Elon Musk is steamrolling worker rights; here’s the latest

Unelected billionaire Elon Musk continues his unconstitutional steamrolling through the federal government under the guise of “efficiency” (with President Donald Trump’s blessing).

That includes:

• Cuts at nonprofits everywhere after the loss of federal grants,
• Thousands of Americans out of a job after USAID cut,
• Firing federal watchdogs (which finally even drew the scrutiny of Sen. Chuck Grassley),
• Threatening to purge the federal workforce (which could affect Black workers in particular).

It’s a lot to process. What a week, huh? (Lemon, it’s Wednesday.)

You may recall the gutting of worker protections began last week, when President Donald Trump ousted National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and a second board member, ostensibly leaving the NLRB without the ability to handle routine cases.

And while the NLRB clarified that it does have the authority to continue to process union representation and unfair labor practice cases, and Trump has since appointed a new general counsel, the president has made it clear in cozying up to CEOs that his whole goal is to get the 90-year-old National Labor Relations Act thrown out entirely.

There’s now a bill to completely cut OSHA, the agency charged with making sure workers are safe on the job. And it’s rumored that Musk will today target the Department of Labor, charged with protecting workers against the largess of CEOs like Musk.

It’s laughable that the idea that picking on workers is the way to prosperity continues to flourish, but I suppose not surprising when you stack your cabinet with billionaires who benefit from this idea. In fact, there’s a much easier way to cut a large amount of money from the federal government; I wonder why Musk doesn’t want to do that?

But folks aren’t taking it lying down. This afternoon, in fact, there’s a protest at the Department of Labor in Washington, DC, much in the vein of this week’s Treasury Department protest. There are also protests in Iowa coming up.

And there are plenty of reasons not to be despondent: Eric Blanc writes in Jacobin that there are ways we can all get in the fight to stop this.

What are you doing to fight against Musk/Trump, or help your fellow workers get through tough times? Email me here.

This article is republished from the Iowa Worker’s Almanac, which you can subscribe to here.