2017 was a year of eroding workers’ rights

The following article by Casey Quinlan was posted on the ThinkProgress website December 22, 2017:

CREDIT: AP/THINKPROGRESS/DIANA OFOSU

Trump’s labor department has already started to erode progress on workers’ rights.

There have been a series of victories for labor rights in recent years. Graduate student workers at private colleges and universities now have the right to unionize. In New York, employers are no longer allowed to ask for an employee’s salary history — a question that often hurts women and people of color. And the Fight for 15 has scored wins in cities across the country.

But the Trump administration stands in the way of much of the progress labor activists are demanding. It may not be as noisy or ripe for attention-grabbing headlines as Betsy DeVos’ education department or Scott Pruitt’s Environmental Protection Agency, but Alexander Acosta’s labor department has rolled back a number of key Obama-era labor advances. Continue reading “2017 was a year of eroding workers’ rights”