ rights. The bill, one of former President Joe Biden’s priorities, passed the House in 2021 but didn’t gain traction in the Senate.If confirmed as secretary, Chavez-DeRemer would be in charge of the Department of Labor’s nearly 16,000 full-time employees and a proposed budget of $13.9 billion in fiscal year 2025. She would set priorities that impact workers’ wages, ability to unionize, and health and safety, as well as employers’ rights to fire employees.But it’s unclear how much power Chavez-DeRemer will be able to wield as Trump’s Cabinet moves to slash U.S. government spending and the size of the federal workforce. During his first month in office, the president froze trillions of dollars in federal funding and offered buyouts to most federal workers.His administration last week started laying off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection. Billionaire Elon Musk, who leads Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, has called for getting rid of entire agencies.“The Department of Labor is the agency where people in building are supposed to wake up every day thinking about how they can improve the lives of working people,” said Adam Shah, director of national policy at Jobs with Justice, a nonprofit organization that promotes workers’ rights. “It’s quite possible that no matter what the secretary of labor stands for, the billionaire embedded in the Trump administration, who is so keen on destroying the institutions, will be interested in gutting the Department of Labor.”In January, Trump fired two of three Democratic commissioners serving on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that enforces civil rights in the workplace. He also fired the acting chair of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve as an NLRB member, as well as General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. Wilcox sued the Trump administration, arguing that federal law protects her from being arbitrarily dismissed.Republicans have made inroads with working-class voters. Despite decades of labor unions siding with Democrats, and Trump’s apparent support for firing striking workers, his populist appeal gained him votes from rank-and-file union members.Many major unions, including the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris in the presidential race. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate, and Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention. The Teamsters have endorsed Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination.Some observers expect Chavez-DeRemer to receive more votes from Senate Democrats than some of Trump’s other Cabinet selections did. But the same positions that won her support from unions may make her a harder sell with business groups; the American Trucking Associations and the International Franchise Association said they hoped she would disavow her past support for the Pro Act by working to get it overturned.Emily Twarog, an associate professor in the school of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois, said a question mark hangs over the labor secretary-designate even if she gets the Senate committee’s approval.With the ongoing efforts by the current administration to limit or eliminate certain government functions, “how much will she actually be able to do to help workers in the Department of Labor if there’s limited funding and restrictions put on the work that can be done?” Twarog said. Cathy Bussewitz, Associated Press
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What do prison and business have in common? At first glance, nothing. One is a place where hope and trust are scarce, and every decision you make is a matter of survival. The other is a world built on innovation and collaboration, full of opportunities. But when you strip them both down to their core, youll find the same thing: leadership. And not the kind of leadership you read about in glossy books. Im talking about real-life, earned leadership. My name is Andre Norman, and I was once sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. That kind of time breaks most men. But I worked day in and day out to earn my freedom and, after 14 years, I reentered the world as a completely different man. While I was behind bars, before I realized my life didnt have to end in prison, I rose through the ranks of the gang system. As a prison boss, I managed gang activities from within the maximum-security walls, one of the toughest environments on the planet. But I soon realized that, even though I had a sense of leadership, I was the King of Nowhere. During two years of solitary confinement, I made a decision that changed everything. I set my sights on Harvard University. It was a big goal for someone in my position, but I knew if I wanted it badly enough, I could make it happen. From that moment, I worked backward, using the same skills that had helped me survive in prison: reading people, networking, communicating. And in 2015, my dream became a reality: I earned a fellowship at Harvard Law School. In prison, leadership wasnt a titleit was survival. You had to know how to read people. If you make the wrong call, it could cost you your life. I didnt have the luxury of guessing. I had to know. Is this person going to kill me today, or are they someone I can work with? Behind bars, you learn quickly that loyalty isnt given, its earned. And trust? Trust is the most valuable currency of all. When I got out and started working with CEOs and leaders, I realized that the business world is not so different from the world I left behindbesides the fact that nobody is coming to the table with a knife. Still, the principles of leadership dont change. In prison, nobody cares about your title. They dont follow you because you say youre in charge. They follow you because youve proven you can lead. Its the same in business. Your people arent going to trust you just because of your org chart. Theyll trust you because youve shown them that youre worth trusting. If Ive learned one thing, its that leadership is universal. Whether youre behind bars or behind a desk, the same rules apply. Here are a few of the rules Ive picked up along the way: Comfort is the enemy of success Comfort is a trap. In prison, getting comfortable meant letting your guard down. And letting your guard down could mean losing everything. The same applies to leadership. When you and your team settle into a rhythm that feels safe, you stop growing. The best leaders embrace discomfort because its a sign of growth and progress. Make better people, not just better businesses Prison taught me that the strength of your crew determines the strength of your leadership. If youre only focused on hitting numbers or meeting deadlines, youre missing the bigger picture. In business, just like in life, better relationships build better outcomes. As a leader, your job isnt just to make sure the work gets done, its to help your team to grow into the best versions of themselves. When you invest in your people, the results take care of themselves. Accountability isnt punishment Holding people accountable doesnt make you the bad guy. Accountability is love. It means you care enough to challenge your team to be better, just like you challenge yourself to be a better leader. In prison, accountability was life or death. In business, its the difference between mediocrity and greatness. When you hold people accountable, youre not punishing themyoure showing them you believe in their potential. Communication is everything In prison, a single misstep in communication could lead to chaos. The same goes for business. Effective communication isnt just about what you say but how you say it. Even more importantly, its about how you listen. Great leaders read between the lines and notice whats been left unsaid. Their goal isnt to be the loudest voice in the room, but to create space for people to speak up. Communication is the glue that holds your team together. Golden handcuffs are still handcuffs Handcuffs trap leaders, too. The question is: Are you in your position because youre passionate about the work, or because of the allure of money, status, and power? Leadership can feel like a cage, even when its lined with perks. If you feel constrained, its time for a change. You can walk away. Or you can simply break free from monotony by seeking out fresh challenges that inspire and stretch you. Leadership isnt a positionits a practice. Its something you work at each and every day. Leadership is earned through action and proven in the moments when you step up, even when its hard. So, you have a choice: to lead with purpose or to go through the motions. The leaders who make the biggest impact are the ones who never stop doing the work. What does your leadership look like?
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As a kid of the 1970s, I was fascinated by a short-lived art movement known as photorealism. The painters who practiced it created works that werent merely realistic. They were borderline indistinguishable from photographsan extraordinary feat to pull off with oil on canvas. If the genre hadnt involved so much painstaking effort, it might have gained more momentum. Thanks to generative AI tools such as DALL-E and Midjourney, which can turn a written prompt into a photo-like image in seconds, we now live in an era of point-and-click photorealism. The results often dont amount to anything more than internet chum. I certainly didnt consider any of it to be artuntil last week, when I read about a Costa Rican artist named Matias Sauter Morera. He made the news by selling an image hed created using AI to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it will be included in an upcoming exhibit called Queer Lens: A History of Photography. In an interview with Artnets Adam Schrader, Sauter Moreraan accomplished photographerdiscussed this image and others hed made using AI, all inspired by the secret lives of 1970s Costa Rican cowboys. I encourage you to check out the Artnet storys pictures and explanation of why Sauter Morera chose to synthesize them rather than take them with a camera. He didnt just type prompts into DALL-E and then claim the results as his own creation. Instead, he says, his process involves multiple AI models, Photoshop, and months of labor; though he emphasizes that the results are not photos, they clearly benefit from his photographers eye. What Sauter Morera is doing has real emotional punch to it: It has more in common with the photorealism of the 70s than with the spammy, soulless AI slop of 2025. But I do admit to being taken aback by the way Artnet and other media outlets that reported on his Getty sale bandied about the term AI photograph. Im not even sure how I feel about the august museum including one of his computer-generated pictures in a photography exhibit. After all, the fact that an image looks an awful lot like a photograph does not make it one. Photos start out as light captured via a photosensitive surfacetoday, usually an electronic sensor, and a strip of film before that. They record a moment in time that actually occurred. Sauter Moreras AI images do not; thats their entire point. (He says he opted for AI in part to add a speculative element, as well as avoid invading anyones privacy.) Now, the line between photography and reality as we might envision it has always been blurry. For one thing, even unedited photos have the power to mislead as well as inform. The act of pointing a lens at something is as much about what doesnt get into the frame as what does; youre never seeing the whole story, and maybe not even a good-faith subset of it. More than a century and a half ago, famed photographer Mathew Brady shot a photo of then-presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, had an assistant retouch it to be more flattering, then took a picture of that picturebasically that eras equivalent of applying a beauty filter. Today, Google and Apple both tout smartphone AI that lets you quickly and easily erase people and objects from photos. That might be pretty innocuous if youre excising random photobombers from a snapshot of your family at the beach, but its still a decisive move away from photography being documentary evidence of anything. I believe its worth preserving the distinction between a photoeven its been through the AI wringerand something that closely resembles one. Im not just worried about the prospect of people being deceived by simulated photos produced by AI: That computer-generated horse is already out of the hyperrealistic barn. Itll only run more rampant as algorithms eradicate the remaining telltale signs of an images synthetic origins. (Incidentally, did you know that AI still cant figure out how to show left-handed people writing?) What has me particularly jittery is the prospect of peoplemany of whom are perfectly content luxuriating within bubbles of misinformationnot caring whether an image depicts something that actually happened. Conflating photo-like images with photos can only encourage such a scenario. Even now, this isnt a theoretical problem. Facebook is awash in bargain-basement AI imagery that doesnt seem to be fooling members so much as providing the same dopamine hit as a real photo. And last year, during Hurricane Helene, an AI-generated image of a sobbing child and adorable puppy being rescued via boat went viral on Twitter. The picture tugged at heartstrings, but was also weaponized in attacks on the Biden administrations response to the disaster. After its authenticity was questioned, one member of the Republican National Committee continued to call it a photo and said she didnt care about its backstory. She might not, but we should. Technologies and standards for authenticating the provenance of digital imagery are vital, but they presume a desire to separate the real from the fake. As that distinction gets tougher to make through mere eyeballing, well need to work harer to maintain it. Reserving the term photograph for images shot with a camera is not a bad first step. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if youre reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Wednesday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. Im also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads. More top tech stories from Fast Company This vibrating app makes you feel better just by putting your iPhone on your heartA new app uses haptic feedback motors to stimulate your vagus nerve and calm you down. Read More Federal workers fired by Elon Musks DOGE are sharing their anxieties on RedditGovernment employees are taking to the online forum to share layoff horror stories and discuss their next steps. Read More What is Y Combinator now? Critics say the famed accelerator is having an identity crisisAs Y Combinator expands and evolves, investors and founders question whether its golden reputation still holds. Read More Apple finally lets you merge 2 Apple IDskinda. Heres howAnyone with more than one Apple ID knows how frustrating things can get. Now you can do something about it. Read More A partnership between Jigsaw and this Kentucky city could be the future of civic engagementBowling Green is teaming up with Google and the statistical analysis company Polis to reimagine its future. Read More AI Companions: The future of friendship or a dangerous illusion?AI companions offering artificial intimacy are on the rise, but experts warn of mounting emotional dependence. Read More
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