This statement can be attributed to Lorena Roque, Interim Director of Education, Labor, and Worker Justice of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)  

Washington, D.C., July 16, 2025 – Last week, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced the department’s deregulatory efforts, which include 63 actions that will harm workers and working families. 

Under the guise of “putting the American worker first,” the DOL’s plan in the Wage and Hour department includes eliminating minimum wage and overtime protections for millions of home health care and domestic workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), while also proposing to classify caregivers as exempt from FLSA minimum wage and overtime protections. Coming at a time when families are already in a child care and caregiving crisis, these proposed cuts only exacerbate the precariousness of these jobs and their already low wages. DOL also plans to rescind Biden-era proposed rules aimed at ending subminimum wages for workers with disabilities and the right to collective action for Seasonal H-2A visas. 

On worker safety protections, DOL intends to revise reporting thresholds, training mandates, and change enforcement priorities and inspection frequencies at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This proposed rule would limit OSHA’s capacity to oversee work that is inherently hazardous, like the sports and entertainment industries. The DOL also plans to deregulate respiratory protection requirements and substance-specific safety standards in high-risk industries and remove some OSHA regulations entirely for migrant farmworkers, including a longstanding rule that outlines the internal procedures of DOL for coordinating enforcement action among OSHA, the Wage and Hour Division, and the Employment and Training Administration. The agency also proposes slashing critical workplace safety standards in the construction field that deal with hazard prevention and the informed development of safety rules.

The Trump Administration recently announced its goal of creating over 1 million apprenticeships for workers in the country. At the same time, by rescinding affirmative action requirements for these programs, the administration is destroying the labor infrastructure it claims to want to build up. This is only the latest attack on workers and working families from the Trump Administration, which has used numerous executive orders and immigration enforcement to attack unions and their leaders. 

We urge our partners and allies to submit public comments where possible and join us in opposing efforts to strip away essential protections from working families and undermine labor unions that fought hard to secure the rights we have as workers in this country.