Late Friday night, President Trump signed new executive orders (EOs), including an EO entitled Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions that rescinds 18 Biden executive actions—including the following labor-related executive actions taken by President Biden:
- Executive Order 14119 of March 6, 2024, entitled, Scaling and Expanding the Use of Registered Apprenticeships in Industries and the Federal Government and Promoting Labor-Management Forums. This EO directed agencies to encourage pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs through terms of grants, contracts, and financial assistance awards.
- Executive Order 14126 of September 6, 2024, entitled, Investing in America and Investing in American Workers. This EO directed agencies to prioritize projects that, among other things: (1) promote efficient project delivery and positive labor-management relations through project labor agreements, community benefits agreements, collective bargaining agreements, voluntary union recognition, and employer neutrality; (2) promote family-sustaining wages and prevailing wages; (3) promote economic security for workers through the provision of paid leave (including paid sick, family, and medical leave), health care, retirement benefits, and childcare; and (4) promote employment in high-quality jobs for workers from underserved communities.
- Executive Order 14026 of April 27, 2021, entitled, Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors. This EO raised the minimum wage for workers on government contracts to $15/hour and required annual indexing of this wage.
- Presidential Memorandum of November 16, 2023, entitled Advancing Worker Empowerment, Rights, and High Labor Standards Globally. This presidential memorandum made it the policy of the United States to ensure high labor standards, bringing workers’ voices to the decision-making table, and enforced rules against unfair labor practices, including forced labor and denial of the right to organize.
President Trump also signed an EO entitled Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy. The EO directs that “the non-statutory components and functions of” seven governmental entities, including the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, “shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”