Pearl River      Labor and the unions that represent American workers have quickly gone from the most union-friendly president in the last 50 years or more to the most union-unfriendly president in probably one-hundred years.  It’s a little bit like celebrating Labor Day from a hospital bed.  We’re glad to be alive, but, boy, are we in pain.

Trump’s most visible attack on labor has been targeted at federal workers, where he has gone out of his way to let workers and their unions know exactly what kind of employer he really is; when he’s the boss.  He may have run casinos into bankruptcy but he had a union contract in Atlantic City.  He built properties in New York City as a developer with union construction crews. All of that was then, not now.  It was also clear it was not because he wanted to do so, but he had to do so.

Now, it’s meanness all the way down.  First, he allowed Musk and his team to gut out the federal workforce from top to bottom with buyout offers to thin the ranks, accompanied by threats and removals that established that he was coming after them.  Just so unions didn’t misunderstand what was happening, he now has removed union protection under collective bargaining agreements for 450,000 federal workers in a variety of departments.  AFGE, the American Federal Government Employees union has been decimated.

Trump has done all of this with the specious claim that somehow unions are by definition a “threat to national security.”  Unions and their leaders have touted their patriotism with flag pins on the labels, decals on their hardhats, and pledges of allegiance at union meetings forever.  A regular working stiff knows this rationale is fighting words and at least slander and defamation, but if that’s what unions are saying, it’s not finding its way into print or on the air. The Department of Labor and its regulations to protect workers have also been diluted, including pulling back Biden rules, stopping enforcement of health and safety, and more.  Still I don’t hear the loud hollering.

Labor needs to be united to fight such a concerted attack from the White House and beyond, but it’s hard to believe there’s unity.  The Teamsters and its leader, Sean O’Brien, have just about gone to work with MAGA hats.  Where SEIU seems at the frontlines opposing Trump immigration policies, the Teamsters have seemed to embrace them.  Privately, I’ve heard from representatives of construction unions when their job sites and members have been raided and arrested, but I haven’t seen or heard them protesting at the front of the line against these actions.

It’s hard not to fear that the Achilles heel of labor solidarity is now showing in this moment of crisis.  Too many unions see their role as transactional, going along to get along, without understanding the collective mission to transform working conditions for their members and all other workers.

This Labor Day should have been a time not for picnics and parades, but for picket signs and marches.  Trump and his team now believe their base is workers, especially white workers, and they don’t have to deliver except symbolically, like tip taxes.  The only force that can counter these claims is organized labor, but to date we’re standing small, not tall, and our voices are not a roar, but a whine.  We need to do better, or we may be lucky to survive as a real force in American economic and political life.