September, 27 2023, 01:52pm EDT
![AFL-CIO](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012689/origin.png)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Steve Smith, Deputy Director of Public Affairs, 202-805-6720 and Isabel Aldunate, 202-637-5018
Donald Trump’s Catastrophic and Devastating Anti-Labor Track Record
Donald Trump told us in 2016 he would stand with workers. He lied. The difference now is that he has a record he can’t hide from. And that record was catastrophic for workers. Former President Trump spent four years in office weakening unions and working people while pushing tax giveaways to the wealthiest among us. He stacked the courts with judges who want to roll back our rights on the job. He made us less safe at work. He gave big corporations free rein to lower wages and make it harder for workers to stand together in a union.
Trump’s rhetoric doesn’t match reality. Workers in Michigan and around the country know when we’re being sold a bill of goods. We can’t afford another four years of Trump’s corporate agenda to take away our hard-fought gains and destroy our unions.
This week workers will be out in force on the picket lines in Michigan and across the country to support striking autoworkers. We’ll also be calling out Trump’s lies as he attempts to appeal to the very same workers he spent four years in office betraying. In the coming weeks and months, the AFL-CIO and unions across the country will work tirelessly to expose Trump’s record.
With our earliest endorsement ever in June of this year, we’re already having the critical discussions on the ground in battleground states about the issues that matter and the contrast between the presidential candidates on those issues. And given the historic popularity unions have right now, unions are more credible than any other group or even the candidates themselves as these conversations ramp up. As it appears increasingly likely that Trump will be the Republican nominee, we’ll focus even more of our efforts at the worksite and on the doors to exposing Trump’s lies and ensuring that all working people know exactly where he stands on wages, safety, health care, retirement, unions and other issues that matter most.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who is on the picket line with workers in Detroit today: “The idea that Donald Trump has ever, or will ever, care about working people is demonstrably false. For his entire time as president, he actively sought to roll back worker protections, wages and the right to join a union at every level. UAW members are on the picket line fighting for fair wages and against the very corporate greed that Donald Trump represents. Working people see through his transparent efforts to reinvent history. We are not buying the lies that Donald Trump is selling. We will continue to support and organize for the causes and candidates that represent our values.”
ON BACKGROUND:
ASSAULTS ON OUR UNION RIGHTS
- Waged an assault on the economic rights of federal workers, repeatedly undermining their voice on the job:
- Undermined our merit-based civil service system, granting managers a license to freely discriminate and retaliate against workers.
- Restricted union representatives’ ability to advocate for their members on the job.
- Targeted workers’ freedom to negotiate on workplace issues, including reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities, employee training, overtime, telework and flexible work schedules.
- Revoked the Department of Education’s previously negotiated union contract and illegally imposed an anti-union directive, stripping 3,900 workers of all previously negotiated rights and protections.
- Stripped away protections for rank-and-file workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, prompting a 60% rise in firings in the second half of 2017 alone.
- Repeatedly turned a blind eye to misclassifying up to 30% of workers as independent contractors.
- Stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union-busting corporate lawyers, denying working people our right to organize through a fair process.
- Defended “right to work” in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Janus v. AFSCME Council 31.
- Rescinded the Department of Labor’s “persuader rule,” which required companies to disclose anti-union legal activities.
HURTING OUR POCKETBOOKS
- Trying to rip off tipped workers by implementing a proposal that would probably result in servers doing more nontipped work and at a lower pay rate than previously required.
- Opposed any increase in the federal minimum wage, denying a desperately needed raise to nearly 40 million workers.
- Derailed the Department of Labor’s overtime rule, blocking millions of workers from receiving a full paycheck.
- Undermined the fiduciary rule, potentially costing working people more than one-quarter of our retirement savings.
- Oversaw a rise in outsourcing, including the highest rate of outsourcing by federal contractors in a decade.
- Threatened the future of Social Security, chipping away at working people’s retirement security through $26 billion in proposed funding cuts.
BROKEN PROMISES
- Promised to protect jobs in the steel industry, but failed to follow through on cracking down on China’s dumping of steel into the U.S. In 2019 alone, more than 16,000 manufacturing workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan lost their jobs.
- Promised to “bring back manufacturing jobs and invest $1 trillion to rebuild U.S. infrastructure in Rust Belt states like Wisconsin.” But in his four years in office, Trump failed to advance any infrastructure legislation.
CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS
- Jammed through a massive tax giveaway for the rich, robbing working people of $1.5 trillion while encouraging corporations to outsource our jobs.
- Overturned the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ban on forced arbitration clauses, which had prohibited unfair contracts that force consumers to give up our right to sue.
- Destroyed key Dodd-Frank protections, placing the financial system at greater risk, exposing homebuyers and students to predatory lending and weakening protections against racial discrimination in credit.
- Pushed to weaken the rights of shareholders, which would prevent working people and our pension plans from holding corporations and CEOs accountable.
ANTI-WORKER TRADE DEALS
- Struck an anti-worker trade deal with South Korea, failing to secure key labor and human rights protections.
- Proposed a 78% cut to the International Labor Affairs Bureau, the federal agency tasked with promoting a fair global playing field for workers.
- Proposed $400 million budget cuts that would slash the Trade Adjustment Assistance program for those who lose their jobs to imports over the next decade.
THREATS TO OUR SAFETY AND HEALTH
- Targeted Medicare and Medicaid, proposing more than $1 trillion in funding cuts.
- Championed “Trumpcare,” threatening to rip health coverage away from 24 million Americans.
- Actively undermined the Affordable Care Act, increasing the number of uninsured Americans by 7 million.
- Made workplaces more dangerous by rolling back critical federal safety regulations:
- Cut federal workplace safety inspectors to their lowest level in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) history.
- Repealed record-keeping rules requiring employers to keep and report accurate injury records.
- Refused to publicly disclose fatality and injury data reported to OSHA.
- Loosened requirements for federal contractors, overturning a rule requiring companies to disclose labor violations before being awarded a federal contract.
- Undermined workers’ voice on the job, withdrawing a policy allowing nonunion workers to participate in safety inspections.
- Proposed eliminating the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and cutting workplace safety research and training programs.
- Proposed revoking key child labor protections for teenagers working in the health care industry.
- Weakened the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s mine safety enforcement, forcing miners to work in hazardous conditions.
- Halted new rules on styrene, combustible dust, construction noise, infectious diseases, silica and mine safety.
- Delayed and proposed rolling back the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical risk management rule, leaving workers, the public and first responders in danger.
FAILURE TO GOVERN
- Shut down the federal government for 35 days, forcing about 800,000 federal workers and more than 1 million contract workers to go more than a month without pay.
- Proposed merging the Education and Labor departments, further attempting to increase privatization and enrich corporations at the expense of working people.
- Pushed a 21% cut to the Department of Labor’s budget, including a 40% cut in job training and cuts to OSHA’s funding.
- Made numerous anti-worker appointments to key offices, including Eugene Scalia as secretary of labor, a union-busting corporate lawyer, and nominating Andrew Puzder as secretary of labor, despite his career-long record of disregarding the welfare of working people.
- William Emanuel and Marvin Kaplan to the National Labor Relations Board, allowing two professional union-busters to make critical rulings on the rights of working people, and many more.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) works tirelessly to improve the lives of working people. We are the democratic, voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions that represent 12.5 million working men and women.
LATEST NEWS
'Complicit in the Genocide': First Muslim Biden Appointee Resigns Over Gaza
"This administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians."
Jul 02, 2024
A political appointee at the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday became the youngest—and first Muslim American—appointee of President Joe Biden's to resign as his administration continues to "fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians."
"Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice," Special Assistant and Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Maryam Hassanein, 24, said in a statement.
"However, over the past nine months of Israel's genocide in Gaza, this administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians," she added. "I am resigning today from my position as a Biden administration appointee in the Department of the Interior."
Hassanein toldHuffPost that she decided to resign because "I came to understand that even if the agency I'm working at is not producing foreign policy, serving in the administration in any capacity does essentially make you complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians."
Palestine defenders applauded Hassanein's resignation—which made her at least the 11th American official to step down over U.S. support for Israel's war on Gaza, according to HuffPost.
"We welcome this principled resignation by another Biden administration official who took up their post believing they could help the nation, but instead realized they were becoming complicit in the administration's enabling of the far-right Israeli government's genocide in Gaza," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"President Biden, whose administration has lost all credibility on the issue of human rights, must reverse course and end our nation's complicity in genocide, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing," Awad added. "He must demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire, an end to the occupation, and justice for the Palestinian people."
The Biden administration has been Israel's staunchest supporter, even after 270 days of what United Nations officials, human rights experts, and countries led by South Africa in an International Court of Justice case all call a genocidal assault on Gaza's 2.3 million people. Despite this, Biden has approved billions of dollars in military assistance and provided diplomatic support for Israel.
According to Palestinian and international agencies, at least 37,925 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli forces, while upward of 87,000 others have been wounded and at least 11,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged buildings.
Israel has also been accused of deliberately starving Gazans—dozens of whom have died of malnutrition—via a crippling siege and blockade of the coastal enclave.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Jared Golden Op-Ed on Trump Called 'Unconscionable Surrender to Fascism'
A political science professor described the Maine congressman's op-ed as "one of the most irresponsible things a Democratic member of Congress has written in recent memory."
Jul 02, 2024
Breaking with many of his fellow Democrats, Maine Congressman Jared Golden suggested Tuesday that former Republican President Donald Trump's return to the White House wouldn't threaten U.S. democracy—and was sharply ridiculed for that take.
"After the first presidential debate, lots of Democrats are panicking about whether President Joe Biden should step down as the party's nominee," Golden wrote in a Bangor Daily News op-ed. "Biden's poor performance in the debate was not a surprise. It also didn't rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don't plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I'm OK with that."
"Democrats' post-debate hand-wringing is based on the idea that a Trump victory is not just a political loss, but a unique threat to our democracy. I reject the premise," he continued. "Unlike Biden and many others, I refuse to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system."
Golden—who represents the "Trump-friendly" 2nd District, a priority for Republicans this cycle—also referenced the insurrection incited by the presumptive Republican nominee after his 2020 loss to Biden, writing that "pearl-clutching about a Trump victory ignores the strength of our democracy. January 6, 2021, was a dark day. But Americans stood strong."
The backlash to Golden's op-ed was swift and strong, with Fordham University assistant political science professor Jacob Smith calling it "one of the most irresponsible things a Democratic member of Congress has written in recent memory."
Veteran journalist Mark Jacob said on social media that "Congressman Jared Golden, an alleged Democrat from Maine, waves the white flag against Trump in an unconscionable surrender to fascism. Maybe he thinks he can cut a deal. The cowards and quislings are making themselves known."
Some critics highlighted that the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority—which includes three Trump appointees—ruled Monday that Trump, and anyone else who occupies the Oval Office, has absolute immunity for "official acts." In her dissent, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that "the president is now a king above the law."
Trump celebrated the ruling and reportedly is prepared to embrace his expanded powers if he wins in November. The high court decision also jeopardizes Trump's recent felony conviction and three pending cases against him, including two that stem from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
"Jared Golden's op-ed today may be one of the worst takes we've seen so far, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's decision yesterday," declared Young Democrats of America president Quentin Wathum-Ocama. "I'm astounded that the congressman has such an absurdly bad take and is apparently ready to give up on an election five months out."
Some journalists and Republicans suggested that Golden's op-ed may be politically motivated, considering the makeup of his district. His GOP challenger, former NASCAR driver Austin Theriault, said: "This is a very phony attempt to avoid accountability. Simple questions for Jared Golden: Does he support Joe Biden for president or not? Does Golden believe Biden is mentally competent or not? He won't say, because he puts politics ahead of Mainers."
Golden, who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition, has a history of voting with Republicans on various climate, military, and student debt relief policies. His new opinion piece provoked calls for members of his own party to identify and rally around a write-in candidate "so Maine Democrats have an actual Democratic option in November."
Other Democrats in Congress have contributed to mounting warnings of the threat posed by Trump, who has said on the campaign trail that he would be a dictator on "day one" and "root out" those he called "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country."
If elected this year, Trump is also expected to pursue the policy agenda of the Heritage Foundation-led 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or Project 2025—which the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has described as a "far-right playbook for American authoritarianism."
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that "Project 2025 is a threat to our nation. The conservative radical plan rolls back rights for everyone and allows blatant discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community. It's sickening, and we must do everything to prevent this destructive plan and Donald Trump at all costs."
Biden's poor performance in the debate with Trump last week has prompted some supporters to reaffirm the importance of his reelection, given the alternative, and others to suggest that he should be replaced ahead of the Democratic convention next month.
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to suggest that Biden should step aside.
"Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory—too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what could not be turned around in the debate, can be turned around now," Doggett said. "President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2021. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Researchers Warn of Imminent 'Death Spiral' for Rapidly Melting Alaska Ice Field
The Juneau ice field is melting at a rate of 50,000 gallons per second and is possibly heading "beyond a dynamic tipping point," a new study says.
Jul 02, 2024
The melting of Alaska's Juneau ice field—which contains more than 1,000 glaciers—is accelerating and could reach a tipping point much sooner than predicted, according to research published Tuesday.
The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that ice loss from the Juneau ice field began accelerating rapidly after 2005.
The paper's authors found that "rates of area shrinkage were five times faster from 2015-2019 than from 1979-1990," while glacier volume loss—which had remained relatively consistent from 1770-1979—doubled after 2010.
"Forty years from now, what is it going to look like? I do think by then the Juneau ice field will be past the tipping point."
"Thinning has become pervasive across the icefield plateau since 2005, accompanied by glacier recession and fragmentation," the study states. "As glacier thinning on the plateau continues, a mass balance-elevation feedback is likely to inhibit future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a dynamic tipping point."
Study lead author Bethan Davies, a glaciologist at Newcastle University in England, said in a statement, "It's incredibly worrying that our research found a rapid acceleration since the early 21st century in the rate of glacier loss across the Juneau ice field."
"Alaskan icefields—which are predominantly flat, plateau icefields—are particularly vulnerable to accelerated melt as the climate warms since ice loss happens across the whole surface, meaning a much greater area is affected," Davies continued. "Additionally, flatter ice caps and icefields cannot retreat to higher elevations and find a new equilibrium."
"As glacier thinning on the Juneau plateau continues and ice retreats to lower levels and warmer air, the feedback processes this sets in motion is likely to prevent future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a tipping point into irreversible recession," she added.
Study co-author Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts, toldThe Associated Press that the Juneau ice field is melting at a rate of about 50,000 gallons per second.
"When you go there the changes from year to year are so dramatic that it just hits you over the head," Pelto said. "In 1981, it wasn't too hard to get on and off the glaciers. You just hike up and you could you could ski to the bottom or hike right off the end of these glaciers. But now they've got lakes on the edges from melted snow and crevasses opening up that makes it difficult to ski."
As the AP reported:
Only four Juneau ice field glaciers melted out of existence between 1948 and 2005. But 64 of them disappeared between 2005 and 2019, the study said. Many of the glaciers were too small to name, but one larger one, Antler glacier, "is totally gone," Pelto said.
Alaska climatologist Brian Brettschneider, who was not part of the study, said the acceleration is most concerning, warning of "a death spiral" for the thinning ice field.
Pelto said that "the tipping point is when that snow line goes above your entire ice field, ice sheet, ice glacier, whichever one."
"And so for the Juneau ice field, 2019, 2018, showed that you are not that far away from that tipping point," he added. "We're 40 years from when I first saw the glacier. And so, 40 years from now, what is it going to look like? I do think by then the Juneau ice field will be past the tipping point."
It's not just Alaska. Glaciers around the world—from Greenland to Switzerland to Africa and the Himalayas—are melting at an alarming rate. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization warned in 2022 that glaciers in one-third of the 50 UNESCO World Heritage sites where they are found are on pace to disappear by 2050—even if planet-heating emissions are curbed.
Another study published last year by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Alaska found that even if humanity manages to limit planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures—the more ambitious goal of the Paris agreement—half of Earth's glaciers are expected to melt by the end of the century.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular