Op-ed: Workers being pushed to breaking point
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The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is a body representing over 200 million workers through 340 national affiliates in 169 countries. The ITUC's Global Rights Index assesses over 150 countries based on 97 indicators pulled from international standards and jurisprudence. Last month, the ITUC ranked the United States among countries with "systemic violations of worker rights." Last year, the U.S. was placed on ITUC's watchlist for increasing workers' rights violations, alongside Guinea-Bissau, Israel, Liberia, Moldova, the Philippines and Zimbabwe.
To quote Luc Triangle, acting general secretary of the ITUC, and Cathy Feingold, international director of the AFL-CIO, "The inclusion of the United States on the ITUC's Watchlist is based on the pattern of backsliding of fundamental rights over the past year and serves as a troubling indicator of the country's current state of affairs." Triangle and Feingold continue, "The weakening of rights in the United States sets a dangerous precedent for the world. Governments, employers, and investors across the world are observing and some will feel encouraged to follow."
Over 1 million federal employees have lost collective bargaining rights since March of 2025 as a result of executive orders issued by Donald Trump that blatantly violate the clear intent of Congress in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (litigation on the executive orders is ongoing). The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been severely hampered in its essential role in protecting workers' rights, as has the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Office of Special Counsel (OSC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service (FMCS) and inspectors general across the federal government have had their statutory authorities and abilities to carry out the missions Congress gave them grossly inhibited, if not nullified.
This deliberate, forced collapse of administrative and other oversight capabilities has resulted in enormous caseload burdens on the federal courts and therein delayed and denied justice and accountability being delivered for countless civil servants in, and retirees from, the federal workforce, as well as other former civil servants. Parkersburg has certainly not been spared these burdens.
In addition to, and in part as a result of, loss of collective bargaining rights, federal employees have also been denied reasonable accommodations or renewal of those accommodations (litigation is ongoing), denied telework rights guaranteed under the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 (arbitration and other efforts are ongoing), and denied alternative work schedule rights guaranteed under the Federal Employees Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act of 1982. Unfair performance reviews that fail to justly reward strong performers have been implemented across the federal government and hiring has been at a complete standstill, all while arbitrary and capricious jobs cuts have been, and continue to be, made.
All of this stems directly from Project 2025 -- the over 900-page playbook overseen by the Heritage Foundation to deliver fascist autocracy in the United States beginning with the second Trump regime. Mussolini, the original fascist, described fascism as the unfettered combination of corporate and government power. Trump's second term has been a fascist free-for-all unlike any witnessed in this country's history, except perhaps during the first Gilded Age.
While costs of everything rise (mostly because of the illegal war efforts being carried out in Iran in lapdog-like obedience to the fever dreams of Benjamin Netanyahu) and the social welfare state is dismantled (most notably a direct result of the "One Big, Beautiful Bill Act" of 2025, which set in motion over $100 billion in SNAP cuts and over $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade), the working classes face wage and salary stagnation and decline, an increasingly failing jobs market and crippling debt loads, with no relief in sight.
Meanwhile, wealthy asset owners have never had it better. According to data from the Federal Reserve reported on by Reuters, the wealthiest 1% of Americans own over half the shares of capital markets (e.g. equities and mutual funds). Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of the wealth and income ladder in the U.S. owns just 1.1% of the shares of these markets. This just goes to show that stock market performance is not a measure of financial well-being for the vast majority of Americans.
Labor union organizing, collective bargaining rights and contracts with strong legal backing and strict enforcement mechanisms are absolutely essential for all working-class people, everywhere. Absent these crucial labor protections and the strong class solidarity that ensures their success and longevity, what's left for workers? I do not encourage or condone violence or destruction of any kind, but the corporate world and anti-labor politicians and corporatist judges (like the majority of SCOTUS Justices) doing their bidding should study history carefully and pay close attention to what happens when laborers decide they're through being treated as expendable and given no substantive, peaceful means for redress of grievances.
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Eric Engle is a resident of Parkersburg.