UE takes a look at some of the issues at stake for workers in the presidential election.
As the Senate holds confirmation hearings for Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee in four years, it is clear that Trump’s most enduring legacy will be his court appointments. If Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, and especially if Trump wins another term (or successfully retains the office despite losing the election), that legacy will be even worse for working people than it already is.
As COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise in the U.S., a new study demonstrates that the Trump administration’s pro-business agenda of rolling back workplace safety enforcement by OSHA has been a major contributor to COVID-19 spread and death. Researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health found that coronavirus-related complaints to OSHA are strongly correlated with deaths 17 days later. In other words, workers have been reporting unsafe conditions to OSHA, OSHA has failed to take action, and workers have died as a result.
Despite President Trump’s claims that his administration is making “extraordinary progress in reversing the tide” of offshoring jobs, the facts are that offshoring has continued unabated during his administration. An August 2020 report from the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates a net loss of nearly 1,800 factories between 2016 and 2018 and 740,000 manufacturing jobs since February 2020.
At the 2019 UE Convention, UE delegates declared that “it is critical that working people remove the anti-labor and racist Trump from office.” While Trump’s inflammatory tweets often make headline news, his attacks on workers have received much less press attention.