Trump has gutted labor rights, slashed the federal workforce, and opposed a minimum wage hike. But resistance is brewing.
By Sarah Anderson
Director of the Global Economy Project and co-editor of Inequality.org, at the Institute for Policy Studies
(Photo courtesy of OtherWords.org, CC-BY-ND-3.0)
Well, we’ve hit the 100 day mark of the second Trump administration. Donald Trump campaigned as a champion of working class voters. But straight out of the blocks, his policy choices have undermined workers at nearly every turn.
A recent fact sheet from the Institute for Policy Studies, Economic Policy Institute, and Repairers of the Breach rounds up the damage so far.
Trump started by illegally removing National Labor Relations Board Chair Gwynne Wilcox for allegedly favoring workers’ interests over employers. The NLRB cracks down on union busting and other abuses, but now it can’t function. A federal court ruled to reinstate Wilcox, but the Republican-dominated Supreme Court blocked this action while litigation is pending.
Through a series of executive orders, Trump has also removed long-standing job protections for federal career employees, making it easier to fire these workers for no reason and taking away the rights of federal workers to collectively bargain.
Trump’s assaults on union rights will have damaging ripple effects throughout our economy. Unionized workers earn on average 13.5 percent more than their non-unionized peers and enjoy better access to health care, paid sick leave, and retirement benefits. Without competition from these jobs, many employers may cut non-union wages and benefits even further.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s picks for Treasury and Labor secretaries have made clear they don’t support raising the minimum wage, even though it’s been stuck at just $7.25 per hour for over 15 years. Some 20 states still use the federal minimum, which is a poverty wage even at full-time hours.
And the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 14 million U.S. workers earn less than $15 per hour, the level many advocates want to raise the minimum to. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s chaotic tariffs threaten to increase consumer prices, making it even more difficult for low-wage workers to get by.
Led by Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the administration has also been on a rampage against the federal workforce. As of the middle of April, the administration had fired over 121,300 federal workers, with many thousands more pressured to resign and more rounds of layoffs to come.
These arbitrary and reckless cuts threaten to damage vital public agencies.
For example, the administration is planning to cut over 80,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency that provides health care for retired military personnel.
Labor Department cuts have led to the closure of more than 40 offices that inspect mines and other workplaces for safety. Additional planned layoffs will reduce the agency’s ability to ensure retirement benefits rights and prevent wage theft, discrimination, and child labor.
The slashing of 10,000 U.S. Agency for International Development employees will lead to an additional 6.3 million people around the world dying from HIV-AIDS in the next four years.
The Social Security Administration has laid off 7,000 employees and plans to cut 87 percent of regional office staff. These moves have already led to long wait times for support for people worried about losing this essential retirement benefit.
And finally, the administration is attempting to fire 90 percent of the 1,700 employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During its 14-year history, the CFPB has won nearly $21 billion in compensation for victims of fraud, racial discrimination in lending, and other financial abuse.
At this key 100-day benchmark, the Trump administration is facing a barrage of lawsuits, growing protests, and falling approval ratings. So while these early actions against working people have inflicted devastating effects on families across the country, the battle is by no means over.
This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed for syndication by OtherWords.org (CC BY-ND 3.0).
