The alarming reality has arrived: Felonious Punk’s Labor Department is attempting to rewrite or repeal more than 60 workplace regulations simultaneously. This isn’t efficiency; it’s a deliberate, cynical “dumping” of rules designed to ensure that we won’t be able to handle them all, and some things will fall through the cracks. The timing is equally calculated: this decision comes right before Congress goes on break for the rest of August and a fair part of September, guaranteeing that even if we do see something horrible, there won’t be anyone around to do a damn thing about it.
Felonious Punk’s Labor Department is unleashing a calculated “deregulation deluge,” attempting to systematically dismantle over 60 critical workplace protections. This deliberate strategy, timed to overwhelm oversight and erode fundamental worker rights, particularly targets vulnerable populations and poses an existential threat to wage guarantees and safety standards across every industry, revealing a callous disregard for American workers’ lives and livelihoods. This is a battle for the very soul of our nation’s workforce, and we must not allow this torrent of recklessness to drown the rights and dignity of American workers.
The Unacceptable Assault on Wages: A Precedent for Poverty
The most immediate and horrifying front in this assault is the direct attack on wages, setting a chilling precedent for poverty across the nation. The Department of Labor proposes to eliminate the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) and overtime pay for an estimated 3.7 million home health care workers. This isn’t a minor adjustment; it’s a reversal of Obama-era changes, reverting to a regulatory framework from 1975. Let’s be clear: NO MINIMUM WAGE on home health??? You see what they’re doing, right? This is a direct, brutal assault on a workforce “very heavily dominated by women, and women of color in particular,” who have historically been exploited, often working 50, 60, or even more hours a week without overtime pay before 2013.
This is not an isolated incident. If they can get us to accept no minimum wage here, they’ll go from one industry to the next, trying to wipe out any wage guarantees at all. This is an existential threat to every American worker. Beyond home health, the DOL is revoking Executive Order 14026, which increased the minimum wage for federal contractors. They are retracting the Biden-era independent contractor classification rule, making it easier for employers to deny benefits by classifying workers as contractors. They are eliminating data collection for individuals with disabilities, undermining crucial anti-discrimination efforts. They are even removing collective bargaining rights from most federal employees in national security roles, and gutting regulations for coordinated enforcement activities related to migrant farmworkers. This is a comprehensive, calculated war on the American worker’s paycheck.
Drowning Worker Safety: A License to Harm
While they’re gutting wages, they’re simultaneously dismantling the very safeguards meant to keep workers alive and healthy. This is a literal license to harm.
- Construction Site Lighting: Inviting Fatalities. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants to rescind requirements for adequate lighting at construction sites. Rebecca Reindel, AFL-CIO’s occupational safety and health director, warns that “there have been many fatalities where workers fall through a hole in the floor, where there’s not adequate lighting.” This is a “very obvious thing that employers should address, but unfortunately, it’s one of those things where we need a standard, and it’s violated all the time.” This isn’t about reducing “burdens”; it’s about increasing body counts.
- Mine Safety: Endangering Lives Underground. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) district managers are being stripped of their authority to require additional steps for ventilation, roof collapse prevention, and health/safety training in coal mines. This removes critical oversight in inherently deadly environments, leaving miners vulnerable to the greed of operators.
- Migrant Farm Worker Protections: Open Season for Abuse. The DOL is rescinding seat belt requirements for employer-provided transportation for migrant farmworkers and reversing rules protecting them from retaliation for speaking up. Lori Johnson, senior attorney at Farmworker Justice, highlights the “long history of retaliation against workers who speak up against abuses in farm work.” This leaves a vulnerable workforce, many on H-2A visas, exposed to a brutal “open season” for abuse, where employers can simply “not renew your visa” if a worker dares to complain.
- Limiting OSHA’s Reach: A Green Light for Recklessness. OSHA’s “general duty clause,” a crucial safety net for hazards not covered by specific standards, is being proposed for exclusion from “inherently risky professional activities” like those in sports, entertainment, and even journalism. Critics rightly warn this would allow employers to “throw safety to the wind” due to “production pressures,” effectively giving a green light to recklessness.
- Other Safety Rollbacks. Beyond these, the DOL is revising respiratory protection standards for exposure to vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, and lead, and removing OSHA safety color code and marking standards, all under the guise of “duplicative” regulations. They are even eliminating some medical evaluation requirements in the Respiratory Protection Rule. And, adding insult to injury, they are delaying monitoring and cleanup requirements for toxic coal ash, a direct threat to worker and community health.
The Strategy of Chaos: Overwhelm, Obscure, and Undermine
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer boasts about this “deluge” as the “most ambitious proposal to slash red tape of any department.” But this is not a triumph of efficiency; it is a calculated strategy of chaos. The release of over 60 regulations simultaneously, just before Congress’s long recess, is a cynical, deliberate move to:
- Overwhelm Oversight. It makes it virtually impossible for Congress, labor unions, or advocacy groups to scrutinize every single change, ensuring that critical details will be missed.
- Ensure Inaction. By timing this before recess, they guarantee that “even if we do see something horrible, there’s no one around to do a damn thing about it.” The legislative branch is intentionally sidelined.
- Bury the Details. The sheer volume of changes is designed to obscure the specific, devastating impacts of each individual rule change, allowing them to slip through unnoticed.
The true goal is not “restoring American prosperity” for workers; it’s about boosting profits for employers at the expense of human lives and dignity. Critics are unified: these proposals “put workers at greater risk of harm,” “make the problem worse,” and allow “greedy corporations richer” by “cutting corners and lining their own pockets.” This is a gift to corporate bad actors who resist complying with basic safety and wage standards.
The Fight for the American Worker – A Call to Arms
Felonious Punk’s Labor Department is unleashing a torrent of deregulation that threatens to roll back decades of hard-won worker protections, from basic wages to fundamental safety. This is a direct assault on the American worker, particularly women and minorities, and a profound betrayal of the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens.
We cannot afford to let these changes “fall through the cracks.” We must do something to keep it from drowning into obsolescence. Every proposed rule must be scrutinized, and every voice raised in opposition. If someone were to become injured or killed directly because of one of the situations being eliminated—such as not enough lighting on a construction site—they could potentially sue the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). While the FTCA has strict procedures, short deadlines, and exceptions like “discretionary function immunity” (if the government’s action involved policy judgment), it remains a potential avenue for accountability and justice that must be pursued.
We must demand that Congress hold hearings and challenge these rollbacks immediately. We must support labor unions and worker advocacy groups fighting on the front lines. We must make it clear that American lives are not expendable for corporate profit. The fight for fair wages and safe workplaces is a fight for the soul of our nation. We must not allow this deregulation deluge to drown the rights and dignity of American workers.
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