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Democratic lawmakers are demanding Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer “abandon all efforts to eliminate the [Women’s] Bureau.”<\/span>Michael Brochstein\/ZUMA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Democratic lawmakers are<\/span> demanding Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer preserve the Women\u2019s Bureau following recent reporting from Mother Jones <\/em>that the Trump administration is seeking to eliminate<\/a> the 105-year-old, congressionally mandated office charged with supporting women in the workforce.<\/p>\n On Monday afternoon, 34 members of the Democratic Women\u2019s Caucus sent Chavez-DeRemer a letter<\/a> demanding the labor secretary \u201cimmediately restore the Women\u2019s Bureau to its full function and funding, fulfill the terminated grants, and abandon all efforts to eliminate the Bureau.\u201d The letter cites Mother Jones<\/em>\u2019 story<\/a> from earlier this month, which was the first to report that both the White House\u2019s and Department of Labor\u2019s (DOL) budget requests to Congress propose eliminating the Women\u2019s Bureau.<\/p>\n It also cites<\/a> a Mother Jones<\/em> story from last month that was one of the first to report that Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) killed more than two dozen grants administered by the bureau, many of which were congressionally mandated and aimed to increase women\u2019s representation in trades like construction, manufacturing, and information technology.<\/p>\n \u201cThe proposed elimination of the Women\u2019s Bureau and termination of grants that support women in the workforce is a total betrayal of women across the country,\u201d the letter states. The letter is the second the Democratic Women\u2019s Caucus has sent Chavez-DeRemer expressing concerns over the gutting of the Women\u2019s Bureau: They previously wrote<\/a> to her in April urging her \u201cto preserve current staffing and strengthen the Bureau\u2019s capacity to fulfill its mandate, as Congress intended\u201d\u2014but she never responded, according to several lawmakers involved. (Spokespeople for the Labor Department did not respond to questions from Mother Jones <\/em>on Monday.)<\/p>\n The Trump administration has already managed to undermine the bureau\u2019s work without eliminating the office entirely. Nine current and former Labor Department staffers previously told me that the bureau has lost about half of its approximately 50-person staff through a combination of buyouts and resignations, and that their work has essentially been at a standstill since Trump resumed office.<\/p>\n In the past, the bureau\u2019s critical work has included regularly researching women\u2019s workforce participation<\/a>\u00a0by county, the\u00a0gender wage gap<\/a>\u00a0by race and\u00a0occupation<\/a>, and\u00a0child care prices nationwide<\/a>; briefing federal lawmakers to help inform policies to support women workers. The bureau\u2019s work helped pass<\/a> laws, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The office also hosted in-person training sessions nationwide to help workers learn their rights, and partnered <\/strong>with other federal agencies to implement programs to support women\u2019s wellbeing and equity at work.<\/p>\n Despite all this, in the budget brief calling for its elimination, the Labor Department <\/strong>dismissed the Women\u2019s Bureau as \u201can ineffective policy office that is a relic of the past.\u201d The current and former DOL staffers previously told me they see\u00a0<\/em>the move as reflective of the Trump administration\u2019s ambitions to drive women out of the workforce and back into their homes to raise children<\/a>. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), one of the lead authors of the letter, sees the administration\u2019s attack on the bureau as \u201cturning back the clock in ways that are really pretty outrageous,\u201d she told me by phone on Monday. The Women\u2019s Bureau, she added, is \u201cjust as important 1750140142 as it ever was.\u201d<\/p>\n Data supports this. The gender wage gap\u00a0widened<\/a>\u00a0for the first time in 20 years following the pandemic, and women\u2019s labor force participation rate has\u00a0decreased<\/a>\u00a0since peaking in the 1990s.\u00a0Citing these facts, the letter states that the DOL characterization of the bureau as \u201c\u2018a relic of the past\u2019 is not only incorrect, it is completely ignorant to what the data shows and the struggles of working women everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Bonamici, who has advocated<\/a> for expanding access and affordability to child care, said she has relied<\/a> on the bureau\u2019s database of prices of childcare by county, which the DOL has said is the most comprehensive database of its kind. \u201cWhen we have this information, it helps us pass policies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Bonamici also pointed to the important work of the Oregon Tradeswomen<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that has relied on the now-canceled Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations\u00a0(WANTO)<\/a> grants that the bureau administered to enter the trades. \u201cYou can see women getting good jobs to turn their lives around,\u201d she said. \u201cThat, to me, is a great use of federal resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Bonamici and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), another lead author of the letter, said they want to see their Republican colleagues step up to oppose the efforts to eliminate the bureau. \u201cWe need our Republican colleagues to be forceful with the constitutional responsibility that we have to be the lawmakers and to be the overseers,\u201d Houlahan said, adding that she is \u201cenormously disappointed\u201d in her GOP colleagues. \u201cThey\u2019re allowing the president to run roughshod over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n But asking them to reverse course to defend the Women\u2019s Bureau could be a tall order. House Republicans unsuccessfully\u00a0tried to eliminate<\/a>\u00a0it for the first time in at least a decade back in 2023. Project 2025, which has proven to be an <\/strong>instruction manual for how the Trump administration is running the government, alleged the bureau \u201ctends towards a politicized research and engagement agenda that puts predetermined conclusions ahead of empirical study\u201d and said it should \u201crededicate its research budget towards open inquiry, especially to dissentangle the influences on women\u2019s workforce participation and to understand the true causes of earnings gaps between men and women.\u201d<\/p>\n The DOL admits in its budget brief that department officials aim to work with Congress to repeal the statutes mandating the existence of the Women\u2019s Bureau as well as the WANTO grant program that was already canceled. The Democratic lawmakers say that would be their best shot at fighting to preserve the office, and recruiting their GOP colleagues to join in.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they bring a bill forward to eliminate the Women\u2019s Bureau,\u201d Bonamici said, \u201cwe will fight it with everything we have.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n