President Biden’s participation in a UAW picket line stands in stark relief to Trump’s shameful record of opposing worker rights at nearly every opportunity. The Communication Workers of America share the particulars in “Trump’s AntiWorker Record,” cross-posted here:
“At every turn Donald Trump and his appointees have made increasing the power of corporations over working people their top priority. The list of the damage done to working people by the Trump Administration is long, and growing every day. Here are a few examples.
Trump has encouraged freeloaders, made it more difficult to enforce collective bargaining agreements, silenced workers and restricted the freedom to join unions:
- Trump has packed the courts with anti-labor judges who have made the entire public sector “right to work for less” in an attempt to financially weaken unions by increasing the number of freeloaders.1
- Trump has stacked the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees who side with employers in contract disputes and support companies who delay and stall union elections, misclassify workers to take away their freedom to join a union, and silence workers.2
- Trump has made it easier for employers to fire or penalize workers who speak up for better pay and working conditions or exercise the right to strike.3
- Trump promised to veto the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, historic legislation that will reverse decades of legislation meant to crush private sector unions and shift power away from CEOs to workers.4
Trump has restricted overtime pay, opposed wage increases, and gutted health and safety protections:
- Trump changed the rules about who qualifies for overtime pay, making more than 8 million workers ineligible and costing them over $1 billion per year in lost wages.5
- Trump has reduced the number of OSHA inspectors so that there are now fewer than at any time in history, and weakened penalties for companies that fail to report violations.6
- Trump threatened to veto legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.7
- Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia, is an anti-worker, union-busting corporate lawyer who aggressively defended Cablevision’s decision to fire 22 workers when they tried to win a contract with CWA.8
Trump has helped insurers reduce coverage and made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to inflate drug prices:
- Trump supports an ongoing lawsuit that would eliminate protections that ensure that health insurers can’t discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.9
- Trump threatened to veto legislation to reduce prescription drug costs, even though last year the prices of over 3,000 drugs increased by an average of 10.5%.10
- Trump’s made protecting the profits of pharmaceutical companies a priority in NAFTA renegotiations.11
- Trump’s proposed FY2021 budget would cut funding for Medicare.12
Trump has encouraged outsourcing and offshoring:
- Instead of supporting CWA’s bipartisan legislation to help save call center jobs, Trump pushed for a corporate tax cut bill that gives companies a 50% tax break on their foreign profits – making it financially rewarding for them to move our jobs overseas.13
- On two separate occasions, a group of Senators wrote Trump asking him to issue an executive order preventing federal contracts from going to companies that send call center jobs overseas, and CWA President Chris Shelton even asked him to do so during an in person during a meeting in the Oval Office. He never responded.14
- Trump has broken his campaign promise to take on companies that move good jobs overseas—instead, he’s given over $115 billion in federal contracts to companies that are offshoring jobs.15
Trump failed to prepare the nation for the COVID-19 pandemic, opposes hazard pay for essential workers, and has given employers a free pass to lower safety standards:
- Trump has failed to secure enough Personal Protective Equipment for essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis and has weakened protections for workers who are concerned about working in unsafe environments.16
- Trump refused to use the Defense Production Act to get our IUE-CWA manufacturing members back to work producing ventilators or PPE and instead used it to force meatpacking plants to open despite thousands of workers getting infected on the job in unsafe working conditions.17
- Trump promised to veto the Heroes Act, which would give essential workers premium “hazard” pay and expand paid leave and unemployment insurance for those impacted by the Coronavirus.18
- Trump has opposed providing aid to help state and local governments continue providing services and keep workers on payroll—he suggested instead that it might make sense to allow states to declare bankruptcy.19
- Trump’s OSHA has lowered standards meant to protect workers from getting sick at work and given employers a free pass if they fail to follow even those minimal requirements.20
Notes
