Business
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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