Bill Londrigan didn’t mince words assessing Donald Trump’s first hundred days in office.
“A disaster,” said the Kentucky State AFL-CIO president emeritus. “Not only for the country, but for the working people of America. He’s attacking workers, including union members, particularly in the public sector.”
Londrigan said the president’s mass firings of federal workers is worse than when President Ronald Reagan busted the Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) in 1981. “It’s so much more devastating, and it really does show you that Trump is only interested in making money for himself, his family, and his billionaire buddies at the expense of working people and the union movement.”
In his first term, Trump consistently sided with business over labor. Examples are plentiful, including how he tilted the independent National Labor Relations Board steeply toward management and turned the Labor Department into the “anti-labor” department.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
“Trump stacked the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees who side with employers in contract disputes and support companies who delay and stall union elections, misclassify workers to take away their freedom to join a union, and silence workers,” said the Communications Workers of America in an online posting headlined “Trump’s Anti-Worker Record.”
After he won a second term, Trump took up where he left off with the NLRB. Londrigan cited the president’s attempt to sack National Labor Relations Board Member Gwynne Wilcox. The Washington D.C. federal district court ruled her dismissal unlawful. But the Trump administration appealed, and the Supreme Court stayed the lower court ruling.
The Labor Department
The anti-labor department is back with Trump, though much of the media labeled his labor secretary nominee, former U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) as “pro-labor” mainly because she was one of the few GOP co-sponsors of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act for short.
“Calling her a ‘pro-labor’ secretary of labor is totally erroneous,” said Londrigan, pointing to Chavez-DeRemer’s 10 percent mark on the AFL-CIO’s Legislative Scorecard, which rates members of the House and Senate from zero to 100 percent on how they “stand on issues important to working families, including strengthening Social Security and Medicare, freedom to join a union, workplace safety and more.”
In her Senate confirmation hearing, Chavez-DeRemer backed away from supporting the PRO Act and “she declared without hesitation that ‘my job will be to implement President Trump’s policy vision,’” John Nichols wrote in The Nation. The story was headlined, “Trump’s Labor Secretary Pick Turns Out to Be Super Anti-Labor.”
Added Nichols: “Trump’s nominee did not just distance herself from the PRO Act — going so far as to say that her sponsorship of the measure did not mean she would have voted for it in the House. She also embraced the messaging of anti-union Republicans on a host of issues.”
Londrigan said Chavez-DeRemer’s remarks made it plain that “she would do whatever the Trump administration and Trump wanted her to do. That does not bode well for workers in America whom she is charged with protecting.”
Buyer’s remorse?
In last year’s presidential election, most union households voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, the AFL-CIO-endorsed Democrat. Even so, Trump’s populist rhetoric and his claim to be the blue-collar champion won him a significant number of union votes.
“With the actions that Trump’s taken across the board against organized labor and working families, it should be very clear to those individuals who voted for him that he does not support them or stand with them, and that they made a huge error in judgment by listening to his promises and lies about what he’s going to do for working people,” Londrigan said.
He predicted even higher joblessness, inflation, and food prices “all because of Trump’s policies and direct attack on working people. Those folks that voted for him, hopefully, are having buyer’s remorse and will realize they need to get in the game here and start pushing back along with those that didn’t support Trump.”
Governor J.B. Pritzker
Meanwhile, Londrigan likes what he’s hearing from J.B. Pritzker, Illinois’ pro-union Democratic governor who, Ed Kilgore wrote in New York magazine, “scorched Donald Trump’s administration ... calling for ‘mass protests’ and declaring that Republicans ‘cannot know a moment of peace’ during a fiery speech in New Hampshire that immediately sparked presidential speculation. ‘It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,’ Pritzker said to a ballroom filled with Democratic activists, officials and donors. ‘Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now.’”
Said Londrigan: “I totally support the words and positions that Gov. Pritzker has taken. He has been a strong advocate for working people and organized labor in the state of Illinois, has continued to push back against anti-labor policies, including ‘right to work for less’ and he really does speak from the heart. He is speaking the truth about what needs to be done in order for us to preserve our democracy and stop the attacks that Donald Trump and his minions are making against organized labor.”
Forging progressive alliances
Londrigan is also glad to see organized labor making common cause with other progressive groups and organizations in resisting Trump’s anti-worker policies. The alliance was reflected in hundreds of May Day protests nationwide, including some in Kentucky. Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Dustin Reinstedler spoke at the Louisville rally, and Political Coordinator Liles Taylor spoke at the rally in Lexington.
“It is absolutely necessary for us to work together and align ourselves with other progressive groups who share the same positions that we do on the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively and to work with those groups in a united front against the Trump regime.”
But Londrigan warned that Trump’s first hundred days were “just the beginning of his ongoing effort to destroy organized labor in this country so that corporations and billionaires can make more money at the expense of working families.”
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