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Sanders Says Attack on NLRB Proves Trump Is Enemy of the Working Class
"Rather than standing up for average Americans," said the Independent U.S. senator, the president is "protecting the interests of some of the wealthiest people in the world."
Feb 08, 2025
President Donald Trump, by his actions, has revealed his clear dishonesty when he claims to be governing on behalf of American workers and their families.
That's the message at the heart of a statement released Friday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who cited recent attacks on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by the Trump administration and his allies that directly contradict any such claims.
"When Trump campaigned for president, he claimed he was on the side of the working class," said Sanders. "But that’s not what he’s delivering. Rather than standing up for average Americans, he's protecting the interests of some of the wealthiest people in the world."
When Trump, he continued, "fires the most pro-union General Counsel in the history of the NLRB and illegally removes a member of this independent board, he is not a champion of the working class. He is a champion of unfettered corporate greed and union busters."
"When Trump campaigned for president, he claimed he was on the side of the working class. But that’s not what he’s delivering."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders
On Jan. 27, NLRB Commissioner Gwynne Wilcox, appointed to the board in 2021 for a term intended to last through to 2028, was terminated in a move that labor experts said was both unprecedented and unlawful.
Wilcox, who has since filed a lawsuit over her ouster, said in an interview with CBS News on Thursday that she was shocked—as were many others—by Trump's move, which she called a "blatant violation" of statutes that protect members of the board from political interference or reprisal.
"The law is that board members cannot be removed from their position unless they've engaged in neglect or duty or malfeasance, Wilcox explained. "And based upon the letter I received, there was no claim of that. There [wasn't] any cause or any reason that I was actually terminated."
Labor unions and advocates have said the attack on Wilcox represents a full and frontal assault on the ability of workers to organize or for union members to have their disputes or grievances addressed.
"The removal of Chair Wilcox threatens NLRB's independence and endangers working people's rights," said Eric Dean, General President of the Iron Workers Union (IW), in a Friday statement. "We stand in solidarity with Chair Wilcox and call for her immediate reinstatement to safeguard workers' rights."
The IW, which represents over 135,000 ironworkers in North America, said the "inappropriate" removal of Wilcox "has rendered the 5-member board inoperable, shutting down its decision-making ability and jeopardizing the protection of workers."
Sanders, in his remarks, echoed that central concern:
As a result of Trump’s unprecedented move, the NLRB no longer has a quorum and has effectively been shut down. What does this mean? It means that it will be far, far harder for workers to exercise their constitutional right to form a union and improve their standard of living. It means that during a union election, corporate bosses can illegally fire workers who vote to join a union. It means that corporate CEOs have free rein to illegally intimidate and coerce pro-union workers without recourse. It means that corporations can aggressively decide not to bargain in good faith with union workers or sign a first contract.
And because the NLRB is now dysfunctional, workers have no recourse.
Trump’s decision has already had disastrous consequences. Last week, workers at a Whole Foods grocery store in Philadelphia voted 130-100 to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union. But Whole Foods, owned by Jeff Bezos, has made it crystal clear that they will ignore this union victory and will not bargain with their union workers in good faith. Without a functioning NLRB, Whole Foods cannot be held accountable for its illegal behavior.
Sanders singled out Bezos as well as Elon Musk, who has been tapped by Trump to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), which is not an actual department with congressionally-granted authority but has targeted numerous federal agencies over the last two weeks, including the Department of Labor.
"For months, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the two wealthiest men alive," said Sanders, "have been working overtime to abolish the NLRB. Why is that? These notorious anti-union billionaires want the absolute power to exploit their workers and violate labor law. The lower the wages they pay, the more money they make. Since Election Day, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have become $184 billion richer and are now worth $669 billion. But, apparently, that’s not enough."
Since Trump's reelection in November, a campaign victory bankrolled by numerous right-wing billionaires like Musk, Sanders has railed against the threat posed by what he has termed an American oligarchy.
Union leaders like AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler have also issued warnings about the erosion of worker protections under Trump.
“The government can work for billionaires or it can work for working people—but not both,” Shuler said on Wednesday ahead of a rally outside the Department of Labor, where DOGE personnel were said to meeting with DOL staffers.
“The government can work for billionaires or it can work for working people—but not both." —Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO
In a recent appearance on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes," Sanders said that while Republicans are in control of both chambers of Congress, those majorities are historically slim and that means lawmakers remain "susceptible to citizen outrage."
Sanders said he wanted the American people, and specifically working families, to understand that they are right to be anxious about the current situation, but that they must mobilize and agitate to make their opposition heard.
"If you see these guys doing something—like wanting to give huge tax breaks to billionaires while they cut Medicare; or they want to go 'Drill, baby, drill' while we happen to be facing an existential threat of climate change; if they want to deport 20 million people in this country—stand up, fight back, we can beat them," said Sanders.
"Let's not act in a hopeless way," he continued, remarking on what can be done in the immediate term. "Longer term, obviously, we have to do what the Democratic Party has not done—and become the party of the working class, develop a strong grassroots movement, with labor unions, with young people, with people of color—and organize and fight back."
"The progressive agenda, and I say this over and over again, is the people's agenda," said Sanders. "It is wildly popular."
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To Defend Democracy From Trump, the Mainstream Press Must Cover Peoples’ Movements
Without the media covering the actions, litigation, initiatives, and reports of civic institutions and labor unions, little or nothing will flow from their efforts.
Jan 25, 2025
A lawless madman, with cunning political skills, is at large in our White House. After less than five days in office, he has set a record for flamboyantly issued executive orders, many violative of federal statutes and the Constitution.
A partial list: He has withdrawn the U.S. from the World Health Organization (e.g., damaging international coordination regarding pandemics), quit the Paris climate accords (e.g., nations working together against climate violence), selected corporate ideologues to run regulatory agencies (the purpose of which is to save lives, prevent injuries, and stop consumer rip-offs), unleashed ICE to crash schools looking for undocumented kids to take away, threatened the media, readied more tax cuts for the super-rich and big companies, and halted the hiring of IRS staff needed to stop massive tax evasions by the plutocracy. He has moved to make massive cuts in spending for programs protecting children and the sick (e.g., slashing Medicaid), lifted controls over oil and gas drilling, reduced support for solar and wind energy, and gutted the civil service. Meanwhile he, a convicted felon, is pardoning hundreds of convicted jailed felons who assaulted Capitol Hill police on January 6, 2021, who will now be vengefully on the streets. The terrifying list goes on. (See the Brookings Institution tracking of regulatory changes in the second Trump administration: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tracking-regulatory-changes-in-the-second-trump-administration/).
These actions harm all Americans—that is, they produce indiscriminate injustice against both liberal and conservative low-wage workers, consumers, parents, and children. This strengthens the resistance from the people with a more unified opportunity to stop President Donald Trump. Already the first torrent of federal and state lawsuits are being filed to block Trump’s power grab. Certainly, many state attorneys general are readying lawsuits. However, comfortable with his dominance over Congress and the Supreme Court, Trump’s response is one he has previously used—figuratively mocking so sue me, ha, ha, ha.
The reporters and editors at the Times, Post and the rest of the national and local newspaper, radio, and TV media must rise to higher levels of their own significance and give voice to the aroused resistance against the onrushing Trumpian dictatorial regime.
In anticipation of the Trump rampage, The New York Times published a lead editorial on January 18, 2025, titled: “Are We Sleepwalking Into Autocracy?” The newspaper’s answer is “Yes,” unless: “Defenders of democracy have to stay united, focusing on ensuring that checks and balances remain intact and that crucial democratic watchdog institutions (my emphasis) elude capture.”
Nice words. But the Times and other large newspapers and magazines have largely avoided a critical responsibility since the 60s and 70s. That is, without their covering the actions, litigation, initiatives, and reports of civic institutions and labor unions, little or nothing will flow from their efforts.
The Times editors know full well that without reaching millions of people, influential groups, and lawmakers, the power of civic and labor community is very significantly reduced. This lack of media coverage has been happening for the past 40 years.
Mass media coverage based on newsworthiness and editorializing empower these groups, gets the attention of more supporters, and makes it more difficult for the forces of often secret autocratic government to roll over the citizenry.
The regular reporting about what activists were doing in the 1960s and 1970s made possible the consumer, environmental, labor, and freedom of information laws. Similar efforts now cannot gather momentum without media visibility. Legislative hearings, prosecutions, and regulatory actions cannot get jumpstarted just by the people insistent on a just and democratic society.
Over the years I’ve highlighted this exclusion coupled with suggesting newsworthy stories to hundreds of reporters, editors, and a few publishers. To little avail.
Look at the scene at the Times and The Washington Post. How often do you see op-eds from civic or labor advocates? How often do you read reviews of their books? How often have the groundbreaking studies by Public Citizen, Common Cause, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Veterans for Peace, Union of Concerned Scientists, et al. received coverage? Look at the profitable Washington Post Live podcasts and see how civic and union leaders have been backhanded. How often do the celebrated Times and Post podcasts interview them? The exclusions are overwhelming, even when compared with the access extreme right-wingers receive, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Grover Norquist.
Some may say, well, they can always use social media. It is too cluttered, too fractured, and too impulsive. Whether we like it or not, the major newspapers’ original content feeds the radio and television stations and still has an unchallenged impact on getting attention for agendas underway that may have been floating around on the internet for years and going nowhere.
The same situation exists for local journalism, which could feed local TV and radio were it to stop ignoring incipient efforts from community activism, whistleblowers, or simply good stories called into them by alert citizens.
Official source journalism presently reigns. Our democracy can’t afford redundant and tepid reporting in the coming days. For example, there are about 500 full-time reporters covering Congress. The mostly ditto-head reporting misses all kinds of stories. We started the quarterly 40-page newspaper, Capitol Hill Citizen (capitolhillcitizen.com) to expose some of the goings on in Congress that fall under the rubric of ignored unofficial journalism to illustrate this point.
In an era of closing weekly and daily newspapers, one might expect some coverage of this unique effort reporting on Congress, the most important and potentially most powerful institution that can turn around our deteriorating democracy. For nearly three years, none of the major newspapers and news magazines have told their readers about this rising journalistic beacon.
To sum up: The reporters and editors at the Times, Post and the rest of the national and local newspaper, radio, and TV media must rise to higher levels of their own significance and give voice to the aroused resistance against the onrushing Trumpian dictatorial regime imposing fascistic government and more concentrated corporate power.
If they cave, if they cower, as Thomas Jefferson warned, the main bulwark for our Republic crumbles. More citizens then withdraw and give up. That calamity would freeze Congress and the people who are the last ultimate rescuers of our besieged constitutional Republic.
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Sanders-Led Investigation Finds Amazon 'Manipulates' Workplace Injury Data
"Amazon's executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries at its warehouses," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Dec 16, 2024
The online retailer Amazon repeatedly ignored or rejected worker safety measures that were recommended internally—and even misleadingly presents worker injury data so that its warehouses seem safer than they actually are, according to report from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions that was unveiled on Sunday.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is chairman of the HELP Committee, called the revelations in the report "beyond unacceptable."
"Amazon's executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries at its warehouses. This is precisely the type of outrageous corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of," added Sanders, who has scrutinized Amazon's safety record in the past.
According to the report, Amazon's warehouses are "far more dangerous" than competitors' or the warehousing industry in general. The committee found that in comparison with the industry as a whole, Amazon warehouses tallied 31% more injuries than the average warehouse in 2023, when comparing Amazon's reported data and industry averages calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What's more, the company's injury rate is nearly double the average injury rate for all non-Amazon warehouses stretching back to 2017, according to the report.
This runs counter to how Amazon frames their injury rates in public statements. For one, according to the report, the company touts a 30% decline in injury rates since 2019, but that year saw a spike in injuries compared to the two years prior, meaning that the comparison is misleading. In fact, the injury rate for 2020 and 2023 were essentially the same, 6.59 and 6.54, respectively.
The report also alleges the company manipulates injury data by repeatedly comparing injury numbers stemming from Amazon warehouses of all sizes to the industry average for just large warehouses, a category that includes warehouses with 1,000 employees or more and tend to have a higher injury rate. Only 40% of Amazon's warehouses fall in this category, making the comparison a "false equivalence," the report states.
The report, which was based on an investigation that began in 2023 and included interviews with over 130 Amazon workers, also concluded that the company does in practice impose productivity quotas on workers—even though Amazon claims publicly that it does not—and this drive toward productivity and speed contributes to the company's unsafe working environment.
"Most workers who spoke to the Committee had experienced at least one injury during their time at the company; those injuries ranged from herniated disks and torn rotator cuffs, to sprained ankles and sharp, shooting muscle pains.Workers also reported torn meniscuses, concussions, back injuries, and other serious conditions," according to the report.
Amazon itself is aware of the connection between speed and worker safety, but "refuses to implement injury-reducing changes because of concerns those changes might reduce productivity," the report argues.
For example, four years ago the company launched an initiative called "Project Soteria," which found evidence of a link between speed and injuries and made a recommendations based on this link—but Amazon did not implement changes in response to the findings, per the report.
Later, in 2021, another team called "Project Elderwand" calculated the maximum number of times workers who have a specific role can repeat a set of physical tasks before increasing their risk of injury. That team developed a method to make sure that workers do not exceed that number, but upon learning how much this would impact the "customer experience," the company decided not to implement the change, the report states.
"My first day was the day [the facility] opened. People of all ages were there. Most were like me, though—young and healthy. Within weeks everyone is developing knee and back pain," said one former Amazon worker, who was quoted anonymously in the report.
In a public statement released Monday, Amazon rejected the HELP Committee's findings, writing that the premise of the report is "fundamentally flawed" and, in response to the report's section on injury rates, "we benchmark ourselves against similar employers because it's the most effective way to know where we stand."
The company also calls the Project Soteria paper "analytically unsound" (the report details that Amazon audited the initial findings of Project Soteria, and a second team hypothesized that "worker injuries were actually the result of workers' 'frailty'") and says that Project Elderwand is merely proof that the company regularly looks at its safety processes to "ensure they're as strong as they can be."
"As we have publicly disclosed and discussed with committee members during this investigation, we've made, and continue to make, meaningful progress on safety across our network," according to the statement.
Amazon's record on worker safety has been under close scrutiny in recent years. The Strategic Organizing Center, which is a democratic coalition of multiple labor unions, has also put out research on injuries at Amazon. Safety was among the reasons that workers at an Amazon facility in Staten Island chose to unionize in 2022. That Amazon facility and another in New York recently authorized a strike. Additionally, over the summer, California's Labor Commissioner's Office fined Amazon nearly $6 million for tens of thousands of violations of a California law aimed at curbing the use of worker quotas.
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