Hard Times Ahead For Unions

[Trump's] election is "an extinction-level event for American labor." So says Harold Meyerson at The Washington Post, in an article entited "Donald Trump can kill the American union." (Click here.) The article explains some of the problems unions were already facing, but now:

Now, Trump, the Republican Congress and the soon-to-be Republican-dominated Supreme Court are poised to damage unions – and the interests of working people, both union and not – even more. Indeed, within the GOP, the war on unions engenders almost no dissent. Since Republicans were swept into office in a host of Midwestern states in the 2010 elections, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin have all effectively eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees and subjected private-sector unions to “right-to-work” laws that enable workers to benefit from union contracts and representation without having to pay their union any dues. Previously, such laws were largely confined to Southern states, whose respect for worker rights has improved only somewhat since they were compelled to abolish slavery. As the GOP has become steadily whiter and more right-wing, those Southern norms have become national.

The advances that workers and their unions have made under the Obama presidency came chiefly as a result of executive orders and departmental regulations, which Trump can reverse with the stroke of a pen. Obama’s Labor Department rules that extended eligibility for overtime pay to millions of salaried employees making more than $22,000 a year, and that compelled federal contractors to offer paid sick leave to their employees, may well be struck down. National Labor Relations Board rulings that employers cannot indefinitely delay union representation elections once their employees have petitioned for a vote, and that university graduate students who work as teaching and research assistants are employees who can elect to unionize, will probably be undone.

Meyerson concludes:

One thing is certain: If Trump’s victory does indeed become “an extinction-level event for the labor movement,” it would also extinguish any prospect that America could ever become “great again.” No country in history has ever achieved decent working-class living standards (and the social and political stability they engender) absent a vibrant labor movement. Anyone who hopes for American greatness must also hope that labor has the strength and smarts to survive what’s coming in the Trump years.