Trump's Labor Agenda: Unsafe and Underpaid

Floor Speech

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Ms. OMAR. Mr. Speaker, as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I rise today to speak about the sweeping set of proposals from Trump's Department of Labor that threatens worker safety, fair pay, and basic protections for millions of Americans.

The Department is moving to rewrite or repeal more than 60 workplace regulations. Let me say that again: 60 workplace regulations. It will affect conditions in farms, factories, construction sites, and mines.

These changes are being framed as modernization. In reality, they put workers at greater risk and undermine decades of hard-won labor protections.

Among the most far-reaching proposals is the narrowing of OSHA's general duty clause, one of the most important tools protecting workers when no specific safety standard exists. For more than 50 years, the general duty clause has allowed OSHA to step in when employers expose workers to recognized hazards that are serious, preventable, and likely to cause harm.

Under the Trump administration's labor proposal, OSHA will no longer be able to cite employers for hazardous conditions intrinsic to a job. That could leave construction workers, factory workers, farmworkers, and others in high-risk professions with fewer protections and less accountability when something goes wrong.

The administration's rollbacks go well beyond the general duty clause. Millions of home healthcare workers could be paid below minimum wage and denied overtime protections, leaving them vulnerable to long hours and financial insecurity.

Migrant farmworkers could lose critical safeguards, including seatbelt requirements on employer-provided transportation and protections against retaliation for reporting unsafe conditions.

Construction workers could see basic requirements for adequate lighting eliminated.

Miners could lose critical oversight on ventilation, roof safety, and training.

Even respiratory and chemical safety standards in hazardous workplaces are being rolled back.

These changes represent a fundamental shift in priorities, putting corporate convenience over worker safety. Eliminating all of these rules is a clear signal from the Trump administration that they view workers' lives as expendable.

When protections for the most vulnerable workers are stripped away, the consequences will be severe and immediate.

American workers are not disposable. They deserve workplaces that are safe, fair, and accountable. They deserve the dignity of protection that ensures that they can return home from work alive and uninjured.

Congress must reject efforts that roll back the clock on worker safety and labor rights.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative LaMonica McIver for hosting tonight and for her leadership on this issue.

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