Over the weekend, while many of us were wondering if he was still alive, Donald Trump posted a short message on Truth Social: “Enjoy your Labor Day weekend. A big year ahead for the USA, maybe the BEST EVER.”
This is typical, hollow Trumpy optimism, which means it was more delusion than optimism. For the millions of workers struggling to make ends meet, it read more like a cruel joke. Not only are the groceries not cheaper than they were in 2024 when Trump was promising lower prices, but his record also does not reflect any effort to lift up American workers. It is about tearing down the institutions designed to protect them.
Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has gutted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He fired its general counsel, its chair, and much of its leadership. The result has been paralysis. The agency that once issued 259 decisions in a year has managed only six this year, leaving workers and unions without one of the only referees they had in disputes with employers.
This habit of sidelining watchdogs is not new. Trump has also purged inspectors general, dismissed political dissenters, and even forced out the Census Bureau’s top jobs data officer after an ugly jobs report. He then accused career economists of trying to “manipulate” numbers for political purposes, a claim that had no evidence behind it.
His first presidency set the stage. Within 100 days of taking office in 2017, Trump had already stripped collective bargaining rights from over a million federal employees, eliminated living-wage protections for contractors, and weakened workplace safety rules. The Economic Policy Institute catalogued the damage in real time, noting that the changes disproportionately hurt lower-income and vulnerable workers.
Then came the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Trump promised it would supercharge the economy for working people. In reality, it delivered permanent tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. Most of those companies plowed their savings into stock buybacks, not pay raises or new jobs Economic Policy Institute. For workers, the “big beautiful tax cut” was little more than trickle-down déjà vu.
Back in power now, Trump has doubled down. In June he revoked Executive Order 11246, which for decades had barred federal contractors from discriminating based on race, sex, or religion. His replacement order, Executive Order 14173, stripped away diversity and equity requirements. Meanwhile, at the Environmental Protection Agency, employees say they face retaliation or even termination for criticizing the administration’s direction.
Workers have noticed. Over Labor Day weekend, thousands are taking to the streets in nearly 1,000 “workers over billionaires” protests. Their message was simple: Trump has rolled back protections for collective bargaining, chipped away at minimum wage standards for disabled and contract workers, and undercut federal labor rights that took generations to win.
Trump’s Labor Day message might play well online, but it does not erase years of undermining the very people the holiday is meant to honor. A president who actually valued American workers would strengthen labor protections, not dismantle them. He would support watchdogs, not fire them. He would expand opportunity, not concentrate wealth at the top.
On Labor Day, Trump’s words were easy and cost him nothing. His policies, on the other hand, have cost American workers quite a lot. The last word goes to REM.