Trump presented with a hard hat from the West Virginia Coal Miners Association.
Should those who profit off of the labor of others be required to pay them a fair wage and provide them with a safe place to work? We’d say yes, but the Trump Labor Department just isn’t so sure.

The Republican Party has not been able to shut up for some time now about how it is “the party of the working class” — though it seems they might have confused that for “the party of the employers of the working class,” as the the Trump administration’s Department of Labor (DOL) is looking to kill more than 60 labor rules and regulations they have decided are “obsolete.”

Don’t worry, it’s nothing important. Just some old-timey rules like “adequate lighting for construction sites,” “mine safety,” “literally any labor protections at all for migrant farm workers” and “home health care workers should get paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour,” which I would like to note is, in fact, less than I got paid to babysit when I was in high school.

“The Department of Labor is proud to lead the way by eliminating unnecessary regulations that stifle growth and limit opportunity,” said Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer — who we’d like to remind you was endorsed by Teamsters president Sean O’Brien. Chavez-DeRemer’s statement touted the “most ambitious proposal to slash red tape of any department across the federal government.”