What to expect as Trump’s anti-labor agenda takes shape
President Trump’s National Labor Relations Board just released its first general counsel memo — that is, the document outlining the NLRB’s priorities and legal guidance for the coming term. And oh boy, is it a doozy.
Acting general counsel William Cowen’s memo erases the last four years of progressive NLRB governance under his predecessor, Jennifer Abruzzo. This includes reversing the board's hugely popular decision to ban employee non-compete agreements; limiting the monetary damages available to the victims of unfair labor and workplace practices; and making it tougher for unions to gain official recognition.
Those anti-worker policies will come as a shock to the union and working-class voters Donald Trump charmed away from Democrats last year. Those voters supported Trump because they believed deeply in his promise to fix an economy that often feels rigged against regular people. Trump’s anti-worker NLRB memo repays their hope with a knife in the back.
The voters who took Trump at his word must now reckon with what is likely the most anti-worker NLRB ever assembled.
Meanwhile, Cowen’s most hostile reversals are all but gift-wrapped for Trump allies like Amazon megabillionaire Jeff Bezos. In 2024, the Biden NLRB ruled that Amazon had broken the law by requiring employees to sit through anti-union rallies during the workday. That policy is set to disappear under Trump, along with other rules barring Amazon and major corporations from interfering in union elections.
“It should have been apparent to anyone that Trump planned to declare war on unions and working people, and it’s pretty pathetic that the media fell hook, line, and sinker for the myth that he was leading some new worker-friendly GOP,” More Perfect Union’s Jordan Zakarin told me. “It’s going to be open season on anybody seeking to organize their workplaces or push back against their bosses.”
Of course, Bezos won’t be the only billionaire whose life is made easier at the expense of workers who can now be harassed and bullied for engaging in protected union organizing activity. Shadow president and part-time CEO Elon Musk has also been locked in his own struggles with the NLRB over alleged labor violations at SpaceX. For his part, Musk regularly calls the NLRB unconstitutional and previously called for its elimination.
Musk can rest easy this week knowing that his DOGE cartel has “paralyzed” the NLRB through a mix of staff lockouts and Abruzzo’s abrupt firing late last month. With just a skeleton crew and a long list of Biden orders to rescind, it’s unclear whether officials at NLRB will have much time for anything else. History has taught us that in situations like this, it’s working men and women who end up suffering most.
Trump’s sweeping moves at the NLRB have left labor leaders reeling after four years of resurgent union organizing under President Joe Biden. That frustration is now rippling through every level of America’s labor movement. I spoke with veteran Pennsylvania union activist and radio host Rick Smith, who sees the NLRB’s transformation into a pro-business puppet group as a byproduct of labor’s increasing political fragmentation.
“This is what you get when you want to run your country like a business,” Smith said. “I believe labor is the last line of defense against an authoritarian regime like [Trump’s]. Labor had better rediscover its roots in unity and solidarity, because straddling the line won’t stop Trump’s movement.”
Trump and his cronies at the NLRB can’t explain how making warehouses and factory floors are supposed to lower your grocery bill because they won't. Republicans’ fatal mistake is thinking that voters won’t notice. Trump’s wave of government firings has spiked his unpopularity even among Americans who voted for the president last November, the Wall Street Journal found. Now his NLRB actions have caused even Trump-sympathetic union members in key swing states to prepare for the worst.
Trump’s final victory over the NLRB is the culmination of a war he’s been fighting since 2016, when the new president dedicated himself to unwinding many of Barack Obama’s biggest pro-labor reforms. Now the president is moving on to an even more extreme step: eliminating the nation’s labor relations watchdog entirely. Under that regulation-free new framework, billionaires like Musk and Bezos would find themselves in charge of policing their own alleged labor violations. Eat your heart out, Gilded Age!
With the first special elections of 2025 fast approaching, Trump and his Republican accomplices are once again picking workers’ pockets while leaving them open to unprecedented harassment and abuse by their corporate employers. Voters should remember that as they wade back into the slime of another election season.
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.
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