The Labour Department on Tuesday announced its plans to repeal more than 60 ‘obsolete’ workplace regulations, ranging from minimum wage requirements for home health care workers and people with disabilities to standards governing exposure to harmful substances.
If approved, the wide-ranging changes unveiled this month also would affect working conditions at construction sites and in mines, and limit the government’s ability to penalise employers if workers are injured or killed while engaging in risk-prone activities.
Some of these proposals increase exposure to health-based dangers for low-wage workers. One of the proposals seeks to rescind a requirement for employers to provide adequate lighting at construction sites, saying the regulation doesn’t substantially reduce a significant risk. Another proposal aims to do away with regulations where mining companies have to submit plans for ventilation and preventing roof collapses in coal mines for review by the Labour Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Officials from the Labour Department have stated that the motivation behind this change is to essentially reduce ‘costly burdening’ rules that had been imposed under the previous administration and to deliver on President Donald Trump’s commitment to restore American prosperity through deregulation.
“The Department of Labour is proud to lead the way by eliminating ‘unnecessary regulations’ that stifle growth and limit opportunity,” Secretary of Labour Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement, which boasted the “most ambitious proposal to slash red tape of any department across the federal government.” Critics say the proposals would put workers at greater risk of harm, with women and members of minority groups bearing a disproportionate impact.
“People are at very great risk of dying on the job already,” Rebecca Reindel, the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO) union’s occupational safety and health director, reported. “This is something that is only going to make the problem worse,” she added.
The proposed changes have several stages to get through before they can take effect, including a public comment period for each one.
Here’s a look at some of the rollbacks under consideration:
No minimum wage for home health care workers
Home health care workers help elderly or medically fragile people by preparing meals, administering medications, assisting with toilet use, accompanying clients to doctor appointments and performing other care-related tasks. Under one of the Labour Department’s proposals, an estimated 3.7 million workers employed by home care agencies could be paid below the federal minimum wage, which presently stands at $7.25 per hour.
These changes stand to reverse the regulations administered during the Obama administration and make home healthcare workers ineligible for overtime pay.
The Labour Department says that by lowering labour and compliance costs, its revisions might expand the home care market and help keep frail individuals in their homes for longer.
Judy Conti, director of government affairs at the National Employment Law Project, said her organisation plans to work hard to defeat the proposal. Home health workers are subject to injuries from lifting clients, and “before those (2013) regulations, it was very common for home care workers to work 50, 60 and maybe even more hours a week, without getting any overtime pay,” Conti said.
Others endorse the proposal, including the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative nonprofit based in Virginia. Women often bear the brunt of family caregiving responsibilities, so making home care more affordable would help women balance work and personal responsibilities, the group’s president, Carrie Lukas, said.
“We’re pleased to see the Trump administration moving forward on rolling back some of what we saw as counterproductive micromanaging of relationships that were making it hard for people to get the care they need,” Lukas said.
Samantha Sanders, director of government affairs and advocacy at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, said the repeal would not constitute a win for women.
“Saying we don’t think they need those protections would be pretty devastating to a workforce that performs essential work and is very heavily dominated by women, and women of colour in particular,” Sanders said.
Loss of protections for migrant farm workers
Last year, the Labour Department finalised rules that provided protections to migrant farmworkers who held H-2A visas. The current administration says most of those rules placed unnecessary and costly requirements on employers.
Under the new proposal, the Labour Department would rescind a requirement for most employer-provided transportation to have seat belts for agricultural workers.
The department is also proposing to reverse a 2024 rule that protected migrant farmworkers from retaliation for activities such as filing a complaint, testifying or participating in an investigation, hearing or proceeding.
“There’s a long history of retaliation against workers who speak up against abuses in farm work. And with H-2A, it’s even worse because the employer can just not renew your visa,” said Lori Johnson, senior attorney at Farmworker Justice.
Experts explain that the proposals largely aim to undermine the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s OSHA’s power. The general duty clause allows OSHA to punish employers for unsafe working conditions when there’s no specific standard in place to cover a situation.
An OSHA proposal would exclude the agency from applying the clause to prohibit, restrict or penalise employers for “inherently risky professional activities that are intrinsic to professional, athletic, or entertainment occupations.”