One of the last nationwide bastions of union jobs is getting jackhammered by the Trump administration. Members are languishing in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prisons without trial. Programs that protect members from racism and sexism are getting the axe.
In response, building trades officers are split: some are pleading, some are protesting, and others are surrendering without a fight.
Out of nine million construction workers in the United States, one million had a union last year. Since the 1970s, when about 40 percent of US hard hats wore union stickers, anti-union developers have kicked unions out from most residential and private building sites.
The building trades took refuge in publicly funded construction projects and specialized industrial jobs. An old federal law that favors union hires for interstates and military outposts helps small locals of pile drivers and insulators straggle on even in rural Alabama or Wyoming, where unions are otherwise scarce.
One week into President Donald Trump’s first term, top building trades officers were chumming it up in the Oval Office, celebrating a reboot of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
But when Trump returned to office this year, things were very different: First, the administration moved quickly to slash minimum wages on all federal contracts by 25 percent, down to their decade-old $13.30 level. Next, it canceled over $300 billion of funding at union construction sites, eliminating both public and private clean energy and infrastructure jobs.
In a leaked memo early this year, top trades…
Auteur: Natascha Elena Uhlmann
