What Trump and Harris Say About Work, From Overtime to Pay: NPR

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have promised to improve the lives of workers if elected. However, the presidential candidates differ on many issues affecting workers, including the minimum wage, overtime pay and the power of unions.

Here are five key questions that differentiate candidates:

1. Minimum wage

Federal minimum wage set at $7.25. hour since 2009. Harris called it “starvation wages”, noting that for full-time workers, this amount is $15,000 per year. told NBC News she wanted to increase that amount to at least $15 an hour, recognizing that she would need congressional support for this change.

During the presidential debate four years ago Trump said he would consider introducing a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour.as long as it doesn’t harm small businesses. Last month, during a photo op at McDonald’s, the former president dodged a question about whether he would support raising the minimum wage. praising workers and franchises instead who hire them.

2. Overtime pay

Many Americans work long hours, and both candidates seem to acknowledge this. But they disagree on who should be entitled to time and a half pay for working more than 40 hours a week.

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration finalized the rule giving 4 million more workers the right to overtime pay. Rule faced with numerous legal problems.

As president, Trump refused to defend such an idea. Obama-era ruleinstead of proclaiming your own rule resulting in far fewer people being eligible for overtime pay.

Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation project for Trump’s second presidency, proposes an overhaul of federal overtime rules that would give employers more flexibility.

Trump has tried to distance myself from the document. But at campaign events this fall, he admitted that as a private sector employer, he hated paying overtime and sometimes hired more workers to avoid it.

“I would say, ‘No, find me 10 more guys. I don’t want to have time and a half”” Trump said this in Saginaw, Michigan.October 3.

However, Trump has tried to use the issue to win over working-class voters with a proposal to exempt overtime wages from taxes. Many political analysts have criticized this idea. discovering this could cost the government more than $1 trillion. tax revenues over the next decade.

By the way, Trump, followed by Harris, proposed get rid of tip taxes. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that even this more limited step would lead to a significant increase in the budget deficit. worsening inequality.

3. Job creation in manufacturing

It is clear that no president can restore America’s industrial glory of yesteryear. But Trump successfully won over many white working-class voters by promising to bring back and protect their manufacturing jobs, including by reduction of the corporate tax rate for domestic producers and the introduction of duties on all imported goods.

Economists, however, warned that Trump’s proposed tariffs would lead to higher prices everywhere, including for American manufacturers.

Harris is trying to win back those votes. She points to legislative successes over the past four years, including the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which have created jobs in manufacturing and construction. She promised to expand tax breaks for companies that create union jobs in steel, iron and steel and other manufacturing areas and give priority to retooling existing plants in factory towns.

Both candidates said they would seek to lift regulatory burdens on manufacturers, allowing them to build new factories faster.

4. Trade unions

Perhaps where the two candidates differ most is their views on unions.

Harris wants to strengthen unions and has vowed to push for passage of the PRO Act. Legislation aimed at making it easier for workers to organize has been stalled in Congress for years. She called on the federal government to be a model employer. giving federal employee unions more space at the bargaining table and directing agencies to make sure their employees know they have the right to join a union.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that adjudicates labor disputes, has taken an aggressive approach to protecting workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain. Critics argue that the agency interprets these rights too broadly. Several companies, including SpaceX and Amazon, filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the very existence of the NBRB.

On the contrary, being in the White House, Trump gutted federal employee unions and expressed support for right-to-work laws that weaken unions by allowing workers to opt out of paying union dues. He staffed the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board with corporate-friendly appointees. Project 2025 details additional steps he could take to render unions powerless.

IN interview with SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk In August, Trump joked that he liked Musk’s approach to workers. “They go on strike and you say, ‘It’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. Every single one of you is gone,” Trump said.

Still, the former president retains strong support among some groups of union workers. In an informal survey conducted drivers union This summer, Teamsters said they preferred Trump to Harris by a 2-to-1 margin.

5. Non-competitors

Non-compete agreements, which prevent workers from taking a job with a rival company or starting their own, have not been a hot topic in the presidential race. However, the future of these employment provisions may depend on who wins the election.

An estimated 30 million Americans have signed non-compete agreements with their employers. The Federal Trade Commission voted along party lines in April to ban such agreements, finding they suppress wages and stifle innovation.

The ban faced immediate legal challenges, and Trump’s appointment in August A federal judge in Texas blocked the rule. from taking effect nationwide. U.S. District Judge Ada Brown ruled in favor of Ryan LLC, a Dallas tax services firm, finding that the Federal Trade Commission had indeed exceeded its authority.

The Federal Trade Commission appealed the decision.

While Harris did not talk about noncompetes on the campaign trail, she has previously voiced support for the FTC ban. calling such agreements “anti-labor”.

Trump also did not address the non-compete issue in his campaign.

Notably, among the lawyers representing Ryan LLC in its lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission are Eugene Scaliawho served as Trump’s Labor Secretary from 2019 to 2021.

And in 2016 The politician reported that the Trump campaign included broad non-compete clauses in its own employment agreements, prohibiting employees, volunteers, contractors and employees of contractors from working with any other presidential campaign for the duration of the election.