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In 2024, candidate Donald Trump ran for president as somebody who cared concerning the common employee in America. However throughout his first month in workplace, he has fallen head over heels for the billionaire class and forgotten the individuals who elected him. Proper from the beginning, President Trump handed our authorities over to the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, and gave him entry to all our most delicate, private knowledge in order that Musk can use that unique entry to make himself even richer.
Even worse, Trump and Musk have launched a dizzying sequence of assaults on low- and middle-income staff, making clear that this billionaire takeover of our authorities will depart American staff much more powerless than they had been earlier than.
And it’s not simply Musk – Trump has surrounded himself with a band of billionaires who couldn’t be extra out of contact with the on a regular basis expertise of most People. The federal minimal wage has been the identical since 2009: $7.25. Sixty-two % of People assist elevating the minimal wage to $15 as a result of they agree in case you work a full-time job, you shouldn’t be dwelling at or under the poverty degree.
‘ONLY TAKES 3’: DEMS PUSH PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION TO TURN GOP AGAINST ELON MUSK’S DOGE
You already know who doesn’t agree? Trump and his billionaire cupboard. His newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – web value $521 million – made it clear throughout his affirmation listening to that he believes staff don’t deserve a increase within the embarrassingly low nationwide wage flooring.
President Donald Trump ran a marketing campaign to assist American staff. Has he lived as much as that? FILE: Trump speaks to the gang on the Republican Nationwide Conference on the Fiserv Discussion board in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday, July 18, 2024. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox Information Digital)
It solely took one week for Trump to set his sights on destroying labor unions, the place many staff be a part of collectively to cut price for larger wages and higher working situations. Trump’s first goal was the company liable for defending staff’ rights, the Nationwide Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The NLRB conducts union elections, investigates allegations of unfair labor practices, and protects staff from being exploited by their employers, all of which enrages billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Musk. The NLRB can’t function with lower than three of its 5 members. So, what did Trump do? He paralyzed it by firing NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, who had one other three years left in her time period. With simply two members left, the board has been rendered utterly toothless and unable to order events to pay cures or acknowledge a union.
But it surely’s actually not shocking, with Musk in cost. Musk has at all times hated staff. He made that time very clear, outright declaring “I disagree with the thought of unions,” and he’s efficiently fought tooth and nail to dam Tesla staff from ever forming one.
Tesla is the one main U.S. automobile producer whose staff aren’t represented by a union, and they’re worse off due to it. Tesla staff make about 30% lower than staff at GM and Ford, who’re unionized via the UAW. And earlier than Trump killed the NLRB, Musk’s firms had been the topic of 24 investigations for alleged labor violations. Now he has free rein to mistreat his staff.
We all know what comes subsequent as a result of Trump has spent the primary month in workplace executing a radical plan at hand authorities over to the billionaires. It’s known as Challenge 2025, and this anti-worker, pro-corporate plan previews what’s forward.
Challenge 2025 outlined an finish to all challenge labor settlement necessities, which defend good-paying union jobs, and a repeal of Davis-Bacon, which assures that building jobs utilizing taxpayer {dollars} pay a dwelling wage to building staff.
Even worse, Challenge 2025 requires limiting when staff obtain additional time pay to solely once they work greater than 80 hours in two weeks. For those who work 60 hours one week and 20 the subsequent week, you gained’t get the additional time pay you earned within the first week.
Trump and Musk have additionally spent their first weeks in workplace relentlessly demonizing federal staff. These are the individuals who examine our meals to ensure it’s secure, present medical care to veterans, administer Social Safety funds and course of passports. 4 out of 5 federal staff stay and work outdoors the D.C. space. Earlier than he was confirmed, Director of the Workplace of Administration and Funds Russ Vought mentioned, “We need to put [federal workers] in trauma.”
Home Democrats had been blocked from coming into the Division of Training constructing in Washington, Feb. 7, 2025. (Fox Information)
The best insult to staff would be the large tax and spending invoice that Trump and congressional Republicans are pushing via Congress. It cuts taxes for billionaires, millionaires and firms, and to pay for these tax giveaways, Republicans are going to intestine the packages that assist minimum-wage staff and their households, like Medicaid.
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Medicaid pays for many nursing house beds within the nation, the place the dad and mom of hard-working People spend their closing days. These nursing house beds will disappear, and dealing households will face chapter, having to shoulder all the price of costly acute care for his or her beloved one.
All of those assaults on staff taking place on the identical time, aren’t an enormous coincidence. Trump has determined to empower the ruling class – the billionaires, the massive company CEOs, the monetary agency titans – and intestine protections and companies for everybody else.
We all know what comes subsequent as a result of Trump has spent the primary month in workplace executing a radical plan at hand authorities over to the billionaires. It’s known as Challenge 2025, and this anti-worker, pro-corporate plan previews what’s forward.
Musk doesn’t care about serving to working individuals as a result of his precedence is utilizing his newly bought energy to generate profits off his management of presidency. He used his position on the White Home to get a gathering with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi so he might speak about opening a Tesla manufacturing facility in India and transport jobs abroad.
He shut down the Client Monetary Safety Bureau so he can flip X into an unregulated funds app. He destroyed USAID to offer China, the place he manufactures half of his vehicles, extra energy on the world’s stage. Unsurprisingly, Musk’s private web value has elevated $130 billion for the reason that election.
Trump might need run as somebody who cared about common individuals, however he’s governing like somebody obsessive about one, singular concept: steal from staff as a way to enrich the very, very rich and the company class. Day by day People see extra proof of Trump’s blind loyalty to members of his personal billionaire clique and his abandonment of the working-class voters who supported him final November. The proof is stacking up and more and more unimaginable to disregard.
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