‘The most anti-union president’: how Trump turned his back on US workers

A portrait of President Donald Trump hangs from the Department of Labor headquarters in Washington DC ahead of Labor Day on 31 August 2026. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/ShutterstockView image in fullscreenA portrait of President Donald Trump hangs from the Department of Labor headquarters in Washington DC ahead of Labor Day on 31 August 2026. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/ShutterstockUS unions‘The most anti-union president’: how Trump turned his back on US workersLabor experts stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been with actions since last Labor Day that have hurt unions

Steven GreenhouseMon 7 Sep 2026 07.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 7 Sep 2026 07.03 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleDonald Trump has repeatedly vowed to champion US workers. Shortly before Labor Day last year, he said: “Every policy of the Trump administration is designed to lift up the American worker and “promote great-paying blue-collar jobs”. But in the year since last Labor Day, Trump has taken many actions that have hurt US workers and unions, with some labor experts saying they’ve been stunned at how anti-worker Trump has been.

In the months after Trump returned to office, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) cut workplace inspections by 20%, compared with Joe Biden’s last year in office. Even though Trump campaigned as a champion of coal miners, his administration has repeatedly delayed implementation of a rule to limit silica dust, which has afflicted and killed many coal miners with black lung. The United Mine Workers union has urgently called for “immediate enforcement” of the stalled silica dust rule.

With regard to wages, workers haven’t been doing so well under Trump. While the White House boasts that wages have risen, the problem for workers is that prices – pushed up by Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war – have risen faster than wages over the past year, helping fuel the affordability crisis. In a move that will cut pay for many low-wage workers, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating federal minimum wage and overtime protections for 3 million often low-paid homecare workers who take care of seniors and the disabled.

Despite several court rulings to slow or stop this anti-union effort, Trump has pushed aggressively ahead with his unprecedented campaign to strip 1 million federal employees of their ability to bargain collectively – a move that Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main labor federation, called, “the largest single act of union-busting in our history”. Trump has moved to end collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of workers at the Transportation Security Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies.

In another unprecedented move, Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, the pro-union chair of the National Labor Relations Board – the first time a president has fired an NLRB member. Trump has since named numerous pro-business officials to the labor board.

“Trump’s actions make him by far the most anti-union president in our modern history,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants and a leading progressive voice in the labor movement, said in an interview. “His administration has been massively anti-worker, anti-union and anti-working class.”

White House officials take sharp issue with critics who say Trump is anti-worker. Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said: “President Trump will always put American workers first, which is why he signed the largest middle-class tax cuts in history, secured trillions in investments into our country, and negotiated historic trade deals to reshore our manufacturing industry and protect American jobs. Thanks to President Trump, American workers are prioritized over illegal aliens and foreign-born workers once again.”

Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, said she was stunned by some of Trump’s anti-worker actions, especially by his order last year chopping the minimum wage that federal contractors must pay their employees, to $13.30 an hour from $17.75. That move caused some workers to lose over $9,000 a year in pay.

This year, Trump rescinded a Biden-era regulation that made overtime pay available to more salaried workers. As a result, 4.3 million workers will no longer qualify for time-and-a-half overtime. (Two federal courts in Texas had ruled against Biden’s overtime regulation.) In his years as president, Trump has never pushed to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, which has greatly eroded in value since it last increased in 2009.

“The Trump administration is systematically weakening policies and institutions that give workers a voice, that give workers protections and that hold employers accountable,” Shierholz said. “He’s been doing that from day one, and since then it has absolutely continued and accelerated. You see attacks on every kind of worker protection from safety and health to wage and hour protections. Policy after policy after policy goes directly against the interests of workers.”

Trump has helped some groups of workers by getting Congress to enact no tax on tips and a significant cut in taxes on overtime pay. The White House boasts that Trump also helped cuts taxes for working families, but Trump’s critics say those cuts overwhelmingly favor the ultra-wealthy, while giving just modest cuts to workers.