The approach of Labor Day got me to wondering whether our president has ever done an honest day’s work. It’s doubtful, if you don’t count his ongoing creation of a police state, a job at which he outshines the Labors of Hercules.
Certainly, shedding the Constitution is a tiresome task, one from which Donald Trump diverts himself by picking on those who do real labor, typically the brown-skinned people who work in the fields and hospitality industries.
Some ask, in counterpoint, wasn’t it Trump and the GOP who favored labor by recently doing away with income tax on tips? Yes, but only to $25,000 of income, which isn’t much to write home about when juxtaposed against Republicans’ constant battle against raising the minimum wage.
In their attacks on working folks, Republicans have produced a brace of ugly offspring named “right to work†and “repeal of prevailing wage.†Translated, the first means that those who don’t bother to pay union dues must be given the higher pay and benefits brought about by those who do pay their dues. A right-to-work law is found in about half the states, including West Virginia, where it was enacted just two years after Republicans took over the Legislature. The new law was saluted with great promises of more workers coming to the state. Nine years later, it hasn’t happened. Instead, our existing workers now have the right to work for less.
The second low-functioning spawn of the GOP’s disdain for the voters who elected them is repeal of the prevailing wage law, as has occurred in several states, including West Virginia. The bygone law was a boon to construction workers because it required that state jobs (building schools, state office buildings, etc.) paid wages that prevailed in the region. Republicans’ primary selling point in dumping the law was that taxpayers would save money if the government could pay lower wages to the electricians, carpenters and other workers. Missing was the wisdom of knowing that paying below the prevailing wages likely would tend to result in substandard work complete with walls that crack, leaky ceilings, wiring that frays and similar issues that tend to undo any cost savings. The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy found that neighboring states who repealed, or never had, a prevailing wage law have, overall, shelled out more in school construction costs as a result.
Returning to Trump, he and his dopey DOGE maven, the ketamine-fueled Elon Musk, have fired tens of thousands of federal employees, the go-to-work-everyday folks doing their jobs. Equally unfortunate, the president recently issued an executive order stripping hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their right to collective bargaining, the “largest and most aggressive act of union-busting in U.S. history,†said Georgetown labor historian Joseph McCartin.
Making matters worse, Trump also fired the general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board and its board member Gwynne Wilcox who was in the middle of her term. The NLRB has been around since 1935 and has responsibility for settling disputes and ensuring that labor and management adhere to their contracts. But Trump’s firings leave the board without a quorum and unable to resolve labor disputes. In the meantime, he has nominated a pair of business-friendly individuals for the positions.
If you like an eight-hour (instead of a 12-hour) workday, thank unionization. If you prefer a 40-hour workweek (rather than a 60-hour one), thank organized labor. If you believe in extra pay for working overtime, paid vacations and paid sick leave, take a moment on Labor Day to thank labor unions for bargaining with management to achieve those rights.
Those who are convinced that unions, on balance, are detrimental to free markets, might consider that the free market dictates that both the government and private industry are constantly bargaining for every resource from the land they purchase and buildings they lease to the costs of office furniture and copy paper. There is no rational explanation that the pay and working conditions of their human resources should be exempt from the same free-market bargaining.
