Trump Wage Enforcers Use Obama Tool to Aid Protesting Miners (1)

The Trump administration’s move to back Kentucky coal miners who protested unpaid wages by blockading their employer relies on a powerful if rarely used tool criticized as overly punitive to businesses when President Barack Obama wielded it.

The tactic, called “hot goods,” seeks to freeze the movement of goods produced by workers who were shorted on pay. Under prior Republican and Democratic administrations, the Labor Department utilized it against employers in garment, agriculture and manufacturing industries, sometimes to considerable blowback. When it was used against an Oregon berry farm in 2014, the fruit was at risk of rotting and the ...