As the government shutdown nears the end of its first full month, nearly a quarter of the federal workforce is furloughed. That means that more than 600,000 workers are not performing important federal service jobs—and they are not receiving a paycheck.
Still, while some federal agencies are working in limited capacity, many worker protection agencies have ceased the enforcement of our nation’s labor laws.
For example, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ceased almost all case handling, including conducting routine union elections and investigating unfair labor practice charges.
This means workers’ ability to exercise their right to form unions or hold their employers accountable for violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) are on hold indefinitely until the government reopens.
However, even after the government reopens, workers’ rights will still be under attack due to pre-shutdown actions of the Trump administration.
The NLRB is the sole agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing the NLRA for more than 100 million private-sector workers. However, Trump has attacked the agency’s independence, illegally firing Board Member Gwynne Wilcox because he did not like her decisions “disfavoring the interests of employers.”
Further, Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14215, giving himself and the attorney general the authority to issue interpretations of the law that place independent agencies like the NLRB under their control.
Congress designed the NLRB to function as an independent quasi-judicial agency, with board members deciding cases based on the law and evidence. The NLRB’s independence is essential and supported by its legislative history and decades of jurisprudence.
Currently, the NLRB has only one remaining member.
Trump nominated Scott Mayer, the chief labor counsel at Boeing, and James Murphy, a longtime NLRB lawyer, to be members of the Board.
If confirmed, they would establish a Republican majority at the NLRB, but their confirmation would do nothing to address the threat to the agency’s independence.
At a recent hearing on their nominations, they stated that, as NLRB members, they would “follow the law” but failed to acknowledge that Trump’s EO 14215 essentially equates Trump’s position to “the law.”
Further, after Scott Mayer faced hard-hitting questioning by Senator Josh Hawley during his nomination hearing and was subsequently dropped from a committee vote, the prospects of a quorum at the NLRB continue to be uncertain.
Even once the government shutdown concludes and regional offices resume case handling, the absence of a quorum and concerns around the agency’s lack of independence will create obstacles for workers who are trying to exercise their rights under the NLRA.
By firing Wilcox for “disfavoring the interests of employers,” Trump has created the expectation that future NLRB members are expected to side with employers over workers, effectively destroying the agency’s independence and robbing private-sector workers of the only forum available to them to protect their organizing and collective bargaining rights.
Despite claiming to be pro-worker, Trump has consistently put forward policies that benefit employers over workers. If the Trump administration really cared about workers, they would sufficiently fund worker protection agencies.
Instead, they have proposed decreasing the budgets of these agencies. If the Trump administration really cared about workers, they would propose regulations that strengthen and expand worker protections.
Instead, they have put forward a deregulatory agenda that make workers less safe and more vulnerable to wage theft and pursued an anti-immigration and anti-equity agenda that will make all workers more vulnerable to labor exploitation.
If the Trump administration really cared about workers, they would pass labor law reform that would ensure all workers would have the right to organize and bargain collectively
Over the summer, the administration announced changes to over 60 regulations that Republicans claimed were unnecessary burdens to businesses and economic growth.
Trump rolled back a suite of worker protections, a move that a Century Foundation report warns will “suppress wages” and endanger worker health and safety.
The Republican administration stripped minimum wage and overtime protections from home healthcare workers, a workforce that already averages under $17 an hour.
Century Foundation expert Andrew Stettner warned that this allows agencies to “put the screws on workers to work 50- or 60-hour weeks.”
The Trump administration also revived a practice that allows employers to pay disabled workers less than the federal minimum wage.
This could relegate tens of thousands of workers, many with intellectual disabilities, “to jobs that pay as little as pennies per hour,” the report states.
Protections for seasonal migrant farmworkers who report wage theft would be eliminated. A Biden-era rule had successfully curbed the exploitation of these vulnerable workers, whose legal status is tied to their employer, by banning retaliation against those who complain.
- The proposal would gut a key OSHA clause that punishes companies for exposing employees to danger, creating a broad exemption for jobs deemed “inherently risky.” Stettner notes the administration is “crowdsourcing” suggestions from employers on which occupations to exempt, creating a major loophole.
“The DOL’s role should be to protect the most vulnerable workers,” Stettner said. “They’re showing their true colors as an anti-worker administration.”