Posts tagged Donald Trump
The future of white-collar work may be unionized
October 10, 2025 // “The way layoffs happened at Google, where it wasn’t clear what the reason for people getting laid off was, definitely created a sense of job insecurity and mistrust,” says Parul Koul, a software engineer at Google and president of the Alphabet Workers Union. Another driver has been artificial intelligence threatening to replace entry-level knowledge work. Few white-collar industries epitomize the challenge of integrating AI into workflows more than the practice of law. While many legal experts say AI will have a transformative impact by automating repetitive research tasks, some also fear it will dilute entry-level associate roles at law firms.
White House may nix pay for workers furloughed during shutdown
October 9, 2025 // Mark Paoletta, the OMB general counsel, wrote that the 2019 law is “not self-executing” and requires further appropriations to pay furloughed workers as part of stopgap legislation to end the funding lapse. The memo, which is labeled “pre-decisional and deliberative,” says that the requirement for “excepted” employees to keep working creates “binding legal obligations” to pay those workers. On the other hand, Paoletta writes there is no such obligation for furloughed workers who were “not performing services for the government” during the shutdown.
Commentary: When fighting Trump, take union claims with a grain of salt
October 7, 2025 // Government unions faced another momentous reform seven years ago when the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME. The court held that public sector workers have a First Amendment right to completely withdraw from union membership and dues. In essence, the court created a nationwide right-to-work law for all public sector workers, including teachers, police officers, firefighters, and all other federal, state, and local government workers. No longer would they have to join or pay a union to keep their job. Government unions hated this ruling, of course. In a desperate attempt to sway the Supreme Court, union-paid prognosticators predicted massive negative economic effects if the court ruled against unions.
Hundreds Of Unpaid TSA Agents Are Calling In Sick—Expect Longer Airport Security Lines
October 7, 2025 // A notice on the MyTSA app, which travelers use to monitor TSA wait times at airports, says it is “not being actively managed” due to the lapse in funding. There is a similar notice on the TSA website. Shuker told Forbes he would expect a higher number of TSA employees to call out sick on busier travel days such as Sunday, Thursday and Monday. “If you were planning like stress day or a mental health day or an ‘F you’ day, you wouldn’t pick Tuesday because it's the lightest day of the week and the easiest to work,” Shuker told Forbes.
Frozen feud: How Trump and the Supreme Court helped put historic Whole Foods union bid on ice
October 7, 2025 // When the NLRB will regain members depends on how quickly the Republican-led U.S. Senate moves to confirm two nominees picked by Trump in July, Boeing's chief labor counsel and an NLRB career staffer. A Senate committee is set to hold hearings on Trump's nominees on Wednesday. An NLRB spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the delays. William Cowen, the board's acting general counsel, in an August press release addressing efforts in several states to pass new labor protections said the agency's work has "largely been unaffected" by the lack of quorum.
Commentary: Next BLS head needs be an innovator, not a loyalist
October 5, 2025 // BLS’s monthly jobs numbers now regularly include adjustments in excess of 100,000 jobs to prior months’ reported results, thanks to late survey responses trickling in. On top of that, technological innovations like rideshare apps have created new categories of jobs where it is unclear how, or even if, BLS data accounts for them. There simply has to be a better, more innovative way to gather data. Given the need for important and significant changes, the top job at BLS therefore needs to go to an economist committed to getting the data right the first time, who can withstand withering scrutiny and is not beholden to “That’s how we have always done it” thinking. It is a difficult, often thankless, job, and to find that person, the administration cannot make loyalty the most important factor.
Trump’s NLRB Nominees Get Grilled While Board Faces Uncertain Future
October 3, 2025 // If confirmed by the whole Senate, Mayer and Murphy will join the NLRB’s only member, Democratic appointee David A. Prouty, returning the usually five-person board to a three-person quorum with two GOP members and one Democratic one. Historically, the political affiliation of the board members breaks along a 3-2 split, with the majority coming from the president’s political party. With a quorum, the board should be able to return to its work of helping settle labor disputes as outlined under the National Labor Relations Act.
California to weigh in on private labor disputes if NLRB can’t
October 2, 2025 // AB 288 expands the state Public Employment Relations Board's powers over private sector labor disputes like unfair labor practice charges and enforcing collective bargaining agreements. Other blue states, including New York, are trying to expand their state labor agencies' powers over issues that would normally be decided under the National Labor Relations Act, citing Trump's antipathy to organized labor.
Unions sue over Trump’s ‘illegal’ plan to fire many federal workers in a shutdown
October 2, 2025 // The suit, which was filed by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, involves the groups Democracy Forward and the State Democracy Defenders Fund. The court docket did not immediately reflect which judge would handle the case, which names Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought as a defendant.
White House withdraws Antoni’s nomination to lead BLS
October 1, 2025 // “Dr. EJ Antoni is a brilliant economist and an American patriot that will continue to do good work on behalf of our great country," a White House official said in a statement, promising the president will announce a new nominee "very soon." The Senate committee overseeing the Labor Department never scheduled a confirmation hearing, and on Tuesday, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she remained concerned about Antoni's nomination. A person familiar with the nomination said several other Republicans expressed similar hesitation.