Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was interviewed on KQED’s The California Report, in “Federal Enforcement of Worker Protections Likely Shifting in California Under Trump” with Farida Jhabvala Romero.
Following is an excerpt:
The incoming Trump administration will likely impact federal workplace enforcement priorities in California and other states and unwind the Biden administration’s efforts to extend employee protections to millions more people in the U.S., according to several experts.
The U.S. Department of Labor has long aimed to ensure fair pay and safe working conditions for low-wage earners. The agency’s current leader, Julie Su, a former California labor secretary, has focused resources to prioritize protecting those who are most vulnerable to exploitation, including the immigrant workforce and migrant children who come to the U.S. without their parents. …
California has the country’s largest undocumented workforce, with about 1.4 million people primarily working in the construction, agriculture and service industries as of 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. Nationwide, an estimated 8.3 million workers were unauthorized immigrants that year, about 5% of the total workforce.
Former president Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Labor Department, which has yet to be announced, will reveal more about the administration’s direction and priorities for the agency. Su, the acting secretary, will lose her job on Jan. 20. Her confirmation to the post was stalled by Republicans in the Senate. …
New leadership, especially a more pro-business one, will likely move to rescind or weaken the department’s recent regulations facing legal challenges from industry groups. One rule will make an estimated 4.3 million more salaried employees eligible to receive extra overtime pay after it goes fully into effect next year. Another makes it harder for employers to classify workers as independent contractors, who are often cheaper because they are not covered by minimum wage and workplace safety requirements, among other laws.
Paul DeCamp, an attorney who ran the wage and hour division under President George W. Bush, said the department could also be led with greater sensitivity toward the needs of working Americans because Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance aggressively courted blue-collar workers during the campaign.
“I don’t think that this administration wants to put a thumb in the eye of the working class,” DeCamp said. “If they start having their agencies take actions that are perceived as hurting blue-collar workers, that’ll kind of run contrary to the case that they made for why they should get elected.” …
The U.S. Department of Labor investigates employers that cheat and exploit employees, unfairly competing with law-abiding businesses. The agency’s commitment to upholding worker rights has remained steady regardless of what party is in power, DeCamp said. However, the scope of some protections may differ, with Democratic administrations generally applying laws more broadly, DeCamp said.
He would not be surprised if a second Trump administration curtailed who qualifies for overtime pay when working more than 40 hours a week and reinstated a previous Trump-era rule that is less strict on which workers qualify as independent contractors.
“They’ve already got a rule they like,” DeCamp, who represents and advises businesses at the law firm Epstein, Becker, Green, said. “I don’t think they need to go back to square one.”
