STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This is President Trump's first Labor Day since his return to the White House.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Trump campaigned on the promise of providing America's workers with a renaissance. A little over six months in, how's that effort coming along?
INSKEEP: NPR's Andrea Hsu covers labor. Hi there, Andrea.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Hi.
INSKEEP: So what's the president saying about workers now?
HSU: Well, as you might expect, Steve, he says they're doing great. At a cabinet meeting last week, he said wages are rising, factories are booming, and he took credit for all of this.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Every policy of the Trump administration is designed to lift up the American worker, promote great-paying blue-collar jobs and to rebuild the industrial bedrock of our nation.
HSU: Now, Steve, factories aren't exactly booming. They've been in a bit of a slump over the last few months. But wages have risen this year, as they have over the last several years. And most people who want jobs are working. The unemployment rate remains fairly low at just over 4%. But there is a lot of uncertainty right now, a lot of points of tension in different parts of the workforce. And if you're out and about today, you might hear about some of this at mass protests that have been organized all over the country in all 50 states. The theme is Workers Over Billionaires.
INSKEEP: What are the objections of the labor movement?
HSU: Well, immigration, for one. The Trump administration has been cracking down not only on people who are in the U.S. illegally, but also on those who had legal status through different humanitarian programs that Trump is now ending.
INSKEEP: Oh, yeah.
HSU: And these new immigration policies are affecting workers, you know, everywhere - on farms in rural America, in factories in the Midwest, in health care and hotels. Trump has claimed that immigrants are taking jobs from Americans, but in a lot of these industries, there aren't enough workers. So that's one issue I've heard about. But I'm also hearing from labor unions that represent blue-collar American workers - you know, those Trump courted during last year's presidential campaign.
INSKEEP: And let's be clear - a lot of blue-collar, union-type folks did vote for President Trump. But...
HSU: Absolutely.
INSKEEP: ...What are their unions saying now?
HSU: Yeah. Well, the unions are really worried that a lot of big infrastructure projects that got off the ground when Biden was president - that they are less of a sure thing. And this is especially true in the renewable energy space. I spoke with Brent Booker. He's the general president of the Laborers' International Union of North America. And their members work in construction, you know, working on buildings and roads and bridges and clean energy projects. And here's how he described this moment.
BRENT BOOKER: It's chaos. It's uncertainty. It's unpredictability.
HSU: And, Steve, Booker is especially riled up right now about what's happened with a wind farm under construction off the coast of Rhode Island. It's called Revolution Wind. The Trump administration issued a stop-work order on that project about 10 days ago.
INSKEEP: Yeah, the president also spoke about that at great length in some of his public appearances this past week. What's going on here?
HSU: Yeah, well, Trump is no fan of windmills. He put a moratorium on new wind projects already. But the administration said it was pausing this project because of national security concerns, fear of drone strikes and things like that. Now, Brent Booker, the union president, is furious about this. He said this project was approved long ago. Two million hours of work had been completed...
INSKEEP: Wow.
HSU: ...45 turbines already in the air. But now several hundred workers who were out over the water have been idled.
BOOKER: Not only does that affect the individuals who were working on that, but an entire industry now is - you know, what's going to happen? Who's going to invest right now in renewable energy? And that just takes away future jobs and future opportunities.
HSU: So that is his concern. It's the future. Right now Brent Booker says most of his members are working. But he credits the last administration and the last Congress for that, for the federal incentives that jump-started those projects. With Trump, he doesn't like what he's seen so far, but he's still holding out hope that he will make good on his promises to workers.
INSKEEP: Lot of uncertainty. Andrea, thanks so much.
HSU: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: NPR's Andrea Hsu. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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