Category: Unions

The Corporate Lawbreakers Involved in the Port Labor Dispute

The decision by the International Longshoremen’s Association to strike ports on the East and Gulf Coasts has prompted numerous media outlets to produce unflattering stories about union president Harold Daggett and what is depicted as his lavish lifestyle.

I have not seen much reporting on the ILA’s adversaries—the corporate members of the employer group known as the United States Maritime Alliance. The group’s website lists about 40 members, among which are some of the largest multinational shipping corporations and terminal operators in the world.

These companies have become more familiar to me as I have been gathering data for the new Violation Tracker Global database, which my colleagues and I will release soon. USMA members show up frequently in data from regulatory agencies in various countries. Here is a preview of what Violation Tracker Global will reveal about these shippers.

One of the USMA members is an American subsidiary of Norway’s Wallenius Wilhelmsen Group. Since 2010, units of the shipping company have racked up regulatory penalties equal to more than US$440 million. Most of these were for anti-competitive practices. The biggest case was a $256 million penalty imposed by the European Commission in 2018 for participating in an illegal cartel controlling the market for vehicle shipping. Wallenius Wilhelmsen has also been fined in Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and the United States.

Another USMA member is a unit of Japan’s Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, known as K Line. Since 2010, K Line has been penalized more than $240 million for similar anti-competitive practices. The largest case was a $67 million criminal fine imposed by the U.S. Justice Department for participation in a conspiracy to fix prices, allocate customers, and rig bids for shipping services for roll-on, roll-off cargo, such as cars and trucks. K Line has also been fined in Australia, Canada, Chile, China, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, and South Korea.

One of the biggest USMA members is Denmark’s Maersk, which participates directly and through its subsidiaries APM Terminals and Hamburg Sud. Since 2010, Maersk and all its subsidiaries have racked up about $45 million in penalties. The largest portion of that was a 2012 U.S. case in which Maersk Line Limited had to pay the federal government $31.9 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims in connection with contracts to transport cargo in shipping containers to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among other things, Maersk units were fined by Russian authorities for anti-competitive practices and by British authorities for an offshore oil spill.

Also on the membership list is CSAV, a Chilean shipping company whose fines in Violation Tracker Global amount to $25 million. Those include competition cases brought by the European Commission and in China, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States. France’s CMA CGA has total fines of just under $25 million. It was also fined by the European Commission and in Brazil, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Opponents of the ILA are arguing that the union’s fight against automation will impede efficiency and lead to higher shipping costs. Yet, as the information in Violation Tracker Global will show, the shippers themselves have already been boosting costs through price-fixing and other anti-competitive practices across their global operations.

Violation Tracker Global will be available starting on October 8 at:
https://violationtrackerglobal.goodjobsfirst.org/

Big Business on the Defensive

Too often, the news is filled with stories of large corporations getting away with all kinds of abuses—mistreating workers, fouling the environment, cheating consumers, undermining our privacy. This week has been different.

On the labor front, there has been more coverage of strikes than we have seen for a long while. This includes a resolved dispute involving film and TV writers, a continuing one involving actors and an escalating one involving autoworkers. These work stoppages are all receiving widespread public support.

The auto strike also brought about the first-ever visit of a sitting U.S. President to a picket line. Occupants of the White House have more typically responded to walkouts by blocking them—as Biden did with railroad workers last year—or with more extreme measures such as Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981.

At the same time, news outlets are giving substantial play to efforts by federal and state governments to curb the power of Big Tech. The Federal Trade Commission, along with 17 state attorneys general, just filed a sweeping complaint against Amazon.com, accusing the e-commerce giant of abusing its market power to the detriment of both consumers and small businesses that rely on its platform to sell their goods.

The FTC complaint arrives as the trial proceeds in a Justice Department lawsuit against Google for monopolizing the online search market. Both cases challenge the core business models of the companies. Even if break-ups of the tech giants are unlikely, adverse court rulings could require them to make fundamental structural changes in the way they operate.

Significant changes, while perhaps not as drastic, could also result from the current labor disputes. It appears that the new contract won by the Writers Guild of America will put limits on the industry’s control of content created with the help of artificial intelligence. United Autoworkers members are seeking to dismantle tiered wage structures and reduce the basic workweek while the industry is making the transition to electric vehicles.

Other fundamental challenges to corporations can be seen in the environmental area. Not long ago, a group of young people in Montana prevailed in their lawsuit arguing that the state’s failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects was a violation of a provision in the Montana constitution guaranteeing residents the right to a clean and healthy environment. This is just one of numerous efforts to use the courts to address the climate crisis. Large companies are also facing the prospect of new greenhouse gas disclosure requirements—one passed by the California legislature and another pending in the European Union.

Corporations are not giving into these challenges without a fight. They are trying to limit their concessions to unions, aggressively arguing their positions in the court cases, taking steps to sway public opinion and employing legions of lobbyists to promote their point of view to legislators and policymakers.

Yet, for the moment, it is a pleasure to see Big Business on the defensive.

The Two Faces of Howard Schultz

One person from Starbucks responded to a subpoena from Senate labor committee chair Bernie Sanders, but there seemed to be two versions of Howard Schultz at the witness table.

Schultz number one was the typical anti-union corporate executive. Despite the vast number of unfair labor practice charges that have been filed by Starbucks workers, many of which have been sustained by NLRB administrative law judges, he insisted the company has done nothing wrong. Accused of failing to bargain in good faith at the locations where employees have voted for representation, he blamed the union.

While giving gave lip service to the idea that workers have a right to seek union representation, Schultz added that “the company has a right to express a preference.” Not only does such a right not exist, but Starbucks has, as fired activist Jaysin Saxton testified at the hearing, gone far beyond stating its opinion. It stands accused of using many classic union-busting tactics as well as new ones such as refusing to allow credit card tipping at pro-union locations.

The other Howard Schultz tried to portray himself as a model employer, insisting that Starbucks offers much better pay and benefits than its competitors in the retail sector. Even if there is some truth in this, it is not saying much that you treat your workforce a bit better than Walmart and McDonald’s.

This Schultz argued that unionization might be appropriate at companies that treat their workers unfairly, but not at a supposedly enlightened one like Starbucks. What he could not seem to comprehend is that as much as the company claims to value and respect its green-aproned “partners,” they may want to relate to management on a more equal footing.

If Starbucks really believed in employee empowerment, it would have adopted a neutral stance toward unionization, as Microsoft did in response to the union push at Activision Blizzard. Instead, it has resorted to retrograde anti-union practices that strengthen the case for collective bargaining.

This approach throws into question the idea that Starbucks is a high-road company. Despite its carefully cultivated reputation, there have long been signs of questionable policies at the coffee chain. Some of these can be seen in the Starbucks entries in Violation Tracker, which documents more than $50 million in penalties over the past two decades. Almost all of these are employment-related.

For example: in 2013 the company agreed to pay $3 million to settle litigation alleging it denied baristas their right under California law to take uninterrupted meal breaks. Starbucks has paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing it of improperly classifying employees such as assistant store managers as exempt from overtime pay. In 2019 the company paid $176,000 to state and local agencies in New York to settle allegations it improperly penalized employees who could not find a substitute when they needed to take a sick day.

Long-standing problems such as these, along with its more recent repressive practices, suggest that Starbucks may not be such a paragon of corporate virtue after all. In fact, it may very well be one of those unfair employers that even Howard Schultz admits should be unionized.

Derailing a Strike

The Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats purport to be pro-union, but in their desperation to prevent a rail strike they fail to understand something fundamental about collective bargaining: Sometimes workers have to inconvenience the public in order to achieve their legitimate goals.

A strike is a form of disruption. It is designed to put direct economic pressure on an employer by curtailing operations. Yet it also uses indirect means. The hope is that customers, suppliers, creditors and other stakeholders will press management to settle its differences with the union, resulting in better terms for workers. The louder the public uproar, the more likely there will be concessions by employers.

By trying to prohibit a strike by rail workers dissatisfied with the agreement previously negotiated with the help of the Biden Administration, Congress is eliminating both the direct and indirect pressures management might feel to improve on those contract provisions. It is trying to impose a clean solution in a conflict that is inherently messy.

At the insistence of progressives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to an add-on bill that would compel the railroads to provide additional paid sick days—a key point of contention—but as of this writing it seems unlikely that measure will pass the Senate.but that measure failed in the Senate.

Passage of a measure imposing the previous agreement and banning a strike would amount to one of the most egregious cases of strike-breaking by the federal government since Ronald Reagan busted the air traffic controllers union in 1981. It would also constitute an outrageous giveaway to a group of employers with a dismal track record on working conditions and safety.

As documented in Violation Tracker, the five U.S.-owned Class I railroads — BNSF, CSX, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific—have been fined more than 9,000 times by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over the past two decades. They have paid over $100 million in penalties. The biggest offender is Union Pacific, with over 3,400 citations and $42 million in fines over safety issues.

The hazards indicated by these repeated violations—along with the grueling schedules imposed on rail workers—make the demand for ample paid sick leave all the more urgent.

That urgency applies not only to railroad employees but to the public. The safety lapses cited by the Federal Railroad Administration can lead to accidents such as collisions with cars and trucks at grade crossings or derailments in which hazardous materials spill out and endanger nearby communities.

Railroads have a history of trying to suppress information about dangerous working conditions. For example, in 2019 and 2020 BNSF, which is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, was ordered to pay more than $1.7 million in damages and compensation to an employee who faced retaliation after reporting track defects.

CSX has been fined several times for whistleblower retaliation. For example, in 2021 OSHA found that the company violated the Federal Railroad Safety Act and demonstrated a pattern of retaliation after firing a worker in December 2019 for reporting safety concerns. The agency ordered the company to pay $71,976 in back wages, interest, and damages, and $150,000 in punitive damages.

In 2020 Norfolk Southern was ordered to pay $85,000 and reinstate an employee who was fired for reporting an on-the-job injury. Union Pacific has paid over $700,00 in five retaliation cases.

The rap sheets of the Class I railroads also include multiple environmental penalties. For example, in 2009 Union Pacific had to pay more than $31 million to settle alleged violations of the Clean Water Act in Nevada. In 2019 it paid $2.3 million to four California counties to resolve allegations relating to the mishandling of hazardous wastes.

In 2010 Norfolk Southern paid over $8 million to the Environmental Protection Agency in connection with a derailment and spill of hazardous chemicals in South Carolina. Three years earlier, it paid over $7 million to Pennsylvania to help pay for the restoration of waterways and wetlands affected by a lye spill.

In 2018 CSX paid $2.7 million to federal and state agencies to resolve liabilities related to water pollution caused by a 2015 derailment and oil spill in West Virginia. In 2004 BNSF paid North Dakota $29 million to resolve litigation relating to a massive underground leak of diesel oil.

The Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats may not have intended it, but their approach to the rail conflict ended up providing an extraordinary benefit to one of the least deserving industries.

Conflicting Goals at Starbucks

More large corporations are said to be signaling their commitment to environmental and social goals by including those targets in the incentive packages offered to their chief executives.

That’s the message of a recent article in the Financial Times, which highlights the example of Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson, whose $20 million compensation total in 2021 was based in part on reducing the company’s use of plastic straws and lowering methane emissions at the farms producing the milk for its lattes.

Those are laudable goals, but they may also amount to another form of greenwashing. After all, in the case of Starbucks, the company’s proxy statement indicates that the lion’s share of Johnson’s bonus was still determined by conventional financial benchmarks such as profitability.

There is also the question of whether the alternative metrics are all appropriate. Along with “planet-positive environmental goals,” the minority share of Johnson’s bonus was also set by “people-positive goals.” According to the proxy, that includes factors such as diversity. Yet what about other employment issues?

Starbucks is now in the midst of a widespread union drive among its baristas.  Since employees at a location in Buffalo, New York voted for representation in December, organizing drives have sprung up at outlets around the country. A new union called Starbucks Workers United has reported that National Labor Relations Board petitions have been filed at more than 100 locations around the country.

These initiatives have not exactly been welcomed by Starbucks management. While claiming it will bargain in good faith with the Buffalo group, the company is employing some traditional anti-union tactics, such as mandatory meetings in which managers seek to discourage organizing.

Johnson set the tone for this himself. Just before the vote in Buffalo in December, he gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he trotted out the usual corporate line that unionization would destroy the rapport between workers and management: “It goes against having that direct relationship with our partners that has served us so well for decades and allowed us to build this great company.” Around the same time, the company sent a text message to workers saying: “Please vote and vote no to protect what you love about Starbucks.”

It remains to be seen whether the company will continue to rely on this guilt-tripping approach rather than hard-core unionbusting. An indication of where things may be headed was the move by the company earlier this month to fire seven activists at a Memphis location, claiming they violated safety rules.

This brings us back to Johnson’s bonus. Will his handling of the organizing drive factor into his 2022 bonus? If he succeeds in blocking widespread unionization of the chain, will that be seen as a “people-positive” achievement?

In all likelihood, next year’s proxy statement will be silent on the union campaign, regardless of how it turns out. Yet Johnson will no doubt be rewarded financially if he thwarts the effort.

And that points to the problem with the employment aspects of corporate social responsibility practices. While companies have come to regard environmental goals as changes that everyone can rally around, organizing drives are another matter. Faced with the prospect of unionization, even supposedly progressive companies still act like the benighted employers of a century ago.

Until corporations such as Starbucks begin respecting the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively, they have no business presenting themselves as socially responsible.

Building Back Unions

While its Build Back Better bill remains in limbo, the Biden Administration has been doing the smart thing by undertaking significant policy initiatives via executive order. Such steps cannot redistribute income or create big new social programs, but they can do some significant good.

That includes changes in the workplace. Biden recently signed an executive order requiring project labor agreements for all federal construction projects with a cost of $35 million or more. This will ensure that these projects are carried out by well-paid and well-trained tradespeople working with the protection of union contracts.

The order is not flawless. It contains exceptions that would allow agencies to forgo a PLA if they determine it would not advance “economy and efficiency” and under several other circumstances. Hopefully, these loopholes will not be abused. It’s a good sign that the anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors put out a statement blasting the order, claiming it will “needlessly increase construction costs.”

Encouraging the creation of high-quality union jobs by federal contractors is also part of a report just issued by the Administration’s Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment. The document is an unabashed endorsement of unions as a force for raising living standards and workplace standards.

It argues for positioning the federal government as a model for cooperative labor-management relationships within its own workforce and for using the government’s spending power to promote stronger labor standards in private companies from which it purchases goods and services as well as in organizations receiving federal grants and loans.

The Task Force also makes the case for increasing union density in the private sector overall. Yet without legislation such as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which is stalled in the Senate, the Administration is limited to providing indirect support. The report includes a list of recommendations such as getting the National Labor Relations Board to use the web and social media to promote better understanding of worker organizing rights under existing federal law. It also suggests that high-level administration officials disseminate the same message through public service announcements.

This is all laudable but unlikely to make much of a difference. The main obstacle to worker organizing is not a lack of understanding of labor law but rather the ability of employers to flout that law with no real consequences.

More promising are the report’s recommendations concerning the enforcement of labor standards. Strong regulation works hand in hand with union organizing to exploitative working conditions.

Among the suggestions is a call for closer cooperation between the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service to investigate worker misclassification, a practice which not only undermines overtime pay rules but also interferes with proper payroll tax collection.

Reading the report, one gets the impression that the Task Force was trying to find every last way to use the federal government to help unions. The laundry list includes numerous arcane ideas such as instructing the Department of Education to include labor-management collaboration as a criterion in awarding competitive grants.

After decades in which the spirit of the National Labor Relations Act has been largely ignored by both Republican and Democratic presidents, it is heartening to see an administration so driven to promote labor rights. Yet it is going to take much more substantial measures to reverse the decline of private sector unionization.  

Striking Back

The media these days is full of what amounts to employer propaganda. The setbacks in the organizing drives at Amazon are called signs that unions are obsolete. The difficulties that low-wage companies are having in refilling positions are presented as justification for terminating enhanced unemployment compensation. The long-overdue upward movement in wages is depicted as part of a dangerous trend toward inflation.

The Washington Post has just bucked this trend by publishing an account of a labor conflict in Kansas that reminds us that certain unpleasant realities persist in the workplace and that some old-fashioned ways of responding to them are still suitable.

Hundreds of workers at a Frito-Lay snack food plant in Topeka went on strike earlier this month to protest work schedules that sound like something out of the 19th Century. Many of the employees were being forced to work seven days a week and up to 12 hours per shift, creating workweeks that could reach 84 hours.  

The reason for this is that demand for Cheetos and Doritos has been robust, and Frito-Lay wants to make the most of it. Fortunately, the workers are represented by the Bakery union (BCTGM), so they are not completely at the mercy of management. Yet the company is said to have rebuffed calls from the union to hire more workers and is taking a hard line in contract renewal negotiations.

Frito-Lay’s retrograde management style started long before the current dispute. The company, a division of the soft drink giant PepsiCo, has a record of workplace abuses dating back at least two decades. This can be seen in Violation Tracker, which documents 29 cases since 2000.

These include seven cases in which Frito-Lay had to provide back-pay to workers to settle unfair labor practice charges as well as 13 cases in which it was penalized by OSHA for health and safety violations.

But perhaps what is most remarkable about Frito-Lay is that it has been sued repeatedly for wage and hour abuses and has paid out more than $23 million to settle five different collective action lawsuits. The largest of these was an $11.9 million settlement back in 2001 involving driver-salespersons. In 2018 the company paid $6.5 million to settle allegations that it did not provide proper pay to long-haul drivers, including a failure to comply with California law concerning meal and rest breaks.

Frito-Lay’s workplace practices are in keeping with those of its parent. PepsiCo has paid millions more to settle similar lawsuits relating to its Pepsi operations. These include a $5 million settlement in 2018 and a $3 million settlement in 2015. It has also paid fines to the U.S. Labor Department for Fair Labor Standards Act violations.

While some of the circumstances of the Kansas strike stem from the current economy, at its core is the age-old struggle by workers to be treated fairly. Let’s hope that the time-honored tactic of withholding labor is sufficient to get Frito-Lay to do the right thing.

The Many Sins of the Tech Giants

The 400-page report just published by the Democratic leadership of the House Judiciary Committee is a damning review of the anti-competitive practices of the big tech companies—Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google’s parent Alphabet.

The report finds that in various portions of the digital world these companies have amassed what amounts to monopoly control and have not hesitated to use it crush or absorb competitors. Comparing the tech giants to the oil barons and railroad tycoons of the late 19th century, the report calls for aggressive measures such as breaking up the companies and doing more rigorous reviews of proposed mergers and acquisitions in the future.

Among the broader consequences of the rising power of the tech giants are, the report argues: a weakening of innovation and entrepreneurship, a decline in the number of trustworthy sources of news, and an erosion of safeguards for the privacy of personal information.

One aspect of the report that has not received much coverage is the brief discussion of the power of the tech giants in the labor market. This is especially relevant for Amazon, which as the report notes has become one of the largest employers in the country and is exercising monopsony power in sectors such as warehousing and “has wage-setting power through its ability to set route fees and other fixed costs for independent contractors in localities in which it dominates the delivery labor market. These entities are dependent on Amazon for a large majority—or even 100%—of their delivery business.”

Amazon has moved into the position previously held by Walmart—a shamelessly exploitative employer that depresses wages and worsens working conditions not only for its own workers but also for the entire sector in which it operates—and to some extent for the economy as a whole.

The report’s wide-ranging recommendations do not include any remedies for these labor issues, perhaps because they are outside the scope of the Judiciary Committee.

It is worth noting that there are already efforts underway to address the labor practices of the tech giants. Several unions as well as other groups are working with Amazon employees to agitate for better conditions, a process made more difficult by Amazon’s brazen anti-union practices and its widespread use of staffing services to evade its employer responsibilities.

There are also class-action lawsuits challenging unfair employment practices by Amazon and other tech giants. For example, Facebook recently agreed to pay $1.65 million to resolve litigation alleging that it misclassified workers to deprive them of overtime pay.  A few years ago, Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe Systems together agreed to pay $415 million to resolve allegations that they conspired not to hire each other’s employees, thus suppressing salary levels.

Taking on the tech giants will require many lines of attack to address the harms they cause to users and employees alike.

The Not-So-Mysterious Solution to Wage Stagnation

Many steelworkers thought they had hit the jackpot. Back in March, Donald Trump announced steep tariffs on metals imported from most of the world, and three months later he added close allies such as Canada and Mexico to the list. As with many of his other economic policies, Trump claimed that the move was designed to benefit U.S. workers, a few of whom were brought to the White House with their hardhats to serve as props when the measure was first announced.

Now months have passed, and steelworkers are still waiting for the payoff. As one of them recently told the Washington Post, “It’s been a little like watching the air going out of a balloon.” When it comes to steel company profits, the party is still in full swing as the industry reaps the benefits of soaring prices.

Yet the producers are resisting sharing the wealth with their workers. In fact, the big companies took such a hard line in their contract negotiations with the United Steelworkers that union members authorized strikes against United States Steel and ArcelorMittal. If a walkout were to occur, it would interrupt the labor peace that has prevailed in the industry for several decades.

It has been widely reported that Trump’s tariffs may be harming more workers than they are helping, as industries dependent on the affected imports lay people off or otherwise squeeze employees to deal with the increased costs. The situation in steel shows that even in the favored industries workers do not necessarily benefit when their employers experience a windfall. They have to fight for their share.

The same principle applies in sectors not directly affected by tariffs. Take Amazon, which has been basking in praise after setting a $15 an hour minimum wage for its growing workforce. This was not a case of corporate generosity.

The company, headed by the ridiculously wealthy Jeff Bezos, has been under increasing pressure over poor working conditions at its distribution centers. Amazon had replaced Walmart as the prime exemplar of the abusive employer. Sen. Bernie Sanders recently introduced legislation called the Stop Bezos Act to penalize large companies whose low-wage workers had to depend on government safety net programs. This, plus the Fight for $15 campaign and the community groups organizing around the company’s plans to build a massive second headquarters complex in a yet-to-be-chosen city, compelled Amazon to start to move away from the low road.

In a recent interview with the PBS Newshour, Fed chairman Jerome Powell was the latest economic analyst to call it a mystery that wages are not rising more in a tight labor market. Decades ago, when pay levels were rising rapidly, mainstream economists did not hesitate to cite unions as a key cause—and in fact blamed organized labor for being too aggressive.

Yet these same economists cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the weakening of unions, brought about by employer animus and government restrictions, is now a major reason for wage stagnation.

The good news is that collective action, both through unions and other labor organizations, seems to be making a comeback. That—and not the bogus labor-friendly trade and regulatory policies of the Trump Administration—will be what restores the living standards of the U.S. workforce.

Trump’s War on Workers

Donald Trump’s blue-collar supporters may like what they are seeing on Fox News, but when they arrive at work the MAGA revolution is nowhere to be found. Far from empowering labor, the Trump Administration’s employment policies are heavily skewed toward management.

The aspect of this I’ve been focusing on lately are wage and hour issues. Recently my colleagues and I at the Corporate Research Project and Jobs With Justice published Grand Theft Paycheck, a detailed look at wage theft by large corporations. We found that major employers in a wide range of industries continue to pay out large sums in collective action lawsuits, which indicates that they continue to violate the Fair Labor Standards Act by compelling employees to do off-the-clock work and denying them proper overtime pay.

Such litigation may soon be a thing of the past. There are signs that collective actions are failing in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Epic Systems ruling, written by Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch, affirming the right of employers to use mandatory arbitration to block group lawsuits. For example, a federal judge in California told a group of Domino’s Pizza drivers that they had to use arbitration rather than litigation to resolve their claims against franchise owners.

At the same time, instead of intensifying enforcement by the Wage and Hour Division, Trump’s Labor Department is promoting a new approach based on corporate self-audits and fewer fines. Allowing employers to operate on the honor system is just another way of weakening enforcement.

A new report from the National Employment Law Project shows that the Trump DOL is also reducing enforcement of workplace safety and health rules.  NELP found that OSHA enforcement activity in FY2017 was down compared to the previous year. The decline was even more pronounced during the first five months of FY2018, when the number of enforcement units (the measure used by OSHA) fell by more than 7 percent. This trend is likely to worsen, since NELP notes that the number of OSHA inspectors has been declining.

Federal workers are facing an assault of their own. Trump recently announced plans to overhaul rules affecting more than two million employees, making it easier to discipline and fire them. The move also includes an attack on federal unions through stricter limits on the amount of time grievance officers and other activists can spend on union activity during working hours.

The next blow will come in the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a decision soon in the Janus case that blocks the ability of public sector unions to collect fees from employees who decline to join but still benefit from collective bargaining agreements and other protections negotiated by those unions. Such a ruling could have a devastating financial impact on public unions.

As bad as all this sounds, it could boomerang on Trump and his corporate allies. More workers may follow the example of the teacher wildcat strikes and put their faith in self-organization rather than a demagogue.