Hugh Murray, chair of the Labor & Employment Practice Group, spoke with the Connecticut Law Tribune about the impact of potential changes to labor and employment law policies under the Trump administration, noting that one of the key battlegrounds will be at the National Labor Relations Board. “The NLRB has become more and more partisan and political in recent years,” says Hugh. “It was always that [way] to an extent, but now the pendulum swings going back and forth between each administration are higher. Biden fired Abruzzo on his first day in office, which was something new and different, so I expect that will happen again at the beginning of Trump2.0.”
Hugh says he also expects efforts by the NLRB and the FTC to ban most noncompetes will also end. Whether at the NLRB, the FTC, or the Department of Labor, he says the tone will likely to shift to a more pointedly pro-business one. “Traditionally, 90% of unfair labor practices will not change. People handling those will be acting within the statute and doing what they’re supposed to do, but some innovations will probably go by the wayside. I expect we’ll return to some of the things from the end of Trump’s first term,” he says. That includes a push to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion requirements. “There have been a number of private lawsuits saying DEI initiatives have gone too far,” he says.
Under the incoming administration, there may also be changes at the Department of Labor. Hugh says he may not roll back recent increased salary levels to establish exemptions from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act set to increase, but he may eliminate the automatic increase to those salary levels every three years. “The new regulation is in place and set to increase salaries Jan. 1,” Hugh says, “The difficult thing with regulations that are in place and finalized is you have to go through the entire notes and comments sections to change regulations. By the time that happens there would be a lot of people entitled to overtime. I don’t think they’re going to want to take that away from people.”
Similarly to the first Trump administration, businesses will have a much harder time hiring and retaining foreign workers. “I think that’s an area where the rhetoric is different than reality,” Hugh says. “The entire immigration system became very difficult from 2016 to 2021. The quotas were stronger and the waits were longer, and it was just a difficult time for businesses that wanted to have workers. I suspect there will be a crackdown at the border and a lot of workplace raids.”