On Labor Day 2025, the United States found itself at a crossroads in the long, turbulent history of workers’ rights. Across the country, from the bustling streets of New York to the tranquil groves of Yosemite, workers, unions, and activists rallied against what many see as an assault on the very foundations of labor protections. The spark? Sweeping actions by President Donald Trump’s administration, which, in his second term, has rapidly redefined the landscape for unions and collective bargaining in both the private and public sectors.
For nearly a century, private-sector employees in America have relied on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to protect their right to form unions, bargain collectively, and engage in union-backed activities. But as of September 2025, the NLRB has been rendered powerless, lacking the three-member quorum required to make any rulings. According to The American Prospect, this paralysis stems directly from Trump’s removal of Biden-appointed Board member Gwynne Wilcox just days after retaking the Oval Office—a move that left the Board unable to function at a critical moment for American labor.
With the NLRB’s future in jeopardy and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority poised to further curtail the independence of agencies like the NLRB, state legislatures and labor organizations are scrambling to fill the void. New York, Massachusetts, and California have moved to pass so-called “trigger laws” designed to guarantee that private-sector workers retain the right to organize and bargain collectively if the federal agency is stripped of its authority or rendered inactive. These laws, as outlined in The American Prospect, are meant to patch a gap that states never expected to confront when they first established their own labor boards decades ago—boards that, until now, generally regulated only public-sector bargaining.
One group at the heart of this battle is graduate student workers at private universities. Their status as employees—and thus their right to unionize—has swung back and forth with the political winds in Washington. The NLRB’s 2016 Columbia decision, issued during the Obama administration, affirmed their employee status and spurred a wave of unionization. Between January 2022 and May 2023, the NLRB oversaw elections at 17 private universities, with nearly 90% of student workers voting to unionize. That momentum only grew in 2024, with new bargaining units forming at institutions like the California Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California, where student workers organized under the United Auto Workers (UAW).
“It’s really exciting to see this increase in organizing and in bold contract campaigns that are very successful,” Mike Miller, director of the UAW’s Western states region, told The American Prospect. “It bodes well for the future of the labor movement in general, as well as [the prospects for winning] economic and social justice for the student worker workforce.”
Yet, the threat of losing these hard-fought gains looms large. That’s why states like Rhode Island have acted decisively. In the summer of 2025, Rhode Island became the first state to enact a trigger law guaranteeing graduate student workers’ right to unionize should a Trump-stacked NLRB strip them of that status. This law was the product of collaboration between the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and the Graduate Labor Organization (GLO) at Brown University, which boasts around 1,000 members—a significant force in a small state.
“We thought it made sense to do something at the state level to protect their right to collectively bargain,” Patrick Crowley, president of Rhode Island AFL-CIO, told The American Prospect. “They’re an integral part of the labor scene in Rhode Island, and … it was of critical importance to make sure that that energy that that union brings to the labor movement does not get snuffed out by some bureaucratic maneuver from an anti-worker administration.”
Massachusetts and New York are following suit. The Massachusetts legislature is considering the Protect LABOR Act, which would codify a similar trigger law, while New York’s bill has already cleared the legislature and awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature. According to William Herbert, executive director at the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, these laws are designed to ensure that student workers at private universities are protected if the NLRB loses jurisdiction or revokes their employee status. “There’s great potential in using state labor laws to strengthen the rights of workers,” Herbert told The American Prospect. “It requires creativity, a combination of innovative policy ideas, and crafty legal analysis.”
Meanwhile, the federal workforce is reeling from a series of executive orders that have stripped collective bargaining and union rights from hundreds of thousands of employees. As reported by Public News Service, President Trump’s recent directive commands agencies—including NASA, the National Weather Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation—to end their collective bargaining agreements. At least 60,000 federal workers have lost their jobs since the beginning of 2025, and the chilling effect has rippled through every sector of the government.
Labor Day 2025 saw New Mexicans join a nationwide wave of protests against what organizers labeled the Trump administration’s “pro-billionaire, anti-worker agenda.” Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator for the 50501 movement, explained, “Right now, we’re seeing funding is going away from important causes and away from marginalized communities, and away from working families and towards billionaires. We’re watching as our democracy is being eroded.”
Protests erupted in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and smaller communities like Las Vegas, with organizers expecting some 900 events across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Mackenzie Baris, deputy director of programs for Jobs with Justice, warned that the White House could escalate its attacks on unions, perhaps even attempting to make them illegal. She also highlighted the negative impact of aggressive immigration enforcement, which has created fear and instability in workplaces across New Mexico.
The effects of these policies are especially visible in America’s national parks. According to the Los Angeles Times, mass firings and staff departures at the National Park Service, following Trump administration cuts, have led to a historic unionization drive. More than 600 employees at Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon national parks voted overwhelmingly to unionize, seeking protection against layoffs, low pay, and dangerous working conditions. Steven Gutierrez, a national business representative for the National Federation of Federal Employees, observed, “Culture is hard to change. It takes something like this administration firing people to wake people up, to say, ‘Hey, I’m vulnerable here and I need to invest in my career.’”
Despite a quarter of the park service’s staff being lost and a proposed $1-billion budget cut, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has ordered parks to remain “open and accessible.” Employees report that visitors may not notice the strain, but behind the scenes, staff are stretched thin, forced to take on multiple roles, and some even live out of their cars due to stagnant pay. “With this administration, I think there’s a lot more people who are scared, and I think the union definitely helps towards protections that we really want,” one Yosemite employee told the Los Angeles Times.
As the legal battles over labor rights continue, one thing is clear: the fight for the soul of the American workplace is far from over. From statehouses to national parks, workers and their advocates are determined to resist what they see as a rollback of hard-won protections—and to build new models for organizing and solidarity in uncertain times.
