Building Trades Unions Are Split in Their Response to Trump
The Trump administration is attacking jobs and wages in the building trades, as well as the rights of immigrant workers. Building trades unions have been divided over whether to try to curry favor with the president or confront the attacks head-on.
Members of the Los Angeles labor movement rally to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in California on April 22, 2025. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
One of the last nationwide bastions of union jobs is getting jackhammered by the Trump administration. Members are languishing in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prisons without trial. Programs that protect members from racism and sexism are getting the axe.
In response, building trades officers are split: some are pleading, some are protesting, and others are surrendering without a fight.
Out of nine million construction workers in the United States, one million had a union last year. Since the 1970s, when about 40 percent of US hard hats wore union stickers, anti-union developers have kicked unions out from most residential and private building sites.
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