Thousands of workers and union organizers from all over California will gather for picnics and parades this weekend in honor of the contributions of American workers.
But Labor Day celebrations will be taken refuge by a striking reality: unions face increasing pressure to protect their members from immigration attacks by the Trump administration, cut Medicaid services and weakened National Labor Relations Commission.
“We know the importance of protecting and protecting democracy,” said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation. “We play a special role in this. We will not be silent, nor will we be paralyzed.”
From farms to car washes, labor groups scramble to support hundreds of families detained and deported, and were deported by numerous chaotic and violent attacks, resulting in the death of two people (one worker and one farm worker) killed while fleeing federal agents.
The raid echoed in the state’s local labor community during the first major immigration enforcement raid in Los Angeles when it was injured and detained in David Huerta in SEIU, California in June.
“Farm workers are scared… They don’t know what will happen from one day to the next raid, but they understand that the only way we have power is to be together,” said Teresa Romero, president of United Farm workers.
Romero and other union leaders said their focus remains on organizing more workplaces, while also working to educate people on legal and nonviolent protests about government policies.
“We are all under attack from the federal government right now,” said Jeremy Goldberg, executive director of the Central Coast Labor Commission. “The demand is huge.”
In early August, the Trump administration stepped up a plan to end its plan to bargain with federal unions in many government agencies. The government said the changes were necessary to protect national security, but unions saw it as retaliation against lawsuits against presidential policies.
The Trump administration has also proposed a comprehensive cut to staff of the National Labor and Industrial Relations Commission, whose mission is to safeguard the right of private employees to union or organise in other ways to improve their working conditions and to cancel leases for regional offices in many states.
Union officials believe the changes could put the board in trouble and prevent it from investigating allegations of unfair labor practices brought by workers and assume other responsibilities, such as overseeing elections.
“The important rules and regulations set during the Biden administration are systematically retreating,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of low-paying work programs at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
The union is facing further challenges for Trump’s final appointment of the Federal Labor Commission, which is currently non-operating because it does not have enough board members to rule the case.
But even as many labor leaders openly oppose the Trump administration, others have taken a more gentle approach. Large national unions such as United Auto Workers and Teammates have supported Trump’s various aspects of tariffs abroad and have promoted manufacturing efforts at home.
These changes herald the toughest times for California unions to come.
John Logan, a professor of labor history in San Francisco, said Trump’s hostility to California and the withholding of federal funds from universities, healthcare facilities and other institutions will squeeze the state’s budget, with a significant impact on public sector workers on layoffs and other forms of cost reduction. He said the government’s ruthless immigration raid is consuming union time, attention and resources.
While California’s union-represented share of the labor force is greater than many other states, the density is too dependent on public sector workers, and members of those unions may shrink in the coming years, Logan said.
Logan said the union “cannot cope with this crisis moment.” “The labor movement is fighting for survival for the next four years.”
The challenges are particularly serious in the healthcare industry.
The union representing in-house care providers, nurses and other health care workers said their members have felt the leadership and recognition of Trump’s “big beauty bills”, which include cutting tax expenses, which will affect millions of Medicaid recipients, while thousands of workers are being developed by immigration and customs enforcement agencies.
SEIU In 2015, local president Arnulfo de La Cruz said that many at-home care providers who have cared for the people for decades face the prospect of the people they care about will lose health care and that they themselves may lose health care and jobs.
“To put our health care under attack and put our families under attack – it’s a huge reversal in our understanding of essential workers,” De La Cruise said.
In recent months, major healthcare facilities including Sharp Healthcare, UC San Diego Health and UCSF Health have announced plans to cut public health services and carry out hundreds of layoffs, citing major financial headwinds and uncertainties in federal funding.
Cynthia Williams, an Orange County resident and a member of AFSCME Local 3930, said: “It’s an annoying bill. There’s nothing beautiful about this bill. Williams is a full-time caregiver of her daughter, who is blind and has cerebral palsy, and her sister, a veteran with severe post-Trial stress disorder.
Williams said the Family Support Services program, which is primarily funded by Medicaid, has preempted the cuts to its weekly appointments for transport to its sister. Williams spent less time caring for his daughter.
“The past few months are very stressful and very unpredictable,” Williams said.
