Oftentimes, the most vigorous advocates for the rights of workers come up short when faced with their own workers, and sound just like the bosses they decry when called on it. The lesson is that a boss has many interests in mind, and yours are likely not on the list. This is why you should always stand up for yourself, when you are able, and if you require assistance to do so, seek it out. We are here to help!

Today we learned what many of us already knew would be the case, that our intemperate asshole-in-chief exploits his workers using the same tired tricks that so many other employers use. This is as much a problem here in Colorado as nationwide. Workers should not have to put up with this, and companies that make their profit margins by cheating the ones who make their businesses work should be held accountable. If you have experienced wage theft or employment discrimination, you don’t have to just take it and move on. On this May Day, remember that you can fight!

The former Administrator of the US Department of Labor astutely notes that the retraction of the guidance issued under his watch “changed nothing in terms of employer responsibilities — the law is still the law.” For now! But, he adds, “it did potentially signal an intention to move away from addressing worker misclassification as a fundamental problem worth addressing.” Yeah, I think it’s more that they’re saying it’s not a problem, and my guess is that we’ll see them say that in future amicus filings too.

The other great-again product of the last national election that looms large in my mind is not an employment matter, just a human rights catastrophe unfolding in real time, which we have not had the benefit of since the heydey of the Iraq War: the impending mass incarceration crisis of our own making as we attempt to detain and deport everyone in sight, our best response to the record levels of human migration that we have felt ripples of on our shores in recent years.

There is no good reason for the immigration enforcement system to imitate the corrections system that we use for violators of criminal law, other than corporate efficiencies and a thematic consistency with ongoing efforts to conflate unlawful presence with criminal illegality, but there are many good reasons not to do so.

Thus, I applaud the efforts of municipalities to help the members of their communities suddenly rendered vulnerable to such detention and to otherwise attempt to hold their communities together in the face of forces of division. Such efforts are especially welcome where the powers-that-be no longer hesitate to crack down on even those who only seek to aid immigrants when they are in distress.

Looking forward, funding the legal defense of immigrants facing detention and deportation should be the priority for anyone wondering how best to help in these turbulent times. The social costs of doing otherwise are simply too high.