Trump favors corporations over workers. This is one influence that shapes the policies of Trump and his administration.
Although it has a profound influence on what Trump does, it is not original with him. It is part of a Republican Party bias that extends back to the Gilded Age and the emergence of corporations in the late 19th Century. For in-depth analyses of this issue, among many others, see Sheldon S. Wolin examines this subject in his book, Democracy Inc: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (publ. 2008), and Thom Hartmann does so in his book “The Hidden History of Monopolies (publ. 2020).
And Chuck Collins’ new book is an eye-opener. It’s titled “Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Out Lives and Planet” (publ. 2025). Collins writes this in “The Introduction,”
“…this book explores the very direct and personal ways that extreme concentrations of wealth and power touch your life, from trashing the environment and jeopardizing a livable future to increasing your tax bill, pushing up housing costs, putting your health at risk, robbing you of your political voice, and widening the racial economic divide” (p. 8).
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Five examples from Collins’ book.
Chuck Collins draws examples in this article from his book, Inequality, Oct 14 2025 (https://inequality.org/article/ten-ways-you-are-being-burned-by-billionaires).
Here are five of his examples.
- The billionaires stick you with their tax bill. By opting out of their tax obligations, the billionaire class is shifting responsibility on to you to pay for everything from infrastructure to national defense to veterans’ services.
2. They rob you of your voice and vote. With the billionaire capture of the government, what you think barely matters. Your vote might still make a difference, but only in marginal situations where the billionaires haven’t dominated candidate selection, campaign finance, and policy priorities. The billionaires love gridlock and government shutdowns because they can block popular legislation from happening.
3. The billionaires supercharge the housing crisis — and profit from it. Billionaire demand for luxury housing is driving up the cost of land and housing construction, supercharging the already existing housing crisis. Billionaire speculators are buying up rental housing, single family homes, and mobile home parks to squeeze more money out of the housing shortage. Global billionaires are coming to “tax haven USA” to park their money in U.S. farmland, timber and housing.
4. They inflame existing divisions in society. The billionaires don’t want you to understand how they are picking your pocket. So, they invest heavily — pouring millions into partisan media organizations and divisive politicians — to deflect our attention away from their harmful behavior. Their divisive policy and social agenda drives down wages, worsens the historic racial wealth divide, and scapegoats immigrants.
5. They are trashing your environment. The billionaires are super polluters and carbon emitters, burning up the earth with their excessive consumption through yachts, private jets, and multiple mansions. While you’re recycling and walking, they are zooming around in private jets and yachts with the carbon emissions and pollution of small nation states. While we all need to do our part, the billionaires make us feel like chumps for making ecological choices and sacrifices.
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Trump favors billionaires
Svante Myrick, president of People for the American Way,
criticizes Trump’s billionaire bias in an article for The Hill (https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5636808-trump-regime-corruption-wealthy). The title of the article is “Trump’s handouts put billionaires first and Americans last.” Here is some of what he writes.
He refers to Trump’s operating principal in his second term as president, not America first but Trump first, or more accurately “What’s in it for Trump and the Repubicans.”
For example, Trump and the Congressional Republicans are “giving trillions in tax cuts to corporations and wealthy Americans,” while allowing health care costs rise to levels that are unaffordable for millions of individuals and families.”
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Trump’s Cabinet and Chief advisers
Aaron Schaffer and Clara Ence Morse, report on the 12 billionaires in the Trump administration, Washington Post, December 11, 2025 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/trump-white-house-billionaires-musk).
“In total, “ they report, “they’re worth $390.6 billion as of March [2025]. While previous administrations have included the ultrarich, the wealth held by this group is larger than even the first Trump administration, previously the wealthiest in U.S. history. They all have made large financial contributions to Trump’s presidential campaign.
They further report, “[e]xcluding Elon Musk — who poured more than $294 million into contributions boosting Trump and other Republicans in 2024 — the billionaires in the Trump administration, along with their spouses, gave more than $52 million to Trump, pro-Trump PACs and the Republican National Committee in the 2024 campaign alone, according to a Washington Post analysis.”
Schaffer and Morse write up summaries of the wealth of each of the 12 billionaires. Here’s one example. Howard Lutnick is Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, has a net worth if $3.2 billion. They additionally write the following About Lutnick.
“Trump’s boisterous commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, was the longtime chief executive of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. He and his wife didn’t contribute to Trump’s 2016 campaign but gave $550,000 to Trump, pro-Trump PACs and the Republican National Committee for the 2020 election. In the 2024 cycle, he gave $8.8 million, and Trump named him a co-chair of his transition. And this year the Lutnick family contributed to Trump’s White House ballroom project, according to the White House.”
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A very hostile climate for workers’: US labor movement struggles under Trump
Michael Sainato considers examples of how the US labor movement struggles under Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/14/labor-movement-union-trump-nlrb).
Sainato’s main point is that the “National Labor Relations Board, the federal watchdog for workers’ rights, has been rendered toothless as employees grapple with corporations.” Here’s some of what he writes.
“The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the top US labor watchdog, is tasked with protecting workers’ rights, overseeing the labor movement and ruling on disputes between employers and unions.
“Its five-seat board, which hears disputes and oversees union elections, requires at least three members to issue a ruling. But days after regaining power, Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox – an unprecedented decision – from the board, leaving it without this crucial quorum to make decisions.”
As an example of the effects, Sainato refers to how Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, has obstructed the efforts of their employees to negotiate for union representation. The striking workers’ union, UFCW 1776, was given support by a regional National Labor Relations Board but only met ‘a long process of delays and legal challenges’ at the national level.
“The Trump administration thus far seems to have been treating the agency with this kind of combination of hostility and aggressive neglect,” said Lauren McFerran, who served as chair of the NLRB under Joe Biden. ‘This is an administration that professes to be very pro-worker in its orientation, but we haven’t had a functional agency to resolve labor disputes and to protect workers rights … in a year.’
The outlook is not good. “Sainato writes, “Even when quorum is restored with Trump appointees, Ellen Dichner, former chief counsel to the NLRB chair, warned the agency is likely to rescind decisions issued under Biden , such as a ban on captive audience meetings held by employers to deter unionization.
“‘This is a very, very hostile climate for workers,’ said Dichner. ‘What I think labor is seeing, and will continue to see, is a fundamental attack on workers’ rights, and the rights of workers to organize, and the ability of workers to achieve collective bargaining agreements.’”
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Trump is the biggest union-buster in U.S.
Patrick Oakford and Margaret Poydock make the case on The Economic Policy Institute website, Sept 2, 2025 (https://www.epi.org/trump-is-the-biggest-union-buster-in-u-s-history-more-than-1-million-federal-workers-collective-bargaining-rights-are-at-risk). Here is their evidence on “some of Trump’s most egregious actions so far.”
“Union-busting the federal workforce. In March, Trump issued an executive order that stripped union protections from more than 1 million federal workers across dozens of federal agencies. And in advance of Labor Day, Trump issued another executive order expanding these actions to additional agencies. Despite ongoing litigation, some agencies have unilaterally canceled collective bargaining agreements with the unions that represent their employees. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced in early August that union contracts for 400,000 employees were terminated, eliminating crucial protections for federal workers.”
“Stacking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
In January, Trump fired NLRB Board member Gwynne Wilcox and severely jeopardized the independence of the agency. When Trump fired Wilcox, he cited that her opinions on the Board had ‘unduly disfavored’ employers—an implicit warning about how any future Board members should rule if they want to keep their jobs.
“While Wilcox continues to fight her firing in court, Trump has nominated Scott Mayer and James Murphy to be Board members. If confirmed, the NLRB would have enough members to establish a quorum and a Republican majority. If Mayer and Murphy are confirmed, workers and unions are likely to find their cases ultimately before a Board that is heavily influenced, if not controlled by, Trump and the interests of bosses over workers.”
“Undercutting efforts to foster and support labor-management mediation. In
March, Trump directed the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) to eliminate “non-statutory components” and to “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
Since 1947, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) has helped resolve difficult labor disputes, especially those that have resulted in strikes, by providing mediation services to encourage negotiations. However, Trump is undermining the availability of such services and encouraging employers to oppose or delay unions’ struggles to secure first-time contracts.
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A step forward for federal unions, despite Trump
Chris Isidore and Tami Luhby report for CNN, Dec 12, 2025, on a House vote that is a rare rebuke of Trump (https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/business/unions-labor-trump-republicans). Here’s some of what they report.
“A group of House Republicans handed President Donald Trump a rare rebuke on Thursday, voting to restore collective bargaining rights he had stripped from about 1 million federal workers earlier this year.
“But the legislation still faces significant hurdles before it can become law and aid the unions and their members.
“Trump has moved to void labor contracts for about 700,000 federal workers as part of his move to take more control of the federal workforce. He wants to defund their unions by ending the practice of collecting union dues from workers’ paychecks.
“Trump signed an unprecedented executive order in March citing national security as the reason to strip many federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.”
Isidore and Luhby continue.
“But the vote late Thursday afternoon saw 20 Republicans join all the present Democrats to pass a bill 231-195, a vote that Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said “demonstrated their support for the nonpartisan civil service.”
“The vote took place only because, as was the case on the vote on the release of Jeffery Epstein files, enough Republicans joined virtually all House Democrats to force legislative action through a so-called ‘discharge petition.’”
“The legislation could face an even tougher fight in the Senate and it is tough to imagine Trump signing a bill that would overturn his own executive action. But labor leaders vowed to continue the fight.
“‘It’s an uphill climb, but many people said it would never pass the house,’ Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, told CNN ahead of the vote when it became clear it had the bipartisan support needed to pass this first step. ‘We are keeping our foot on the gas for the Senate to do the same.’”
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Meanwhile, the hardships for workers and everyday citizens remain
Brad Reed reports on Nov. 6, 2025 that layoffs under Trump have cut 1 million jobs (https://commondreams.org/news/mass-layoffs-trump-economy). Here’s some of what Reed writes.
“The US labor market, which in recent months had ground nearly to a halt, now appears to be entering a downward spiral.
“As reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, new data from corporate outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that employers in October announced 153,000 job cuts, which marked the highest number of layoffs in that month since October 2003.
“Total announced job cuts in 2025 have now reached 1.1 million, a number that the Post describes as a ‘recession-like’ level comparable to the steep job cuts announced in the wake of the dotcom bust of the early 2000s, the global financial crisis of 2008, and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.”
Reed quotes John Challenger, the CEO of Gray and Christmas.
“‘We haven’t seen mega-layoffs of the size that are being discussed now—48,000 from UPS, potentially 30,000 from Amazon—since 2020 and before that, since the recession of 2009,’ he explained. ‘When you see companies making cuts of this size, it does signal a real shift in direction.’”
“CNBC noted that the Challenger report found that the tech sector is currently being hardest hit by the layoffs, and it said that the adoption of artificial intelligence was a significant driver of job cuts.
“‘Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes,’ the report said. ‘Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market.’”
Reed points out that AI adoption is “just one factor in companies’ decision to enact mass layoffs, as some firms have also cited the need to protect their profit margins from the impacts of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have raised prices for a wide variety of products and materials.”
Democratic lawmakers refer to how ‘Trump inherited the fastest growing economy in the [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], fastest reduction in inflation, record job creation,’ said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). ‘Dumb tariffs, racist immigration policies, attacks on the rule of law and termination of congressionally mandated programs did this.’”
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Concluding thoughts
Nothing in this post should surprise anyone who pays some attention to the news. While Trump pursues his anti-democratic, pro-corporate agenda, his overall popularity is very low and recent Democratic election victories indicate that the Republicans are going to lose big in the 2026 midterm elections. Still, he ignores the deep and pervasive harm done by his decisions. It will take effort and dedication to defeat Trump and his political party. Luckily, there is momentum against them.