Concerns are rising that Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are preparing to revoke a suite of Obama-era executive orders that have provided basic protections for U.S. workers.
These executive orders raise wages, improve worker safety, and help ensure that taxpayer dollars do not support companies that break the law. Specifically, the orders under threat:
- Provide paid sick leave for federal contractors
- Limit gender and race wage discrimination by increasing pay transparency
- Boost wage growth by requiring a minimum wage of $10.20 for federal contractors—lower than what is needed but higher than the current federal minimum wage of $7.25
- Safeguard federal contract workers from being forced into unfair internal arbitration systems that make it harder to fight back against discrimination, wage theft, and other violations of worker rights
- Require transparency from contractors about violations of labor laws and ensure that federal dollars don’t reward unscrupulous employers
Approximately 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is employed by companies that do business with the federal government, representing $500 billion of business each year on contracts for goods and services. The federal government has the responsibility to ensure that these taxpayer dollars are used to do business with honest employers who comply with workplace protections.
If President Trump were serious about enacting a real agenda that supports working people, he would not gut rules that support good jobs and workers’ rights. He would not eliminate paid sick leave for over one million federal contract workers. And he would not nominate a labor secretary whose fast-food chain has a long history of wage theft and who himself has a long record of anti-worker and anti-government rhetoric.
The Obama-era executive orders hardly constitute a radical agenda. Instead, it is the anticipated actions by President Trump and the GOP controlled Congress that signal something radical—a radical assault on the workers candidate Trump claimed to support.
If President Trump were serious about protecting working people, he would advance an agenda designed to promote a fair economy, not implement executive orders that hurt millions of people.