Trump’s labor secretary nominee delights in destroying rights for disabled workers

  Following the resignation of U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, President Donald Trump has nominated Eugene Scalia to serve as the next labor secretary. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) plays a pivotal role in the lives of Americans with disabilities. Responsible for the regulation of subminimum wage programs—commonly referred to as 14(c) programs—workplace safety and health regulation, and the overall creation of disability employment policy, Scalia could have a significant and likely disastrous effect on the disability community if confirmed.

  Scalia’s legal career is a master class in dismantling worker protections for all, but he has seemed particularly prone to attacking workplace safety and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). One in five working-age people has a disability, and Scalia’s confirmation would put the employment and economic rights of people with disabilities squarely on the chopping block.

The Trump administration is making it harder for workers to hold big corporations accountable

  The government wants to make it much harder for workers to hold employers accountable for wage theft, hours violations, and union-busting by complicating the answer to a simple question: Who do you work for?

  Historically, if two entities oversee aspects of someone’s work experience — such as wages, hours, and policies — either separately or together, they could be considered “joint employers,” which means they are both liable for labor violations. While this standard isn’t used very often, it can be a powerful tool for holding large corporations accountable.

Trump has already broken all of the promises he made to workers during the State of the Union

  Tuesday night, President Donald Trump gave his first official State of the Union speech. The script was as expected: He bragged about his tax bill, repeated some promises about infrastructure, and promoted his administration’s latest wish list of anti-immigrant policies. He even claimed to be concerned for “America’s struggling workers.” But a lot was conspicuously absent from the speech—including all the ways his administration has harmed those very workers.

  When he was a candidate, Trump pledged to turn the Republican Party into a “worker’s party.” He claimed that each of his policy decisions would hinge on whether it creates “more jobs and better wages for Americans” and promised to side with workers instead of “special interests” and the “financial elite.” But throughout his first year, he sided with corporations and the wealthy instead.

Five questions that the Trump administration needs to answer on parental leave

  The Trump administration recently released a paid parental leave plan in its fiscal year 2018 budget proposal. The plan has the stated goal of offering eligible workers six weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a new child. The Trump proposal relies on the existing federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system to provide the parental leave benefit. However, there are many outstanding questions and details about how this program would work and who would benefit from it.

  Last week, Ivanka Trump indicated that the plan is merely a jumping-off point and that she is soliciting feedback. With this in mind, here are five questions that the Trump administration needs to answer on its proposed parental leave plan.

President Trump’s budget breaks his promises to workers—again

  President Donald Trump ran on and was purportedly elected to deliver good jobs. So far, however, his jobs agenda has amounted to little more than threats to strip workers’ health care and promises to slash corporate taxes and reward companies shipping jobs overseas. His budget is the latest in a series of attacks on workers. Not only does it fail to deliver jobs; it also decimates programs designed to help workers.

  President Trump’s newly released “skinny budget” would make disastrous cuts to vital programs that have a real impact on the lives and pocketbooks of families across the country. If implemented, the cuts would reduce wages, hollow out protections that keep Americans safe on the job and ensure they are paid the wages they earn, and gut worker training programs that help workers secure good jobs and raise their wages.

Joe Valenti: A secure retirement demands limiting conflicts of interest

  Can you trust your financial adviser? Many Americans aren’t so sure. Thanks to a recent announcement from the U.S. Department of Labor, however, the answer may soon be “yes.”

  This week, the Department of Labor announced its final rule on conflicts of interest in retirement investment advice, also known as the fiduciary rule. Fiduciary is a five-syllable legal concept, but in practice, the intended effect of the rule is quite simple: All financial professionals selling retirement products will be legally required to act in the best interests of their clients rather than their own.

New overtime rule could raise wages for 4.7 million Millennial workers

  This summer, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed a new rule that will give 13.5 million workers, including 4.7 million Millennials, a raise if it becomes a regulation. The new rule, which determines who is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, more than doubles the annual salary threshold for guaranteed overtime pay from $23,660 to $50,440. This change would guarantee that workers with salaries below this level earn overtime pay—the equivalent of 1.5 times their hourly wage—whenever they work more than 40 hours per week. The fate of the rule will be decided by the Department of Labor after a comment period ends on September. 4, 2015.