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Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly roundup of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: How Trump’s first executive orders affect workers; nurses union posts more gains; lawmakers look to expand whistleblower protections for public workers; and which sectors grew the fastest in 2024 in Minnesota.
Executive orders hit construction, agriculture and government
In his first week in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders and rescinded more than 40% of Biden’s executive orders on everything from immigration to the environment.
Agency leaders are still trying to interpret the orders — and the White House is still clarifying them — and the effects on the broader labor market won’t be clear until sometime after. But three sectors stood out as likely to feel the most direct impacts of Trump’s executive actions: construction, food production and processing, and the federal bureaucracy.
Construction
Trump ordered agencies to stop making payments through two of Biden’s signature policy achievements: the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The two laws have already funded a bevy of good-paying jobs building infrastructure across the country, with hundreds of millions more expected should implementation continue despite Trump’s executive order.
The order caused massive confusion; the Federal Highway Administration halted payments. Politico reported road and bridge projects — even those in the middle of construction — were in jeopardy, and states and cities could be left with massive bills. The White House later issued a clarification that the order only applies to funds supporting the “Green New Deal” and agency heads may disburse funds “as they deem necessary.” That could kill new jobs installing renewable energy infrastructure.
Congressional Democrats also cried foul that the president would interfere with funding passed by the legislative branch. Trump’s nominee to head up the federal budget agency is asserting that the executive branch has the right to withhold spending, or “impound” the money. The issue could end up in the courts.
Food production
Trump signed a slew of executive orders laying the groundwork for his promised mass deportation operation, including allowing military service members to act as immigration and border enforcement officers and directing Homeland Security to secure contractors to set up detention facilities.
Deporting undocumented immigrants is popular with Americans (at least in the abstract), despite the country’s reliance on millions of them in critical industries like farming, meat and poultry processing, dairy production and construction. There are roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, many of whom have been in the country for longer than a decade and have legal residents in their households.
It’s unclear how targeted Trump’s deportation program will be. U.S. farm industry groups have urged him to spare their sector and many are confident he will. CNN interviewed a dairy farmer in South Dakota who supported Trump and was sure his industry will not be affected given the consequences of a mass round-up.
“How are they going to do that?” he said. “Within two days we will not have food.”
It’s also unclear if Trump will roll back the protections former President Joe Biden instituted for undocumented immigrants who are victims of labor abuses. The threat of deportation makes undocumented immigrants more vulnerable to labor abuses like wage theft, which has ripple effects throughout the labor market by giving disreputable businesses an advantage.
Federal workforce
Trump signed executive orders making the federal civilian workforce of more than 2 million easier to fire and harder to replace. He also ordered workers back to the office full-time and terminated diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. Notably, Trump hasn’t yet touched Biden’s executive order requiring federal contractors to pay a minimum wage — currently, $17.75 per hour.
Trump froze new hiring for civilian positions across the federal government, except for the military or positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety. The order also spared Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ benefits.
Sen. Tina Smith posted on social media that she had received a report that the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs health system had “rescinded offers to dozens of people” for critical roles. Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Minneapolis VA shared a news release saying the White House had clarified its order that VAs may continue filling essential positions.
Trump also ordered federal agencies to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to the office full-time, although the order also grants agency heads the ability to make exceptions.
Congress passed a bill promoting telework in 2010, but since the pandemic juiced remote work, conservatives have turned against the practice. World’s richest man and Trump advisor Elon Musk claimed on social media that just 1% of government workers show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week, excluding security and maintenance workers. But according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, telework isn’t any more common in the federal government than the private sector and only about 10% of federal employees are fully remote.
The order could force remote federal workers in Minnesota to either relocate to Washington, D.C. or quit their jobs, and they may not be replaced given the hiring freeze. Culling the workforce through voluntary terminations is part of the point, Musk and his erstwhile partner in “government efficiency” Vivek Ramaswamy wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
It’s unclear how many workers that could affect. There are a little over 18,000 federal employees in Minnesota, not including military personnel, federal contractors, federal law enforcement officers or U.S. Postal Service workers, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Trump revived a version of a policy from his first term that was never implemented called Schedule F, which aims to reclassify tens of thousands of workers to make them easier to fire. The order is a response to the Trump administration’s belief that federal employees in the “deep state” are thwarting their agenda, while critics say it’s an attempt to strip apolitical workers of their rights and to ultimately replace them with Trump loyalists. The order is already facing a legal challenge by the National Treasury Employees Union.
Finally, Trump ordered an end to all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government and put all DEI officers on immediate paid administrative leave pending their terminations.
He also rescinded executive orders from his predecessors going back decades, including one by former President Lyndon Johnson requiring government contractors to adopt nondiscriminatory practices in hiring and employment, NPR reported.
Senate looks to expand whistleblower protections
A bill that would expand whistleblower protections for government employees who report fraud, waste and mismanagement is moving through the Legislature with bipartisan support.
Sen. Andrew Mathews, R-Princeton, introduced the bill (SF475) in response to more than a year of news stories about the state’s social service programs being abused and defrauded, from child nutrition to autism services to tutoring.
The legislation, which passed out of the Senate Labor Committee on Thursday on a voice vote, also has the support of unions representing public sector workers.
Meg Luger-Nikolai, an attorney with Education Minnesota, said the bill provided a “glow up” to the whistleblower protections workers already have in reporting illegal conduct. The bill would allow educators to report mismanagement broadly, such as districts banning rainbow flags, rejecting integration aid or not adopting new mandates around phonics instruction.
“We really appreciate this legislation,” Luger-Nikolai said. “We think it will democratize the public workplace.”
600 North Memorial nurses unionize
Hundreds of nurses at North Memorial’s Maple Grove Hospital voted to unionize on Thursday, the latest victory for the Minnesota Nurses Association that has run several successful campaigns at large hospitals in the past year.
“This is a monumental moment for all of us,” said Emily Campbell, a nurse at Maple Grove Hospital said in a statement. “By joining MNA, we’ve shown our commitment to standing together for the betterment of our workplace and the patients we serve.
Union supporters say it will help them address long-standing complaints around wages and workloads.
The Minnesota Nurses Association has added over 1,400 nurses in the last year alone including 56 nurses at Hazelden Betty Ford’s Center City campus last week. Nurses at North Memorial’s other hospital in Robbinsdale hospital are already unionized.
Meanwhile, it has also suffered some bruising defeats at Mayo Clinic hospitals, where workers have voted to oust the union with the support of the National Right To Work Foundation.
Biggest job gains in government, education and health services
Education and health services saw the biggest job growth in Minnesota in 2024 followed by the government, according to data the state Department of Employment and Economic Development released this week.
Over the year, education and health services added 41,090 jobs, government added 20,196 jobs, hospitality added 1,099 jobs and construction added 196 jobs. Those sectors drove the 1.3% growth in the state’s labor force in 2024 because all other sectors, from professional services to manufacturing, declined.
As usual, the state has a lower unemployment rate and higher labor force participation rate than the nation as a whole. Minnesota’s labor force participation rate — the percentage of working-age people employed or looking for work — was 67.8% compared to 62.5% nationally.
Average hourly earnings increased 5.4%, nearly double the 2.9% inflation rate and above the national wage growth rate of 4.6%.
“Employers continue to create good-paying jobs, and more Minnesotans are looking for work this month — two positive indicators for Minnesota’s economy,” said DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek.
Minnesota continues to grapple with a shortage of workers, which is expected to worsen with an aging population if they aren’t replaced with new residents from around the country and the world.
