If you were one of those who got bamboozled into voting for Trump, thinking that he was going to be a “Champion of the Working People” – well, we hate to say “told you so,” but the fact is that you’ve been sold a bill of goods by one of the greatest con men in history.
In the coming years, the war against the working class will continue unabated and is likely to go on steroids if a recent federal court decision is any indication.
Before the Thanksgiving Day weekend, Senator Bernie Sanders blasted a court-issued injunction against the Obama Administration’s new overtime rule – meaning that Americans will continue to work longer and harder hours for less pay.
Sanders said, “The disastrous district court decision will unfairly harm millions of workers who are working longer hours for lower wages and have gone far too long without a raise.”
The new U.S. Department of Labor rule, originally scheduled to go into effect at the beginning of December, would have required employers to pay time-and-a-half for working overtime to anyone making less than $47,476 a year. So far, they have been able to skirt overtime regulations by labeling employees “supervisors” and putting them on salary. As a result, many of them wind up putting in as much as 60 hours a week, all for the bargain price of as little as $24,000 a year.
Sanders points out that “Anyone who claims to be a champion of working families should be outraged by the misguided and irresponsible court decision.” He adds, “I urge the Obama administration and President-elect Trump to do everything they can to vigorously defend this rule.”
Will they? As a lame duck President, Obama could conceivably take action before he leaves office in January – but despite his rhetoric on the campaign train, President -“select” Trump is unlikely to do a damned thing to help working people and the middle class.
In fact, Donald Trump has an extensive record as a deadbeat. He has repeatedly failed to pay what he owes to his own employees as well as contractors who have performed services or supplied him with material goods.
Time after time, contracting firms who have worked for the Trump empire have had to settle for pennies on the dollar. New Jersey state senator Jim Whelan, former mayor of Atlantic City, told Newsweek in October of 2015 that “there were a lot of small contractors and vendors who got hurt, who went out of business because Trump did not pay contracts on time.” And that’s just his contractors.
In 2007, Trump was sued by an employee at his Mar-A-Lago Resort for not paying time-and-a-half for overtime hours he put in over the course of three years. Earlier this year, he paid a settlement to employees of Trump Resort Management, LLC, who sued him for failure to pay overtime as agreed. He has also been sued for wage discrimination and as of this past September, has yet to pay at least ten of his campaign staffers.
Of course, Trump is able to buy his way out of all of these legal problems, but seriously, with a record like his, does anyone realistically believe that the Trump Administration is going to do anything for people who actually work at making real, tangible contributions to society, providing us with real goods and services – as opposed to the billionaire investor class that enriches itself by moving money around, exploiting people and communities for their own benefit and rigging the game of crapitalism in their favor?
