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HOW DONALD TRUMP WORKED TO DESTROY AMERICA’S LABOR UNIONS  
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Lawrence Wittner
June 17, 2024
Forward Kentucky
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_ Trump says he is a “friend of the working class” – but he’s
anything but. Read on to learn why. _

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Although Donald Trump has been eager to garner support from American
labor unions for his re-election campaign, there are lots of reasons
he’s not going to get it. Chief among them is his record in
sabotaging the nation’s labor movement.

During his decades as a wealthy businessman, Trump clashed
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unions repeatedly
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And, upon becoming President, he appointed people much like himself
— from corporate backgrounds and hostile toward workers
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to head key government agencies and departments. Naturally, an
avalanche of anti-union policies followed.

Under Trump, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ― the federal
agency enforcing the nation’s fundamental labor law, the National
Labor Relations Act ― led the charge. Instead of following the
intent of the 1935 legislation, which was to guarantee the right of
workers to union representation, the Trump NLRB widened the basis for
denying that right. According to the NLRB
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the nearly two million Uber and Lyft drivers, as well as other workers
in the gig economy, were not really workers, but independent
contractors and, as such, not entitled to a union. The NLRB also
proposed depriving graduate teaching assistants and other student
employees
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private universities of the right to organize unions and collectively
bargain.

When it came to the reduced number of workers still eligible to form a
union, the Trump NLRB adopted new rules
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it more difficult for them to win the employee elections necessary for
union representation. The NLRB hindered union activists’ ability to
organize workers during non-working hours and, also, allowed employers
to gerrymander bargaining units. In March 2020, the Trump NLRB used
the excuse of the Covid-19 pandemic to suspend all union
representation elections and, thereafter, allowed mail ballot
elections only if the employer agreed to them.

Unlike their Trump-appointed managers, many NLRB employees, as career
civil servants, resented the agency’s shift toward anti-union
policies and sought to enforce what labor rights remained under the
National Labor Relations Act. But the new management undermined their
ability to protect workers’ rights by refusing to fill vacancies,
thereby hollowing out the agency
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As a result, the number of NLRB staff members dropped by nearly 20
percent.

Major federal departments moved in the same anti-union direction.
Trump’s Department of Education
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collective bargaining with the American Federation of Government
Employees and unilaterally imposed a contract curtailing the union
rights of the department’s 3,900 workers. Trump’s Department of
Labor
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requirements that employers disclose their use of “union-busting”
law firms (a practice in 75 percent of union representation elections
at an estimated annual cost of $340 million). And the Department of
Justice
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in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the _Janus_ case, delivered
what was expected to be a devastating blow to public sector unions.

_Janus v. AFSCME Council 31_
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the culmination of lengthy efforts by big business and reactionary
forces to cripple unions representing teachers, firefighters, and
other public servants by slashing their source of income: union dues.
In the past, the courts had ruled that, even if a public worker chose
not to join the union, the worker, in lieu of union dues, would still
have to pay “fair share fees” to cover the costs of collective
bargaining and administration of the union contract.

In the _Janus_ case, though, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling,
prohibited public sector unions from charging fees to nonmembers for
representation. In this fashion, the narrow Court majority (including
all three of Donald Trump’s appointees) established a significant
financial incentive for millions of workers to stop paying union dues
and become “free riders,” securing union benefits without paying
for them. To widespread surprise, though, union-represented workers
simply stuck with their unions and went on paying union dues, thereby
foiling this Trump administration gambit.

In addition to relying on his appointees, Trump took direct action as
president to undermine American unions. Kicking off Labor Day in
2018, he denounced the nation’s top labor leader
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Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, stating that Trumka’s
policies explained “why unions are doing so poorly.” In 2020,
after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the
Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act ― billed by the AFL-CIO
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“the most significant worker empowerment legislation since the Great
Depression” ― Trump blocked the legislation
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moving any further by threatening to veto it.

Trump’s disdain for the American labor movement continued in the
years after he left office. In August 2023, attacking the
newly-elected, dynamic leaders of the United Auto Workers (UAW), he
told UAW members
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“you shouldn’t pay those [union] dues because they’re selling
you to hell. Don’t listen to these union people who get paid a lot
of money.” That October, he insisted
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“The auto workers are being sold down the river by their
leadership.” In fact, though, that November, UAW president Shawn
Fain and his team led one of the most impressive nationwide strikes
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modern times, securing wage raises for auto workers of at least 25
percent, as well as boosting retirement contributions and other
benefits.

Not surprisingly, the UAW doesn’t have much respect for Donald
Trump
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In January 2024, the 400,000-member union endorsed Joe Biden for
re-election, with Fain remarking that Biden “stood with the American
worker,” while “Trump has a history of serving himself and
standing for the billionaire class.” These remarks echoed Fain’s
comments of a few days before, when he called Trump “a scab” who
“stands against everything we stand for as a union.”

The AFL-CIO, which unites most of America’s unions, delivered a
similar appraisal in a press release (“Donald Trump’s
Catastrophic and Devastating Anti-Labor Track Record”
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the preceding September. “Trump spent four years in office weakening
unions and working people,” it maintained. “We can’t afford
another four years of Trump’s corporate agenda to ... destroy our
unions.”

If Trump expects significant union support this November, it’s
merely another of his many illusions.

_Dr. Lawrence Wittner_
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of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of __Confronting
the Bomb_
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University Press)._

* Trump
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* Anti-Unionism
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