Will Trump’s return be a devil’s bargain for workers seeking to organize?

As Donald Trump returns to the White House this week, the people that Capital & Main has covered for the last 18 months in its national series on worker organizing could face a difficult transition. 

Pro-labor observers expect that members of the federal agency overseeing unions, the National Labor Relations Board, will be replaced with appointees hostile to unions. The conservative document known as Project 2025, widely considered a blueprint for the new administration, promotes policy changes that would undercut workers’ ability to organize. They include making national labor laws “negotiable,” ending card check (the practice of granting a union to workers who’ve gathered signatures from a majority of those in their workplace), banning public sector unions and giving companies freer reign to misclassify workers as independent contractors, thereby excluding them from labor rights. And while Trump named Lori Chavez DeRemer, a pro-union Republican, as his choice for secretary of labor, it is far from clear how much authority she will have to pursue a worker-friendly agenda.

This week, we will publish updates on four worker organizing campaigns we’ve covered in our series that could be directly affected by Trump’s return to office:

• Uber and Lyft Drivers Ramp Up Fight Against ‘Firing by App’

• Higher Ed Workers, Union Rights Uncertain, Speed Up Bargaining

• Call Center Workers Continue Union Push After Biden Administration Drops Fight

• 35,000 Michigan Home Care Workers Double Down on Union Effort

The fate of these efforts will reveal much about American workers’ prospects for organizing to improve their jobs over the next four years.

-Tracie McMillan, Series editor 

Uber and Lyft drivers ramp up push against ‘firing by app’

Workers optimistic about national coordination even as a second Trump administration threatens labor rights and immigration crackdowns.

By Kalena Thomave 

Industry

Rideshare Drivers

Number of workers

Estimated at 1 million-2 million in the U.S.

What they’re fighting for

Higher wages, safety protections and an end to what they call “firing by app,” when drivers suddenly lose access to the rideshare app without warning or immediate recourse.

Backstory

Rideshare workers have been trying to improve their jobs by demanding — and often winning — local protections since 2018. Drivers have so far been considered “independent contractors” for purposes of labor law, placing them outside the workplace protections that federal laws provide, including the right to organize a union. In 2024, rideshare workers launched a coordinated multistate campaign, Activate Respect, across Illinois, California and Colorado. The campaign calls for an overhaul of Uber’s method of deactivating drivers from the app without warning. Drivers say the sudden loss of income, paired with an opaque appeal process, can be devastating.

Current status

In early October, Activate Respect organizers from the campaign’s three sites convened in San Francisco to demonstrate at Lyft and Uber headquarters. In addition to an end to “firing by app,” they want a transparent rider complaint investigation process for drivers nationwide, including fair hearings. 

In December, following years of driver organizing, the Chicago City Council approved $250,000 in funding for rideshare worker education on labor rights and worker protections. The fund will assist the more than 85,000 rideshare drivers in Chicago with countering unfair app deactivations, wage theft and other violations.

Coming soon: Local and national

Drivers are more optimistic about local efforts than national ones to improve their jobs as the second Trump administration takes hold. 

Coming soon: Chicago

In Chicago, drivers hope the new fund signals support for a rideshare living wage and safety ordinance they have sought since 2022. That law would raise pay, increase fare transparency and add safety protections. Lori Simmons, a driver and organizer with the People’s Lobby and Chicago Gig Alliance, said she is “feeling very good about our odds of passing this ordinance” in 2025.

Workers expect the companies will fight the ordinance, as Uber and Lyft have fought similar laws in other cities and states. They also appear to coordinate closely. Separate emailed statements to Capital & Main from each company were nearly verbatim, noting that the proposed law would “jeopardize the service for most” in Chicago by “drastically increasing fares” such that “drivers would ultimately earn less because so few people would be left to afford a ride.” 

Workers are now coordinating, too, sharing company “playbook[s]” they have observed, Simmons said. “It’s been powerful to put our heads together [and] know what to expect,” she said. 

SImmons noted how Uber and Lyft technically complied with New York’s 2018 minimum wage for drivers, then began to lock workers out of apps, reducing their hours — a tactic Chicago drivers can now try to preempt.

Coming soon: National

WIth no resolution to the Activate Respect campaign by early January, drivers will be “escalating” the campaign in 2025, said Simmons.

In an emailed statement, an Uber spokesperson said, “Improving the deactivation process is a top priority.”

Meanwhile, the second Trump administration is unlikely to be friendly to rideshare drivers, said Erin Hatton, a sociology professor at the University at Buffalo. President Trump’s first administration passed a rule that made it easier for employers to classify workers as independent contractors, therefore limiting their rights. While it was reversed by the Biden administration, it could be reinstated.

“I don’t imagine Trump will go to bat for these workers,” said Hatton. “If anything, he will stand up for the businesses trying to take advantage of them.”

Drivers are also worried that the mass deportations promised by President Trump will upend the industry, said Simmons. Some 90% of drivers are immigrants, depending on the city. 

Why this campaign matters

Rideshare drivers “are on the vanguard of labor organizing,” said Hatton. They comprise roughly a quarter of the gig economy and an estimated 8.3% of the nation’s independent contractor workforce. Successful organizing among drivers, then, may signal potential for improving the jobs of other independent contractors, who in turn make up as much as 15% of workers. 

“These are workers who do not share a workplace,” said Hatton, adding that organizing in such an environment provides lessons for other decentralized and remote workers. “They are finding ways to come together [and] push for change in a landscape in which it is exceedingly difficult to do so.” 

With union rights uncertain under Trump, higher ed workers seek to speed up bargaining

Newly unionized Caltech, Occidental workers got union rights under Biden. Trump’s inauguration has them seeking quick contracts.

By Gabriel Thompson

Industry 

Higher education

Number of workers

2,000 at California Institute of Technology.

1,000 at Occidental College.

What they’re fighting for

At Caltech, graduate students and postdocs are seeking workplace health and safety improvements, protections against discrimination, time off for international students to renew their visas and increases to pay and child care stipends. 

Occidental undergrads are pushing to increase wages, which are currently pegged to Los Angeles’ minimum wage of $17.28, and to remove a $5,000 limit on student workers’ earnings each year. 

Backstory 

In February 2024, workers at Pasadena’s Caltech voted to join the United Auto Workers 1039 to 296. In April, undergrads at Occidental College in Los Angeles also went union, joining the Service Employees International Union Local 721. (Disclosure: SEIU is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)

Current status

Last month, 86% of Caltech student workers voted to authorize a strike. Ten months after winning a union election, workers and the administration are still negotiating wages and benefits, as well as protections for international students. The two sides have reached tentative agreements around protections against discrimination and harassment, grievance and arbitration processes, and health and safety standards. Workers will hold a “last chance picket” on Jan. 28, which could be followed by a strike. Meanwhile, students at Occidental held an introductory bargaining session in November, with plans to continue meeting in early 2025.

Coming soon

Both unions are eyeing the incoming administration warily. Under President Barack Obama, the National Labor Relations Board, the government agency overseeing union elections, concluded that student workers at private universities could unionize. During the first Trump administration, however, the National Labor Relations Board moved to strip the labor rights of these student workers. Academic worker unions at private schools like Caltech and Occidental were possible because after President Biden installed a new board chair, the agency withdrew the Trump-era rule in March 2021. 

Workers are aware that a second Trump administration could push the pendulum back, and potentially cancel their rights to organize, said Jasmine Emtage, a biology graduate student and union activist at Caltech. “We’re moving into a time of uncertainty for the future of the NLRB,” she said. “That’s one reason we’re hoping to get a good contract signed as soon as possible.”

Why this campaign matters 

Workers at Occidental and Caltech are among the more than 50,000 student workers who joined 54 unions under the Biden administration’s NLRB. Campus organizing has been a bright spot for unions, with density among graduate student workers growing from about 20% in 2020 to 38% today, compared to the overall national workforce average of 10%. What’s more, student worker unions are often overwhelmingly popular, reflecting the more than three-quarters of younger Americans’ who view unions favorably. A November 2024 union election at George Washington University, for example, won recognition with a vote of 347-2.

Student workers are continuing to organize, with active campaigns at Macalester College and the University of Rochester, both private institutions. Observers note that an NLRB ruling cancelling academic workers’ right to organize at private institutions could prevent new unions from forming and likely make it harder to preserve the ones that have already formed. “The drive for unionization has been strong for decades, but the law had been an obstacle,” said William Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College. “The question now is whether a new Trump board is going to try again.” 

Call center workers continue union push after Biden administration drops fight

Officials withdrew a rebid of a $6.6 billion contract requiring “labor harmony” 25 days after the $5 billion corporation holding it filed suit.

By Jesse Baum

Industry 

Medicare and Affordable Care Act Call center workers on federal contracts.

Number of workers

12,000

What they’re fighting for

A starting wage of $25/hour, better health insurance, and breaks between calls. 

Backstory 

The workers who answer calls for 1-800 Medicare and Healthcare.gov insurance exchanges have been organizing for a union at Maximus Inc. since 2017, part of a workforce of 12,000 customer service representatives at 12 worksites. Wages for workers start at $17.75, far beneath living wages, and workers say their health insurance is too expensive to use. 

Eileen Rivera, Maximus vice president of public relations and communications, told Capital & Main that wages are set by federal law under the Service Contract Act. That is true for “minimum monetary compensation,” but the act does not ban contractors from paying higher wages, though doing so can lower profit margins.

To pressure Maximus for changes, workers have staged six short-term strikes amidst what they call a union-busting campaign waged by Maximus. They have filed 24 unfair labor practice complaints alleging surveillance, threats of retaliation and other anti-union efforts with the National Labor Relations Board; 11 remain open. They also built alliances with several congressional representatives, and urged the Biden administration to make good on its “good jobs principles” and declaration of support for good labor practices at federal contractors.” 

Last May, workers thought they had finally scored a win: Officials at the contracting agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), announced a rebid of Maximus’ $6.6 billion, nine-year contract in order to add a “labor harmony” requirement. Under that provision, workers could trade an agreement not to strike for concessions from Maximus — most notably a commitment to remain neutral to a union drive. 

Current status 

Maximus sued to stop the rebid in the U.S. Court of Claims on Nov. 1, calling the labor harmony provision “a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of labor unions.” On an earnings call on Nov. 21, two weeks after the presidential election, Maximus CEO Bruce Caswell told investors the provision was “unnecessary, inappropriate and illegal.” On Nov. 26, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services retracted the rebid and, with it, the labor harmony provision.

Maximus is “pleased with the outcome,” said Rivera. 

A CMS spokesperson declined to address the decision directly, instead highlighting the agency’s commitment to providing “accurate, timely and understandable information.” 

For workers, said Anna Flemmings, who works in Maximus’ call center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, “It was a blow.” Flemmings has worked at the call center for eight years and currently earns $19.53 hourly. The MIT living wage calculator lists a living wage for a single parent of one child in Hattiesburg as $31.98.

Coming soon

Workers and their supporters say they are not backing down — even if the Department of Health and Human Services did.

“What happened here was an unwillingness of HHS to muscle back [at] Maximus,” said Celine McNicholas, director of policy and government affairs at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s a bad precedent and, frankly, a betrayal of that workforce not to have fought the fight — instead to be held hostage by this firm to the tune of $6 billion in taxpayer funding. It’s a failure over years.”

In Mississippi, Flemmings and her colleagues are continuing to organize. “This will not deter us from our fight to unionize,” she said.

Why This Campaign Matters

Maximus workers are among the roughly 5 million workers in the privatized federal workforce, which observers predict will grow under a second Trump administration. The first Trump administration froze hiring in many federal departments, but doubled spending on “temporary help services” from 2016-2018. 

“You shrink the federal workforce, you [then] increase the growth of a ‘shadow’ workforce — the federal contractors,” leading to “a federal contract workforce, but one without [labor] standards,” said Shahrzad Habibi, research and policy director at In the Public Interest, a think tank studying privatization. “That could be a scary thing.” 

35,000 Michigan home care workers double down on union effort 

They won status as state employees to get union rights. Now they’re fighting for an election and better jobs.

By Ethan Bakuli

Industry

Home health care aides 

Number of Workers

35,000 in Michigan

What They’re Fighting For

A union and contract to raise wages, professionalize training and regulate work.

Backstory 

In March 2024, Michigan Home Care Workers United, a worker organization of the state’s 35,000 home health aides, affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, launched a campaign for its members to be declared public employees in order to organize a union. Over half of the aides, who are paid by Medicaid to help program recipients with daily activities ranging from bathing to doctor’s appointments, rely on public assistance, according to national caregiver advocacy organization PHI. While workers are spread across the state’s 83 counties, the workforce is concentrated in Michigan’s largest cities. (Disclosure: SEIU is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.)

In October, with Democrats controlling both houses of the Legislature and the governorship, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills pushed by the workers, Public Acts 145 and 144. Public Act 145 reclassified workers in the state's Home Help Program as public employees, giving them the right to form a statewide union across workplaces. Public Act 144 established a public authority to standardize registration, training and care for home care workers. Both acts are set to take effect in March.

Current Status

Michigan Home Care Workers United spent much of December pushing state legislators to boost funding for the bills from $2 million to $10 million. Campaign officials say additional funding will assist in the creation of a public authority and provide improvements to the Home Help program. They were unsuccessful in persuading the Michigan House of Representatives, which Republicans will control this year, to allocate the money. 

Coming Soon

Workers aim to elect a union by the end of 2025, said Beth Menz, deputy director of SEIU Home Care Division. Menz said the campaign has "talked to thousands" of workers statewide, and is working to collect at least the 10,500 worker signatures required to call a union election. The union declined to share its current signature count.

While the conservative policy agenda known as Project 2025 suggests Congress "consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place," that policy is aimed at federal employees. It’s therefore unlikely to affect workers who are state-level public employees directly, said Menz. 

Among those workers is Rodney Tate, 59, a retired construction worker and home care worker in Detroit who has worked as a caregiver for close relatives since 2000. Although care days can be very long, he says the state pays him for about 31 hours of care a month, sending him $500 for his work. That puts his official wage at  $15.88, about 20 percent less than the county living wage for a single adult, $19.65. Tate said he hasn't read the Project 2025 agenda and is focused on getting a union.

"We're always facing adversity," said Tate. "What I care about is we got these bills passed… what I care about is we're going to keep fighting."

Why This Campaign Matters

Success for Michigan Home Care Workers would be a powerful example of workers’ ability to create change at the state level regardless of the federal policy landscape, said Catherine Ruckelshaus, legal director at the National Employment Law Project.

Wages for home care workers paid with Medicaid, who make up the majority of the more than 2 million home care aides nationwide, are usually set by state officials. Meanwhile, care workers are typically either employed directly by the person for whom they care, or by small independent agencies receiving Medicaid funds. That decentralization has made it difficult for care workers to improve their jobs or organize unions.

Turning workers paid with public funds into public employees has been a powerful workaround for that problem, said John August, director of health care and partner programs at Cornell University's Scheinman Institute. Becoming state employees allows workers to organize into statewide unions with enough political muscle to raise wages and make other improvements. 

While SEIU was unable to tell Capital & Main how many of those members had fought for, and won, public employee status, it currently counts about 800,000 home care workers as members.