In April 2025, Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts voted against a budget amendment to protect federal workers' union contracts a week after the President ordered an end to bargaining at most agencies, against one to let the Senate raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour, and against one to protect home care workers that failed 49 to 50, so his vote was one it could not lose.
Ricketts voted to confirm Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and her deputy, Keith Sonderling, whom he later voted to confirm as secretary. Their department stopped enforcing minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers, cut the wage formula for H-2A farmworkers, let workers with disabilities keep being paid below the minimum wage, and removed the 2024 overtime rule from federal regulations after a court struck it down.
Pete Ricketts's Votes and Confirmations on Pay, Overtime and Unions
- Ricketts Cast a Deciding Vote Against a Budget Pledge to Protect Home Care Workers in April 2025. On April 5, 2025, Pete Ricketts voted no on an amendment for a reserve fund to prevent increased barriers to American caregivers, including home care workers. It was rejected 49 to 50, so a switch by Ricketts alone would have adopted it. That July the Labor Department told investigators to stop enforcement of the 2013 final rule immediately, the rule that extended minimum wage and overtime protections to about 2 million of these workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
- Ricketts Voted Against Protecting Federal Workers' Union Contracts in April 2025. On April 4, 2025, Ricketts voted no on a budget amendment for protecting the legally binding collective bargaining agreements of federal employees. It was rejected 48 to 51, a week after the President ordered an end to bargaining at most federal agencies. Unions representing roughly 800,000 federal civilian employees sued, and an appeals court let the order take effect in February 2026. The VA, run by a secretary Ricketts voted to confirm, announced the termination of collective bargaining agreements for most VA bargaining-unit employees in August 2025. In an August 2026 Gallup poll, 71% of Americans said they approve of labor unions.
- Ricketts Voted Against Letting the Senate Raise the Minimum Wage to $17 in April 2025. On April 5, 2025, Ricketts voted no on an amendment to the budget resolution To make sure the Senate can increase the Federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by a simple majority vote. It was rejected 47 to 52. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 - July 24, 2009 and has not changed since.
- Ricketts Voted Twice to Confirm Keith Sonderling, Whose Labor Department Erased the 2024 Overtime Rule. On March 12, 2025, Ricketts voted to confirm Keith Sonderling as deputy secretary of labor, and on September 30, 2026 he voted to confirm him as secretary. Sonderling has already been on the job as acting secretary since April 2026. A federal court had struck the 2024 overtime rule in November 2024, stripping overtime eligibility from an estimated 1 million workers. With Sonderling as deputy and then acting secretary, the department let its appeals be dismissed and in May 2026 published a rule removing from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) the regulatory text of the 2024 rule, which had raised the salary level for overtime from $35,568 to $43,888. In February 2026 the department also proposed to rescind the analysis for determining employee or independent contractor status, a step toward letting more employers treat workers as contractors who are not owed minimum wage or overtime (proposed, not final).
- Ricketts Voted to Confirm the Labor Secretary Whose Department Cut Protections for Home Care, Farm and Disabled Workers. On March 10, 2025, Ricketts voted to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of labor; she was confirmed 67 to 32. Her department stopped enforcing minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers in July 2025, and it withdrew a proposal to phase out the issuance of subminimum wage certificates that let employers pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage. Its new H-2A wage formula, under which This rule is effective October 2, 2025, would transfer an estimated $2.46 billion annually from H-2A farmworkers to employers, Wisconsin's Justice Department argued, and a court held it unlawful but declined to vacate the rule. OSHA reported 629 federal compliance safety and health officers as of Sept. 30, 2025, down from 812 a year earlier, which means fewer workplace safety inspections.
What the Lost Wage Protections Pete Ricketts Backed Mean for Workers in Nebraska
- Home care aides. Nebraska's home care aides are among the about 2 million workers whose federal minimum wage and overtime protections the Labor Department stopped enforcing in July 2025, so an aide who works past 40 hours a week can no longer count on federal investigators to recover unpaid overtime.
- Farmworkers. Farms in Nebraska and other states that hire seasonal workers through the H-2A program now pay under the Labor Department's new wage formula, which took effect October 2, 2025 and which Wisconsin's Justice Department argued would transfer an estimated $2.46 billion annually from H-2A farmworkers to employers nationwide.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pete Ricketts on Labor and wages
What is Pete Ricketts's record on labor and wages under Trump?
Pete Ricketts voted against protecting federal workers' union contracts, against letting the Senate raise the minimum wage to $17 an hour and against a budget pledge to protect home care workers, all in April 2025. He voted to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Keith Sonderling, whose Labor Department stopped enforcing home care protections, cut H-2A farmworker wages and erased the 2024 overtime rule.
Did Pete Ricketts vote to raise the minimum wage?
No. Pete Ricketts voted no on April 5, 2025 on an amendment that would have let the Senate raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour with a simple majority, and it failed 47 to 52. The federal minimum has been $7.25 since 2009.
Who runs the Labor Department now, and did Pete Ricketts vote for him?
Keith Sonderling became secretary of labor on September 30, 2026, and Pete Ricketts voted to confirm him, as he had for deputy secretary in 2025. Sonderling took over after Chavez-DeRemer resigned her position April 20, amid an investigation into various allegations of professional misconduct, Willamette Week reported.
Last updated: 2026-10-25