29 Aug President Durkee: Trump Administration has turned the Department of Labor into the Department of Employer Rights Only
BCTGM International President David Durkee wrote the following column for the July/August BCTGM NEWS.
For those who have watched the Trump Administration chop away at workers’ rights, it was no big surprise when President Trump nominated Eugene Scalia for Secretary of Labor.
Scalia — son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — has made his reputation in Washington, D.C. as a lawyer for big corporations with a blatant disregard and disdain for regulations protecting workers on the job. Scalia has spent virtually his entire career making life more difficult and dangerous for working people.
Scalia has fought ergonomics standards, threatened to destroy workers’ retirement savings, challenged the expansion of health care and dismissed repetitive motion injuries as “junk science.” His extreme views are in direct conflict with what American workers deserve from the Secretary of Labor.
But Scalia’s appointment is best seen not only in the context of his own anti-labor career, but also in the context of the Trump Administration’s assault on workers’ rights and well-being. Despite his position during his presidential campaign as a flag carrier for the working class, President Trump has rolled back numerous pro-worker regulations from the Obama era and before.
The primary targets of President Trump’s attack on workers are the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board. It is through those agencies, writes Pedro Nicolaci Da Costa of the Economic Policy Institute that, “Trump is pursuing the most hostile anti-labor agenda of any modern president.”
That brings us back to Eugene Scalia, who would be almost certain to continue Trump’s anti-union policies. Scalia’s career has demonstrated his kinship with employers and bankers.
Scalia’s 2000 campaign against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s effort to impose more responsibility on employers for ergonomic-related worker injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, gives a clear description of his attitude toward workers. In an essay for the Cato Institute, he lamented that the rule would “require businesses to slow the pace of production, hire more workers, increase rest periods and redesign workstations or even entire operations.”
Working people do not need a deregulatory wrecking ball as Secretary of Labor. They need somebody who will stand up for strong worker protection rules and aggressive enforcement of them. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration seems determined to continue pushing through its deregulatory agenda, tearing down worker and consumer protections at the behest of large corporations and their Washington lobbyists.
Given his history of attacking worker and consumer protections, there is plenty of reason to expect that Eugene Scalia will drive the deregulatory train even faster, to the detriment of working women and men.
Scalia will have a confirmation hearing when the Senate returns in September. It is essential that Senators press Scalia for his views on the role of government regulation—and the role of the Department of Labor—in protecting working women and men. Senators should ask him to identify worker protections that he would promote, and whether there are cases he has been involved in on behalf of working people, not corporations. Senators should discourage Scalia from further weakening worker protections adopted during the Obama administration. These rules were adopted after extensive public input and are supported by comprehensive scientific evidence demonstrating their value and importance to working people. They should not be weakened or overturned simply because anti-regulatory forces want it.
Scalia’s answers to these questions are unlikely to persuade his supporters that he is the wrong person for the job. But he should be pressed to explain how a long career of attacking worker protections on behalf of corporations qualifies him to be the Secretary of Labor, who is responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws that govern the workplace. Scalia should be required to state on the record what his intentions are as Secretary of Labor and what he plans to do to protect working people. And, if confirmed, he must be held accountable.
The Secretary of Labor needs to be a true advocate for working people. Even when we disagree, we expect a fair arbiter who listens to workers and respects the deliberative process and the true mission of the Department of Labor. The Labor Department’s work is essential to protecting America’s working people and should not be the subsidiary holding of corporate lobbyists and anti-union, anti-worker activists.