America’s Anti-Labor Agenda

Jobs cut, rights stripped, protections dismantled.

Start with the scoreboard.

Eight months in: about 300,000 federal positions gone. Union rights stripped from well over a million across 30+ agencies. NIOSH taken from roughly 1,400 scientists to a skeleton crew near 150. Contractor wage floor cut from $17.75 to $13.30 or even $7.25, depending where the contract lands.

January 27-28, 2025 made the intent plain. Firing NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Board Member Gwynne Wilcox. Then leaving the Board at two members. First time a sitting member gets bounced in the Board's 90-year run. No quorum, no rulings, no protection for private-sector workers trying to organize.

Courts threw sand in the gears in spring, briefly. A California judge in April, then an Illinois judge in June, called the anti-bargaining move retaliation.

Then August 19 landed. The Fifth Circuit says the NLRB's structure is "likely unconstitutional." If SCOTUS blesses that logic, labor law enforcement becomes optional. No referees.

March 27, 2025: a sweep that designates civilian roles "national security" and yanks bargaining. NASA scientists. National Weather Service meteorologists. VA hospital staff. Food safety inspectors.

Not spies, not soldiers. Just people who keep satellites pointed, patients alive, and pathogens out of lunch.

August adds more agencies.

TSA tried to vaporize a seven-year contract covering about 50,000 officers in February. A federal judge in June told them to knock it off. "Likely broke the law."

Pay cuts bit immediately. March 14 rolled back the contractor minimum. Janitors, security guards, cafeteria workers shoved from $17.75 toward $13.30 or $7.25.

Home care got lined up next. A July proposal moves to exempt 1.5 million caregivers. 84% women, about two-thirds people of color. From minimum wage and overtime.

The Department abandoned expanding overtime eligibility that would have covered 4.3 million workers. Courts had weakened it. The new crew let it die on the vine.

OSHA inspections projected down roughly 30%. From about 34,700 in 2024 to about 24,900 by 2026.

NIOSH, the country's industrial-safety brain, gets decimated. Budget from about $366M to about $73M, staff down about 90%. The people who study hazards, build standards, and investigate industrial disasters. They don't become "efficiencies" when cut. They become missing.

Heat rule? Stalled.

About 600 workers die each year from heat. The rule is basic. Water, shade, rest during spikes. It sits.

Mine safety? Silica enforcement paused. Coal miners take the dust now and the doctor's bill later. Cheap for a quarter or two. Expensive for a decade.

The civil-rights cops were muzzled on Day One. Two EEOC commissioners and the General Counsel fired, quorum gone. OFCCP starved.

January 21 added a booby trap for contractors. Keep DEI only if it can be proved not to violate discrimination law. Prove a negative or eat the contract risk. Message received.

ICE raids back at industrial scale. A 3,000-per-day arrest target. Not just border theatrics. Worksite dragnets that crater local labor pools. Cooks, dishwashers, delivery riders on mopeds.

When raids start, not only the undocumented disappear from shifts. Legal residents and citizens in mixed-status households sidestep risk and stay home. Logistics snarls first. Then sales.

June 4 travel bans snapped into place. A dozen countries fully blocked, seven partly. Not just tourists. Visas, green cards, family reunification, renewals.

Hospitals lose doctors. Tech firms lose engineers. Agriculture loses the people who actually pick strawberries in 100-degree heat for $7.25.

The household math is uglier than the press releases.

Bottom 20% projected to lose around 4% of income. Medicaid cuts mapped to about 880,000 jobs at risk. ACA premiums for 2026 tracking up 18-20% on early filings.

Residential electric bills up about 10% since January. Tariffs, gas whipsaws, and AI load chewing through margins. Student-loan garnishments back on. Up to 15% pulled from defaulted paychecks automatically.

Injunctions are landing. AFGE, AFL-CIO, and others filing suits weekly. Each one buys time. Keeps status quos alive a little longer.

The Fifth Circuit bomb cuts two ways. If the NLRB's structure is "likely unconstitutional," firings may be illegal too. Unfireable members, unfireable General Counsel. Paradox that produces gridlock either way.

States aren't saluting. California, Illinois, New York slow-walk or refuse union-gag orders. Agencies drag their feet.

Career staff do what career staff do. Document, delay, outlast.

Restaurants dim the lights because the workforce won't risk checkpoints. Farms can't staff harvest. Construction bids lapse. Donors phone it in, asking for raid moratoriums. Ideology yields when margins vanish.

Union approval hovering around 70% heading into Labor Day. Immigration still viewed as a net good by a broad majority. Raids or not.

That gap between policy and preference tends to snap back. Sometimes violently. At midterms.

Courts slow this, don't stop it. November 2026 sits 14 months out. Protections die fast and grow back slow.

That's the program. Strip capacity, privatize oversight, let costs fall on families and future taxpayers. Then point at the mess and sell more privatization.

Workers see the punch coming.