One of the calling cards of the progressive left is the criticism of President Donald Trump's labor policies. However, it's important to remember that Trump has continued to facilitate some of the most pro-working-class policies in history. His approach, which includes decreasing employment for immigrants in favor of employing Americans, raising wages, and reducing the outsourcing of jobs overseas, has been a positive force for labor. In contrast, labor suffered more under the Biden-Harris Administration than at any other time in American modern history, as inflation rose significantly, supply chain disruptions harmed workers, and the Administration spent millions of taxpayer dollars on wars and foreign entanglements.
Democrats cannot even look inward at themselves for why they despise Trump's approach to the working class. If they did, they would realize that Trump uses the populist, nationalist appeal that many of their heroes embodied. However, their hatred of Trump overwhelms their grasp on political reality.
Trump's policies have been a boon to the American working class. His America First policies have fostered job growth, increased wages, and given workers greater influence over their corporate masters, government obstructors, and foreign entities. Union workers voted for him en masse in the 2024 Presidential election, a testament to the alignment of his policies with the working class. His Vice President, JD Vance, is arguably the most pro-union Republican Vice President of the modern era, and Trump has made working-class policies, such as tariffs, the forefront of his second term as President. Organizations like the Teamsters even advocate for these policies, negotiating unfair trade deals that ultimately benefit the everyday American worker who is working tirelessly in manufacturing and other industries.
It's essential to note that Trump does not oppose the idea of improving labor conditions or supporting the middle-class working man. His opposition is to unions that he believes hinder the work his national government is obligated to do for the American people. Trump emphasizes his solidarity with the blue-collar workers of this country. Still, he does not support the idea that government bureaucrats should be able to picket, protest, or halt the progress or services they are paid taxpayer money to provide.
Trump's opposition to government unions was embodied in an executive order that he signed on August 28. The order aims to ban collective bargaining at several federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, the National Weather Service, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), and the U.S. Agency for Global Media. This, of course, has caused a mass panic on the left, with many calling this policy and Trump's approach to government unions inherently anti-labor, fascist, and subject to being elitist, which he claims to oppose. However, this is a misinterpretation given his robust support of working-class Americans in every other facet of his policy. In fact, he is simply adopting the same mindset that the left's hero, four-term President Franklin D. Roosevelt, took during his presidency, a historical parallel that underscores the strength of his labor policies.
In 1937, President Roosevelt authored a letter that vehemently opposed public sector (government) unions, stating that, "Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied." Ironically, if FDR had no other similarity to Trump, he was clearly aligned with him in opposing collective bargaining by government bureaucrats to earn more pay while obstructing their public duty to serve the American public, because that is precisely who pays them. The elitists are the ones who are bolstering these arguments that Trump is anti-labor, not the actual middle-class Americans who voted for him to have their back in policy and messaging.
Collective bargaining by government unions often works against the interests of the working class. FDR and Trump both thought that if government employees are working off the taxes of the middle class, which bolsters their entire paycheck, then government unions do nothing but obstruct the duty that the public sector provides at the national level.
The working class is the backbone of the paychecks that get signed and pay these government workers, so the argument falls flat when the left tries to equate labor-intensive manufacturing jobs to federal government employees. If Roosevelt was right about anything, it was that the public sector needs to refrain from obstructing its own duties through collective bargaining, and President Trump is laying the foundation to ensure that is halted.
