How does Trump’s promise to reduce and elim­i­nate reg­u­la­tions square with cre­at­ing good, liv­ing-wage jobs? How will his pres­i­den­cy affect work­place health and safe­ty? What will hap­pen to the gains made dur­ing the Oba­ma administration?

We don’t yet know his picks to head the Depart­ment of Labor or Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA), but those report­ed under con­sid­er­a­tion for Sec­re­tary of Labor have expressed oppo­si­tion to Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies, such as paid fam­i­ly leave and require­ments wide­ly con­sid­ered to increase pay equi­ty for women and work­ers of color.

Trump’s tran­si­tion team has said he will intro­duce a mora­to­ri­um on new reg­u­la­tions and can­cel exec­u­tive orders and reg­u­la­tions ​“that kill jobs and bloat government.”

On the cam­paign trail, Don­ald Trump repeat­ed­ly promised to bring back U.S. fac­to­ry jobs. The mes­sage res­onat­ed with blue-col­lar work­ers and Trump’s suc­cess is cred­it­ed, in large part, to vot­ers who have seen their jobs dis­ap­pear and liveli­hoods dimin­ish as U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies moved toward automa­tion or just plain moved — to places with low­er labor costs, like Mex­i­co. Trump also cam­paigned on a promise to elim­i­nate reg­u­la­tions, a posi­tion now cen­tral to his incom­ing administration’s policies.

“Obvi­ous­ly the land­scape has shift­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly and the posi­tion that we’re in and the chal­lenges that we’re going to be fac­ing are mon­u­men­tal. I don’t think there’s any ques­tion about that,” said Peg Sem­i­nario, safe­ty and health direc­tor at the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Labor and Con­gress of Indus­tri­al Orga­ni­za­tions (AFL-CIO).

She expects the Trump admin­is­tra­tion ​“will use the full range of its exec­u­tive author­i­ty to reverse, weak­en or appeal any of the major rules that have come out of the agen­cies.” That said, while an incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion can sim­ply undo exec­u­tive orders and indef­i­nite­ly delay rules not yet in effect, exist­ing rules and laws must be changed through the same process­es that cre­at­ed them. Still, Sem­i­nario expects Con­gress will try to use the Con­gres­sion­al Review Act. This law, which has only been used once in 20 years, can be used to stop reg­u­la­tions the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion issued after May 30.

Pro­tec­tions on the chop­ping block

Among the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies that may be vul­ner­a­ble, said Sem­i­nario, are the Depart­ment of Labor’s over­time rule, the pro­posed beryl­li­um rule and the just-issued walk­ing-work­ing sur­faces and fall pro­tec­tion rule. She’s also con­cerned about the fate of new rules requir­ing more thor­ough report­ing of work­place injuries and the right of nonunion work­ers to be accom­pa­nied by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive or advo­cate dur­ing work­place inspections.

The over­time rule, due to go into effect on Decem­ber 1, was tem­porar­i­ly blocked Tues­day by a fed­er­al judge in Texas who grant­ed an injunc­tion that will delay the rule’s imple­men­ta­tion while it’s being lit­i­gat­ed. The case was brought by a coali­tion of states and busi­ness groups that claim the rule is too cost­ly for small businesses.

Nation­al Coun­cil for Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (Nation­al COSH) co-exec­u­tive direc­tor Mar­cy Gold­stein-Gelb expressed con­cern about the future of the Oba­ma administration’s Depart­ment of Labor pol­i­cy on wage theft, which focus­es on clar­i­fy­ing who’s an employ­ee and who’s an inde­pen­dent con­trac­tor. This dis­tinc­tion is becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant to pro­tect­ing work­ers’ rights. Gold­stein-Gelb is also wor­ried about what Trump’s stance on immi­gra­tion will mean for work­er safe­ty and work­ers’ rights.

“All work­ers, regard­less of back­ground or immi­gra­tion sta­tus, have a right to come home safe,” said Gold­stein-Gelb. And work­place safe­ty, she explained, often means work­ers speak­ing up about their con­cerns. ​“In order for peo­ple to speak up, we can’t have employ­ers pick and choose who they’re going to lis­ten to,” she said.

There is also con­cern among occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty advo­cates about what will hap­pen to OSHA’s already small bud­get under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and the new Repub­li­can-con­trolled Congress.

“We’re expect­ing big bud­get cuts,” said Sem­i­nario. ​“We don’t know how deep or how extreme but they could be devastating.”

The busi­ness perspective

In his post-elec­tion state­ment, Thomas J. Dono­hue, pres­i­dent and CEO of the U.S Cham­ber of Com­merce said the ​“num­ber one goal of the Chamber’s polit­i­cal pro­gram this cycle was to save the pro-busi­ness major­i­ty in the Sen­ate. Yes­ter­day vot­ers agreed, and chose pro-busi­ness majori­ties in the Sen­ate and the House to rep­re­sent them in Washington.”

The U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce is on the record oppos­ing the Labor Depart­men­t’s new over­time rule, OSHA’s new lim­it on sil­i­ca expo­sure and the expand­ed work­place injury report­ing requirements.

How­ev­er, oth­er mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty con­sid­er reg­u­la­tions that pro­tect employ­ees, health and the envi­ron­ment ben­e­fi­cial to com­pa­nies’ success.

“We think that the econ­o­my needs some rules and guardrails to ensure its suc­cess,” said Richard Eidlin, co-founder and vice-pres­i­dent of pol­i­cy and cam­paigns at the Amer­i­can Sus­tain­able Busi­ness Coun­cil, which rep­re­sents more than 200,000 businesses.

“We’re advo­cat­ing for fam­i­ly med­ical leave, paid sick leave, retire­ment secu­ri­ty,” and for poli­cies that ​“use trans­paren­cy as a force for behav­ioral change,” he said. ​“We’re con­cerned that could go by the wayside.”

But Mike Wright, direc­tor of health, safe­ty and envi­ron­ment at Unit­ed Steel­work­ers, remind­ed us that such poli­cies won’t go away with­out a fight.

“We know a lot of our mem­bers vot­ed for Trump,” he said. ​“But none of our mem­bers vot­ed for him because they want­ed more dan­ger­ous workplaces.

“If Trump, hav­ing won with the votes of work­ing peo­ple, attacks them, he does that at his per­il,” Wright said.