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Employers and workers alike are wary of what the second Trump term will mean for labor

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Employers and workers alike are wary of what the second Trump term will mean for labor

After four years under Joe Biden, who enthusiastically called himself “the most pro-union president in American history,” employers and labor groups alike are heading into President-elect Donald Trump’s second term unsure of what lies ahead.

Although his nominee for Labor secretary has won bipartisan praise and has a pro-labor track record, Trump’s threats to deport millions, impose tariffs and weaken worker protections have left many in the labor movement wary of what his time in office will bring.

Here’s what a second Trump administration could mean for labor.

What is the National Labor Relations Board and what could happen to it under Trump?

The National Labor Relations Board is the federal agency tasked with safeguarding the right of private employees to unionize or organize in other ways to improve their working conditions. Under Jennifer Abruzzo, whom Biden appointed to run the NLRB as its general counsel, the board took “a fairly innovative and aggressive approach” to enforcing protections, said labor attorney Benjamin Dictor, who represents several unions, including United Auto Workers and a Teamsters local.

Abruzzo took an expansive approach to labor law that favored workers. For example, she pushed through a ban on noncompete agreements, which restrict a person’s ability to get a new job after leaving a post. She also drove regional offices to pursue more broad remedies for harmed workers and successfully sought a ban on captive audience meetings, in which employers require staff to listen to anti-union arguments.

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Dictor and others anticipate the Trump administration will swiftly replace Abruzzo with a more employer-friendly general counsel. This type of ping-ponging of priorities from administration to administration is typical, but the change is expected to be even more pronounced, given Abruzzo’s novel approach.

Trump also has a clear path toward securing a Republican majority on the five-member board itself, which will allow his administration to reverse gains that unions made under Biden. The labor board probably will seek to reverse decisions that expedited the union election process, put pressure on employers to voluntarily recognize and negotiate with unions, prohibited confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions and banned captive audience meetings, among other actions, said Adam Primm, an attorney who represents employers.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) led a last-ditch attempt last week to lock in Democratic control of the board for the next two years, but the effort collapsed when the Senate failed to approve a second term for one of Biden’s nominees.

Trump has promised to deport millions of people. What would that mean for the economy?

A major deportation effort could have a significant effect on industries that rely heavily on immigrant workers including agriculture, construction and hospitality.

The Center for Migration Studies of New York estimates that as many as 8.3 million immigrants working in the U.S. are here illegally and they represent more than 5% of the workforce.

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Among employers there is rising concern that under Trump there will be a significant increase in workplace raids, audits of employment eligibility documents and other immigration enforcement actions against companies, said George Howard, an attorney with Quarles & Brady.

Labor advocates, meanwhile, worry about the opposite happening: Enforcement against unscrupulous employers will fall by the wayside.

For example, immigrant labor advocates expect Trump will do away with a Biden program that awards job permits to undocumented workers at companies under investigation for workplace violations — an effort intended to encourage cooperation with investigations of safety, wage and other labor violations.

Attorney Yvonne Medrano of Los Angeles-based Bet Tzedek Legal Services, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, said there is concern that employers of undocumented immigrants may feel emboldened to exploit workers if the government eases up on efforts to root out wage theft, child labor and other violations.

Trump has said he will impose sweeping tariffs. How could they affect American workers?

Trump has said he will impose sweeping tariffs on key trading partners including Canada, Mexico and China as soon as he takes office. The effects of those tariffs could hit American workers in several ways.

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Prices would rise on certain goods in industries affected by tariffs, broadly increasing the cost of living and eroding workers’ purchasing power unless wages rise commensurately, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Higher prices would have an outsize effect on lower-income workers because a larger proportion of their budget is spent on food and clothing, Zandi said.

And it’s likely that countries facing tariffs from the U.S. would retaliate with their own tariffs, as China did during Trump’s first term. The trade war Trump led in his first term delivered higher costs to consumers and uncertainty to the U.S. auto, agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

Companies that rely on imported goods, such as machine parts and industrial supplies, will be forced to pay more for those goods, ballooning their costs and potentially forcing them to make job cuts, Zandi said.

Trump has picked Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a pro-union Republican, to lead the Labor Department. What does that mean for workers?

The union-friendly track record of Trump’s Labor secretary choice has fueled anxiety among the GOP, with several Republican senators expressing concern. Lori Chavez-DeRemer is known for being one of only three GOP lawmakers who co-sponsored legislation, known as the PRO Act, that would have significantly expanded labor rights, including measures that increased penalties for employer labor law violations and expanded union eligibility.

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Trade groups have also emphasized concern with the choice.

“IFA looks forward to ensuring the job-killing PRO Act and Biden-era joint employer standard have no place in the incoming administration,” Matt Haller, chief executive of the International Franchise Assn., said in a recent statement. He was referring to an attempt by Biden to broaden rules for when two or more companies should be considered employers of a group of workers.

Although a pro-worker appointee has sparked concerns, attorney Patrick Muldowney, who represents employers on labor issues, said the appointment does not mark a tangible threat to employers.

“I don’t see that as moving the needle very far,” Muldowney said.

The Department of Labor administers federal laws governing minimum hourly wage and overtime pay, as well as protection against employment discrimination, workplace safety rules and unemployment insurance. Its reach is less visible in states like California that have implemented stronger protections than those offered at the federal level.

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Labor advocates still expect the Trump administration to pursue anti-worker changes under Chavez-DeRemer.

Judy Conti, government affairs director of the National Employment Law Project, said she anticipates the Trump administration will ease up on enforcing safety rules, narrow eligibility for overtime pay and make it harder for gig-economy workers to gain status as employees.

“Chavez-DeRemer’s record suggests she understands the value of policies that strengthen workers’ rights and economic security,” said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of NELP, in a news release last month. “But the Trump administration’s agenda is fundamentally at odds with these principles.”

Her “true commitment to workers will be tested,” Dixon said.

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Startup Varda Space Industries snags former Mattel plant in El Segundo

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Startup Varda Space Industries snags former Mattel plant in El Segundo

In an expansion of its business of processing pharmaceuticals in Earth’s orbit, Varda Space Industries is renting a large El Segundo plant where toy manufacturer Mattel used to design Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls.

The plant in El Segundo’s aerospace corridor will be an extension of Varda Space Industries’ headquarters in a much smaller building on nearby Aviation Boulevard.

Varda will occupy a 205,443-square-foot industrial and office campus at 2031 E. Mariposa Ave., which will give it additional capacity to manufacture spacecraft at scale, the company said.

Originally built in the 1940s as an aircraft facility, the complex has a history as part of aerospace and defense industries that have long shaped the South Bay and is near a host of major defense and space contractors. It is also close to Los Angeles Air Force Base, headquarters to the Space Systems Command.

Workers test AstroForge’s Odin asteroid probe, which was lost in space after launch this year.

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(Varda Space Industries)

Varda is one of a new generation of aerospace startups that have flourished in Southern California and the South Bay over the last several years, particularly in El Segundo, often with ties to SpaceX.

Elon Musk’s company, founded in 2002 in El Segundo, has revolutionized the industry with reusable rockets that have radically lowered the cost of lifting payloads into space. Though it has moved its headquarters to Texas, SpaceX retains large-scale operations in Hawthorne.

Varda co-founder and Chief Executive Will Bruey is a former SpaceX avionics engineer, and the company’s spacecraft are launched on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

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Varda makes automated labs that look like cylindrical desktop speakers, which it sends into orbit in capsules and satellite platforms it also builds. There, in microgravity, the miniature labs grow molecular crystals that are purer than those produced in Earth’s gravity for use in pharmaceuticals.

It has contracts with drug companies and also the military, which tests technology at hypersonic speeds as the capsules return to Earth.

Its fifth capsule was launched in November and returned to Earth in late January; its next mission is set in the coming weeks. Varda has more than 10 missions scheduled on Falcon 9s through 2028.

For the last several decades, the Mariposa Avenue property served as the research and development center for Mattel Toys. El Segundo has also long been a center for the toy industry as companies like to set up shop in the shadow of Mattel.

The Mattel facility “has always been an exceptional property with a legacy tied to aerospace innovation, and leasing to Varda Space Industries feels like a natural continuation of that story,” said Michael Woods, a partner at GPI Cos., which owns the property.

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“We are proud to support a company that is genuinely pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and are excited to watch Varda grow and thrive here in El Segundo,” Woods said.

As one of the country’s most active hubs of aerospace and defense innovation, El Segundo has seen its industrial property vacancy fall to 3.4% on demand from space companies, government contractors and technology startups, real estate brokerage CBRE said.

Successful startups often have to leave the neighborhood when they want to expand, real estate broker Bob Haley of CBRE said. The 9-acre Mattel facility was big enough to keep Varda in the city.

Last year, Varda subleased about 55,000 square feet of lab space from alternative protein company Beyond Meat at 888 Douglas St. in El Segundo, which it started moving into in June.

Varda will get the keys to its new building in December and spend four to eight months building production and assembly facilities as it ramps up operations. By the end of next year, it expects to have constructed 10 more spacecraft.

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In the future, Varda could consolidate offices there, given its size. Currently, though, the plan is to retain all properties, creating a campus of three buildings within a mile of one another that are served by the company’s transportation services, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Barr said.

“We already have Varda-branded shuttles running up and down Aviation Boulevard,” he said.

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How Iran War Is Threatening Global Oil and Gas Supplies

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How Iran War Is Threatening Global Oil and Gas Supplies

Ships near the Strait of Hormuz before and after attacks began

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Note: Times shown are in Iran Standard Time. Some ships in the region transmit false positions and others sometimes stop broadcasting their locations, and may not be reflected in the animation. Ships with sparse location data are shown in a lighter shade. Source: Kpler and Spire.

Every day, around 80 oil and gas tankers typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast that carries a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant amount of natural gas.

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On Monday, just two oil and gas tankers appear to have crossed the strait, according to a New York Times analysis of shipping activity from Kpler, an industry data firm. Since then, one tanker passed through.

“It’s a de facto closure,” said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston financial services firm. “You’ve got a significant number of vessels on either side of the strait but no one is willing to go through.”

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Tankers have been staying away from Hormuz since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that began on Saturday. A prolonged conflict could ripple broadly across the global economy, threatening the energy supplies of countries halfway around the world and stoking inflation.

International oil prices have climbed 12 percent since the fighting began, trading Tuesday around $81 a barrel, and natural gas prices have surged in Europe and in Asia.

A senior Iranian military official threatened on Monday to “set on fire” any ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Vessels in the region have already come under attack. Several oil and gas facilities have also been struck or affected by nearby shelling, though the damage did not initially appear to be catastrophic.

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Where ships and energy facilities have been damaged

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Note: Damage as of 2 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. Source: Kpler, Kuwait National Petroleum Company, Saudi Arabian Ministry of Energy, Planet Labs, QatarEnergy, United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations and Vanguard Tech.

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A fire broke out Tuesday at a major energy hub in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, from the falling debris of a downed drone, the authorities said. On Monday, Qatar halted production of liquefied natural gas, or fuel that has been cooled so that it can be transported on ships, after attacks on its facilities.

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Facilities at Ras Tanura oil refinery in Saudi Arabia were on fire on Monday after two Iranian drones were intercepted, according to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy, causing fragments to fall. Vantor

The sharp reduction in tanker traffic is reducing the supply of oil and gas to world markets, pushing up prices for both commodities. And the longer that ships stay away from the Strait of Hormuz, the less oil and gas get out to the world, which could raise prices even more.

Shipping companies have paused their tankers to protect their crew and cargo, and because insurance companies are charging significantly more to cover vessels in the conflict area.

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On Tuesday, President Trump said that “if necessary,” the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers through the strait. He also said a U.S. government agency would begin offering “political risk insurance” to shipping lines in the area.

In addition to tankers, other large vessels regularly go through the strait, including car carriers and container ships. In normal conditions, nearly 160 make the trip each day.

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Some ships in the region turn off the devices that broadcast their positions, while others transmit false locations — making it hard to give a full picture of the traffic in the strait.

The Shiva is a small oil tanker that has repeatedly faked its location, according to TankerTrackers.com, which tracks global oil shipments. It is suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian oil, according to Kpler. The Shiva was one of the two tankers that crossed the strait on Monday.

The oil and gas that typically move through the strait come from big producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and United Arab Emirates, and are exported around the world.

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Where tankers moving through the Strait have traveled

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Note: Tanker paths are since Jan. 1 and include all tankers and gas carriers. Source: Kpler and Spire.

In 2024, more than 80 percent of the oil and gas transported through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asia. China, India, Japan and South Korea were the top importers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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Countries have energy stockpiles that could last them into the coming months, but a continued shutdown of the strait could damage their economies.

Several big disruptions have roiled supply chains in recent years, but the tanker standstill in the Strait of Hormuz could have an outsize impact.

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Paramount credit downgraded to ‘junk’ status over debt worries

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Paramount credit downgraded to ‘junk’ status over debt worries

Paramount Skydance’s jubilation over its come-from-behind victory to claim Warner Bros. Discovery has entered a new phase:

Call it the deal-debt hangover.

Two major ratings agencies have raised concerns about Paramount’s credit because of the enormous debt the David Ellison-led company will have to shoulder — at least $79 billion — once it absorbs the larger Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing CNN, HBO, TBS and Cartoon Network into the Paramount fold.

Fitch Ratings said Monday that it placed Paramount on its “negative” ratings watch, and downgraded its credit to BB+ from BBB-, which puts the company’s credit into “junk” territory. Fitch said it took action due to “uncertainty” surrounding Paramount’s $110-billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery, which the boards of both companies approved on Friday.

S&P Global Ratings took similar action.

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To finance the Warner takeover, Ellison’s billionaire father, Larry Ellison, has agreed to guarantee the $45.7 billion in equity needed. Bank of America, Citibank and Apollo Global have agreed to provide Paramount with more than $54 billion in debt financing.

“Potential credit risks include the prospective debt-funded structure, Fitch’s expectation of materially elevated leverage and limited visibility on post-transaction financial policy and capital structure,” Fitch said.

Late last week, Paramount sent $2.8 billion to Netflix as a “termination fee” to officially end the streaming giant’s pursuit of Warner Bros. That payment paved the way for Warner and Paramount’s board to enter into the new merger agreement.

Paramount hopes the merger will be wrapped up by the end of September. It needs the approval of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders and regulators, including the European Union.

Paramount executives acknowledged this week the new company would emerge with $79 billion in debt — a considerably higher total than what Warner Bros. Discovery had following its spinoff from AT&T. That 2022 transaction left Warner Bros. Discovery with nearly $55 billion of debt, a burden that led to endless waves of cost-cutting, including thousands of layoffs and dozens of canceled projects.

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Warner still has $33.5 billion in debt, a lingering legacy that will be passed on to Paramount.

Paramount plans to restructure about $15 billion in Warner Bros. Discovery’s existing debt.

Paramount CEO David Ellison at a 2024 movie premiere for a Netflix show.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)

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Paramount told Wall Street it would find more than $6 billion in cost cuts or “synergies” within three years — a number that has weighed heavily on entertainment industry workers, particularly in Los Angeles.

Hollywood already is reeling from previous mergers in addition to a sharp pullback in film and television production locally as filmmakers chase tax credits offered overseas and in other states, including New York and New Jersey.

Some entertainment executives, including Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos, have speculated that Paramount will need to find more than $10 billion in cost cuts to make the math work. More recently, Sarandos went higher, telling Bloomberg News that Paramount may need $16 billion in cuts.

Cognizant of widespread fears about additional layoffs, Paramount Chief Operating Officer Andrew Gordon took steps this week to try to tamp down such concerns.

Gordon is a former Goldman Sachs banker and a former executive with RedBird Capital Partners, an investor in Paramount and the proposed Warner Bros. deal. He joined Paramount last August as part of the Ellison takeover.

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During a conference call Monday with analysts, Gordon said Paramount would look beyond the workforce for cuts because the company wants to maintain its film and TV production levels.

Paramount plans to look for cost savings by consolidating the “technology stacks and cloud providers” for its streaming services, including Paramount+ and HBO Max, Gordon said. The company also would search for reductions in corporate overhead, marketing expenses, procurement, business services and “optimizing the combined real estate footprint.”

It’s unclear whether Paramount would sell the historic Melrose Avenue lot or simply centralize the sprawling operations onto the Warner Bros. and Paramount lots in Burbank and Hollywood.

Workers are scattered throughout the region.

HBO, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, maintains its West Coast headquarters in Culver City; CBS television stations operate from CBS’ former lot off Radford Avenue in Studio City; and CBS Entertainment and Paramount cable channels executive teams are located in a high-rise off Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard, blocks from the Paramount movie studio lot.

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“The combination of PSKY and WBD could create a materially stronger business than either individual entity,” Standard & Poor’s said in its note to investors. “However, this transaction presents unique challenges because it would involve the combination of three companies, with the smallest, Skydance, being the controlling entity.”

David Ellison’s production firm, Skydance Media, was the entity that bought Paramount, creating Paramount Skydance.

Ellison has not announced what the combined company will be called.

Paramount shares closed down more than 6% Tuesday to $12.45.

Warner Bros. Discovery fell 1% to $28.20. Netflix added less than 1% to close at $97.70.

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