Worker Policy Watch
Your source for accurate and reliable information on how federal policies are shaping workers’ rights—and what’s at stake for working people nationwide under the Trump administration.
Search tracker
Trump Rescinds Biden Policy Protecting LGBTQ People
Trump rescinded President Biden's Executive Order implementing the Supreme Court's ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which held that federal workplace civil rights law includes protections for people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Impact: Biden’s order directed federal agencies to strengthen policies to protect LGBTQ people - for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published updated guidance on workplace harassment. Rolling back these advances puts LGBTQ people at additional risk of discrimination and harassment on the job.
Trump’s Executive Order Targets Immigrant Workers, Families, and Communities
On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric and enforcing policies that destabilize immigrant communities. The order aims to: revoke work permits for countless immigrant workers; strip protections from sanctuary cities; unconstitutionally deny birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children post-February 2025 based on parents’ immigration status.
Impact: These measures fuel harmful and dehumanizing anti-immigrant narratives, deepen racial and economic inequities, and disrupt worker organizing, harming all workers regardless of immigration status. If fully implemented, the order could uproot 20 million immigrants, jeopardize the wellbeing of 5.1 million U.S.-born children in mixed-status families, and destabilize critical industries like agriculture, construction, and healthcare—harming local and state economies.
President Trump Nominates Keith Sonderling to be Deputy Secretary of U.S. DOL
Sonderling, former Acting Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division and Commissioner on the EEOC, was responsible for establising a wage theft amnesty program and approving an opinion letter that made it much easier to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees. While at the EEOC, he voted against the guidance on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the Harassment Guidance.
Impact: A management-side lawyer by profession, Sonderling has a decidely pro-employer orientation. As the de facto Chief Operating Officer of DOL, he could influence every agency within DOL and dampen enforcement of all the laws DOL is charged with enforcing.
Trump nominates Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor Secretary
President-elect nominates pro-union, one-term moderate Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be labor secretary.
Impact: Chavez-DeRemer's pro-union stance is encouraging, but she remains somewhat of a blank slate on the core issues that she would oversee as Secretary of Labor, including minimum wage, overtime, and health and safety.