Here are where Trump and Harris stand on 5 issues affecting workers

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have promised to make life better for workers if elected. But the presidential candidates’ positions are miles apart on many issues affecting workers, including the minimum wage, overtime pay and union power.

Here are five key issues that differentiate the candidates:

1. The minimum wage

Federal minimum wage was set at $7.25 an hour from 2009. Harris called it “poverty wages,” noting that it rises to $15,000 a year for full-time workers. It he told NBC News she wanted to raise it to at least $15 an hour, acknowledging that she would need support in Congress for the change.

During a presidential debate four years ago, Trump said he would consider a federal minimum wage of $15 an hourif it doesn’t hurt small business. Last month, during a photo op at a McDonald’s, the former president dodged a question about whether he would support raising the minimum wage, instead praising workers and franchises who hires them.

2. Payment of overtime

Many Americans are working overtime, which both candidates seem to acknowledge. But they differ on who should be eligible to earn time-and-a-half pay for work that exceeds 40 hours per week.

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration completed a rule making 4 million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The rule is faces multiple legal challenges.

As president, Trump has refused to stand for anything similar Obama-era governmentinstead promulgating its own rule which resulted in far fewer people being eligible for overtime pay.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump presidency, proposes an overhaul of federal overtime rules that would give employers more flexibility.

Trump has he tried to distance himself from the document. But at campaign events this fall, he admitted as a private-sector employer he hated paying overtime and would sometimes hire more workers to avoid it.

“I’d say, ‘No, get me 10 more guys. I don’t want to have time and a half”” Trump said in Saginaw, Michigan.on October 3.

Still, Trump has tried to use the issue to win over working-class voters, launching a proposal to make overtime wages tax-free. Many political analysts have analyzed the idea, finding that it could cost the government well over $1 trillion in tax revenues over the next decade.

On a side note, Trump — followed by Harris — proposed to avoid tipping taxes. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that even this more limited move would significantly increase the budget deficit while exacerbating inequities.

3. Creation of manufacturing jobs

It is clear that no president will be able to restore America’s former manufacturing glory. But Trump successfully wooed many white working-class voters to his fold by promising to bring them back and protect manufacturing jobs, including by reducing the corporate tax rate for domestic producers and imposing tariffs on all imported goods.

Economists warned, however, that Trump’s proposed tariffs would result in higher prices, including for American producers.

Harris tried to win back those votes. She points to legislative victories over the past four years, including the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Relief Act, which have created manufacturing and construction jobs. She is pledged to expand tax credits for companies that create union jobs in steel, iron and other manufacturing fields and prioritize the reuse of existing factories in factory towns.

Both candidates said they would try to remove regulatory burdens on manufacturers, allowing them to build new plants more quickly.

4. Trade unions

Where the two candidates diverge most is on their views on unions.

Harris wants to strengthen unions and has promised to pass the PRO Act. The legislation, meant to make it easier for workers to organize, has been stalled in Congress for years. She called on the federal government to be a model employer, giving federal employee unions a bigger seat at the table and directing agencies to make sure their employees know they have the right to join a union.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that examines labor disputes, has taken an aggressive approach to protecting workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Critics charge that the agency’s interpretation of those rights is too broad. Several companies, including SpaceX and Amazon, they filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the very existence of the NLRB.

Instead, while in the White House, Trump destroyed federal employee unions and expressed support for right-to-work laws that weaken unions by allowing workers to opt out of paying union dues. He has stacked the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board with corporate-friendly appointees. Project 2025 details several steps it could take to make unions powerless.

IN A interview with Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla in August, Trump joked that he liked Musk’s approach to workers. “They go on strike and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all out.’ You are all gone. Every one of you is gone,’” Trump said.

Still, the former president maintains strong support among pockets of union workers. In the informal survey conducted by the Teamsters union this summer, Teamsters members said they preferred Trump over Harris by a 2-to-1 margin.

5. Non-competes

Non-compete agreements, which prevent workers from taking a job at a competing business or starting their own, have not been a hot topic in the presidential race. However, the future of these employment clauses could depend on who wins the election.

An estimated 30 million Americans have signed non-compete agreements with their employers. The Federal Trade Commission voted along party lines in April to ban such agreements, finding that they suppress wages and stifle innovation.

The ban faced immediate legal challenges, and in August, a Trump appointee federal judge in Texas blocked the rule from the entry into force at the national level. U.S. District Judge Ada Brown ruled in favor of Ryan LLC, a Dallas tax services firm, finding that the FTC had indeed exceeded its authority.

The FTC appealed the decision.

While non-competes are not something Harris has talked about on the campaign trail, she has previously expressed support for the FTC’s ban, describing such agreements as “anti-worker”.

Trump didn’t address non-competes in his campaign, either.

Notably, attorneys representing Ryan LLC in its lawsuit against the FTC include Eugene Scaliawho served as Trump’s Secretary of Labor from 2019 to 2021.

And in 2016, Politico reported that the Trump campaign included a broad non-compete in its own employment contracts, barring staff, volunteers, contractors and contractor employees from working with any other presidential campaign during the election.