ON THE RECORD:
WHERE DO THE CANDIDATES STAND ON LABOR ISSUES? Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump have very different records when it comes to supporting working people. Below are examples of policies Trump and Biden enacted during their time in office. We did our best to present straightforward, accurate information on a range of issues that working people care about. If you’d like more information or want to learn more about these policies or others, visit inunionusa.com.
PRESIDENT TRUMP ACTIONS IN OFFICE, 2017 – 2021
PRESIDENT BIDEN
ACTIONS IN OFFICE, 2021 – PRESENT
OVERTIME PAY Issued an executive order that eliminated overtime pay for more than 8 million workers
Proposed a rule to increase the overtime salary threshold, which will benefit roughly 3.6 million workers
[Economic Policy Institute, 3/22/2019; The New Republic, 9/19/2023]
[Associated Press, 8/30/2023]
FAIR WAGES Issued an executive order canceling pay increases for nearly 2 million federal workers
Raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour for federal contractors and phased out the subminimum wage for tipped workers
[Politico, 8/30/2018]
[Wall Street Journal, 11/22/2021; CWA, 1/22/2021]
AMERICAN JOBS & TRADE Signed an executive order removing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership safeguarding U.S. jobs from moving overseas
Signed an executive order to direct taxpayer dollars to U.S. manufacturing, rebalancing U.S. trade and strengthening domestic supply chains
[NPR, 1/23/2017]
[AFL-CIO, 1/25/2021]
ENFORCING LABOR LAWS Cut the budget of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is responsible for enforcing labor laws, and stacked it with anti-worker corporate lawyer appointees to roll back workers’ rights
Appointed pro-worker union lawyers to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to restore collective bargaining laws
[Economic Policy Institute, 8/25/2022]
[Economic Policy Institute, 9/17/2020; Democracy Journal, 5/24/2017]
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING Supported so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken unions and limit workers’ ability to bargain for fair pay and benefits
Established a task force to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining [New York Times, 4/26/2021]
[Bloomberg Law, 2/3/2017]
EMPLOYER ACCOUNTABILITY In his final weeks in office, attacked federal workers’ rights to union representation in cases of workplace discrimination [Reuters, 7/1/2021]
Reversed the Trump-era regulation that made it harder for unions to represent employees who had faced discrimination in the workplace [Bloomberg Law News, 6/30/2021]