Trump Trolls American Workers with *LABOR DAY MESSAGE
*Trump Trolls American Workers with His Labor Day message.* The White House issues a statement praising workers and unions, despite a record of depressing wages, threatening jobs, and weakening unions. Think Progress, Sept. 1, 2018.
- In a presidential proclamation released Friday, the White House falsely claimed that the Trump administration “has taken historic action to advance prosperity for the American worker.”-
While many of the administration’s actions are historic — the tax cut benefiting corporations and rich people are on track to balloon the deficit to record-setting levels — they do not benefit workers. Wages are stagnant and remain low. The federal minimum wage has languished at $7.25 for almost a decade now. Even as local governments are trying to pass $15 minimum wage bills, the Republican party continually opposes such measures, in some cases using state-house majorities to impede legislation.
Workers are feeling the pinch in other ways, even with the economy at nearly full employment. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka put it, "It doesn't matter if unemployment's at 3.9% if their wages are low. They don't have health care and they can't afford to send their kids to school." Trump's trade war is hurting farmers and new tariffs are likely to put people out of work in multiple sectors. The administration even pursues petty policies, like restricting rules on H1-B visas or making it harder for workers to recoup lost overtime pay, that harms workers.
He's even using the tax cuts as an excuse to bring wages down: Just Thursday, the White House proposed a freeze on federal workers' pay, in the name of "fiscal responsibility," despite the massive tax cuts recently signed into law. He has a distinctly ant-union track record: In May, Trump took aim at federal workers' unions in a series of executive orders that would undermine unions power, though a judge recently struck down parts of those orders. And Trump's Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch dealt a massive blow to public sector unions. More, https://thinkprogress.org/trump-trolls-american-workers-with-his-labor-day-message-a7b089948ab1/
- US President Trump arrives at Andrews Airforce Base, Friday, August 31, 2018.
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'Just Hours After Ordering Pay Cut for Millions of Public Workers, Trump Proposes $100 Billion Gift to Richest 1%.' "Trump wants to send another kiss to the rich- unilaterally, without any approval from Congress. He ignores the law, governs for the top one percent, and doesn't give a hoot about the rest of us." By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, Aug. 31, 2018.
Hours after he launched yet another "direct attack" on workers by canceling a modest pay raise for around two million federal employees, President Donald Trump told Bloomberg on Thursday that he is considering a regressive and possibly illegal plan to use his executive power to hand the rich another $100 billion in tax cuts by indexing capital gains to inflation.
"There are a lot of people that love it and some people that don't," Trump said of the plan, which would disproportionately reward the top 0.01 percent of Americans. "But I'm thinking about it very strongly."
Trump's Oval Office interview with Bloomberg came shortly after the president announced in a letter to congressional leaders that he is freezing a planned 2.1 percent pay increase for federal workers just ahead of Labor Day, claiming that "federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases."
But for Trump and the Republican Party, concerns for "fiscal sustainability" are quickly dropped when it comes time to deliver major gifts to the rich, Wall Street, and the Pentagon...
More, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/31/just-hours-after-ordering-pay-cut-millions-public-workers-trump-proposes-100-billion
- "Hours after cheating millions of middle class workers, Trump wants to send another kiss to the rich- unilaterally, without any approval from Congress," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) wrote on Twitter late Thursday.
- "Trump himself has pocketed millions over the years grifting off of taxpayers, but now he wants to make it harder for workers to get ahead." - Bernie Sanders.
