Trump's not gonna protect workers from forced labor (permalink)

As fascism burns across America, it's important to remember that Trump and his policies are not popular. Sure, the racism and cruelty excites a minority of (very broken) people, but every component of the Trump agenda is extremely unpopular with the American people, from tax cuts for billionaires to kidnapping our neighbors and shipping them to concentration camps.

Keeping this fact in mind is essential if we are to nurture hope's embers, and fan them into the flames of change. Trumpism is a coalition of people who hate each other, who agree on almost nothing, whose fracture lines are one deft tap away from shattering:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

The vast unpopularity of Trumpism presents endless opportunities for breaking off parts of his coalition. Take noncompete "agreements": contractual clauses that ban workers from taking a job with any of their employers' competitors for years. One in 18 Americans has been captured by a noncompete, and the median noncompete victim is a minimum-wage fast-food worker whose small business tyrant boss wants to be sure that she doesn't quit working the register at Wendy's and start making $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at McDonald's.

The story of noncompetes is bullshit from top to bottom. The argument goes, "Your boss invests heavily in training you, and lets you in on all his valuable trade-secrets. When you walk out the door and go to work for a competitor, you're stealing all that training and knowledge. Without noncompetes, no boss will invest in the knowledge-intensive industries that are the future of our economy."

Now, like I said, the vast majority of people under noncompetes are working low-waged, menial jobs with little to no training, and no proprietary trade secrets to speak of. Which makes sense: workers with less bargaining power end up signing worse contracts. That's half the case against noncompetes.

Here's the other half: the most IP-intensive, profitable, knowledge-based industries in America operate without any noncompetes. California's state constitution bans noncompetes, which means that every worker in Hollywood and Silicon Valley is free to quit their job and walk across the street and join a rival.

If Hollywood and tech are examples of industries that "can't attract investment," then we should be shooting for every sector of the American economy to be so starved for capital. Silicon Valley's origin story is based on the ability of key workers at knowledge-intensive firms to quit their jobs and go to work for a direct competitor: the first Silicon Valley company was Shockley Semiconductors, founded by William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing silicon transistors.

Shockley literally put the "silicon" in Silicon Valley, but he never shipped a working chip, because he was a deranged, paranoid eugenicist who ran such a dysfunctional company that eight of his top engineers quit to found a rival company, Fairchild Semiconductor. Then two of the "Traitorous Eight" quit the Fairchild to start Intel, and the year after, another Fairchild employee quit to start AMD:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/the-traitorous-eight-and-the-battle-of-germanium-valley/

This never stopped. Woz quit HP and Jobs quit Atari to start Apple and the tradition of extremely well-capitalized companies being founded by key employees who quit market-leading firms to compete with their old bosses continues to this day. There are many things we can say about AI, but no one will claim that AI companies – especially not those in California, where noncompetes are banned – have trouble attracting investment. Half of the leading AI companies were founded by people who couldn't stand working for Sam Altman at Openai and quit to found a competitor. Just last week, Altman flipped out because Mark Zuckerberg poached his key scientists to work on competing products at Meta:

https://fortune.com/2025/06/28/meta-four-openai-researchers-superintelligence-team-ai-talent-competition/

Knowledge-intensive industries are provably compatible with a system of free labor where workers can work for anyone they want. You know who understands this? The lawyers who draw up employment contracts with noncompete clauses in them: the American Bar Association bans noncompetes for lawyers! Every law firm in America operates without noncompetes!

Everyone hates noncompetes. They are bullshit, and only get worse with time, as the largest companies in America metastasize into sprawling conglomerates, they compete with everyone. Who isn't a competitor of Amazon's?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Biden's antitrust enforcers hated noncompetes, too. Former FTC chair Lina Khan held listening tours and solicited comments to hear workers stories about noncompetes, developing a record that she used to create a rule that banned noncompetes nationwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

America's oligarchs weren't happy. They sued to overturn the rule, and got a nationwide injunction (you know, those things that Trump's illegitimate Supreme Court claims are unenforceable) that suspended the FTC rule pending a full hearing.

It's clear that Trump's FTC is going to walk away from this fight and let the rule die. Trumpism is wildly unpopular, and this is no exception. Americans overwhelmingly support banning noncompetes, but Trump's richest donors are terrified of another Great Resignation and want to keep us indentured to their shitty companies, so Trump's FTC will sell us all out.

But that's not the end of things. As David Dayen writes for The American Prospect, states and local governments can pass their own noncompete bans, and they are:

https://prospect.org/labor/2025-07-02-ftc-noncompete-state-regulation-workers-wages/

Take NYC mayor-in-waiting Zohran Mamdani: unlike Trump (and the Democratic Party's billionaire wing), Mamdani campaigned by offering to create policies that are popular, including a ban on noncompetes. New York City has two distinct groups of workers who are screwed over by noncompetes. One of those groups is Wall Street finance bros, who work for some of the most legendarily toxic assholes to ever draw breath, and are overwhelming bound by noncompetes that will all become null and void the day Mamdani dons his sash.

The other group of workers Mamdani will liberate are those at the very bottom of the income distribution, from fast food workers to gig workers to doormen, who are victims of some of the dirtiest noncompete clauses in America, including "bondage fees":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bondage-fees/#doorman-building

Big cities are filled with workers who are getting screwed by noncompetes and every city government has it in their power to liberate every one of those workers (who are also voters).

States can do even better. There are already four states that ban noncompetes, two of them blood red: California, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Other states place significant restrictions on noncompetes, including Washington, Colorado, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine. Nevada bans noncompetes for hourly workers, Idaho only allows them for "key employees"; Louisiana limits noncompetes to two years, and NJ bans noncompetes for domestic workers.

Up and down the country, in states blue and red, noncompetes are unpopular, and banning noncompetes is popular:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/majority-americans-support-ftc-ruling-would-ban-non-compete-agreements

Oregon just banned noncompetes for doctors and other health workers, as part of a sweeping, bipartisan law that banned the "corporate practice of medicine":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/20/the-doctor-will-gouge-you-now/#states-rights

Oregon's in good company: noncompetes are banned in the health sector in 32 states, including Arkansas, Indiana and Colorado.

Lina Khan's FTC developed an irrefutable evidentiary record about the abusive nature of noncompetes, proving that industries can attract capital and field successful companies without them. States have it in their power to step in where Trump has betrayed American workers. This isn't the most efficient way to protect workers – that would be a federal ban on noncompetes – but it will still get the job done, and it will weaken the Trump coalition, which is barely holding together as it is.

This story was produced in partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In a field near the small town of Bezymenne in southern Ukraine, Viktoria Shynkar carefully picks out a narrow path through the overgrown grass in front of her.

This small corridor of farmland in Mykolaiv Oblast will be checked for the presence of landmines and explosive ordnance.

If clear, Shynkar – a 36-year-old who worked as a hairdresser before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 – will move forward and create another space of the same size.

While she enjoys spending her days outside, it remains painstaking and dangerous work.

Viktoria Shynkar, 36, a HALO Trust deminer, works in a minefield near the village of Bezymenne, Mykolaiv region, on May 5, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Ivan SAMOILOV / AFP)

Shynkar and her colleagues, who work for the demining charity the Halo Trust, uncovered 243 TM-62 Soviet-designed anti-tank mines left by the Russian army in a neighbouring field.

A chunky and intimidating 32-centimetres in diameter and 13-cm-wide, the TM-62 contains 7.5 kilos of TNT and can puncture a tank if triggered.

The presence of landmines and other unexploded ordnance is a significant issue in Ukraine, impacting civilians and Ukraine’s agricultural industry – a major employer and source of income to the country.

Data Challenges

Numerous bodies have sought to calculate the impact of landmines on Ukraine since the onset of Russia’s full invasion.

Established by the Ministry of Defence, the country’s National Mine Action Centre (NMAC) has produced a map that highlights areas it confirms as hazardous, are suspected of being hazardous as well as those that have been cleared or checked for hazards. It can be seen here and in the image below.

A screengrab of a map produced by Ukraine’s National Mine Action Centre (NMAC) detailing humanitarian mining activities in Ukraine. Green icons depict land that has been checked and cleared, yellow depicts suspected hazardous areas and red depicts confirmed hazardous areas.

The information is collated from over 80 demining groups operating in the country, which employ people like Shynkar. They collect data from the field and share it with the NMAC who upload it to this map made using the IMSMA platform produced by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining.

Yet the data the NMAC map contains, while significant, is only partial.

For example, it only creates a picture for the Ukrainian side of the front line, and just parts of it at that, with an area 20 kilometres from the frontline inaccessible to demining groups. Those same demining groups are also not operating in Russian-controlled regions, making the overall picture even less clear.

Furthermore, just because an area may be noted as not being impacted in landmine datasets doesn’t mean that it is not at risk from mines or other explosive ordnance that may not have detonated on impact. Some may simply not have been found yet.

Waiting for Demining Groups To Visit

This is a concern for Ihor Kniazev, a farmer from the town of Dovhen’ke in Kharkiv Oblast. He complains to AFP that he has been waiting a long time for demining groups to visit. “Every year, they promise ‘tomorrow, tomorrow, we will clear all the fields’,” he says.

Kniazev says that he undertook the dangerous task of clearing his own fields with a metal detector. “Everyone clears mines themselves, absolutely everyone,” he insists. He even says that he ran over a mine in his tractor and was lucky not to be injured.

An interactive map shows the area around Dovhen’ke overlaid with data from Ukraine’s National Mine Action Centre (NMAC). Areas shaded red depict confirmed hazardous areas, according to NMAC data. Areas shaded yellow depict suspected hazardous areas, according to NMAC data. Data source here. Areas coloured light green on the map depict agricultural land as defined by Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture crop map tool. Data source here. Map credit: Logan Williams and Galen Reich/Bellingcat.

While Kniazev found that his land was indeed contaminated, his predicament highlights an important issue in demining in Ukraine and for farmers returning to areas that were previously occupied or near lines of contact.

While some areas are clearly identified as being mined, there remains uncertainty around those that are only suspected of being mined.

Several experts AFP and Bellingcat spoke to warned of the economic damage that could arise from suspicions that turn out to be incorrect. As a 2024 UN Development Programme report stated, areas suspected of being contaminated but not actually contaminated are either left alone or subjected to the same lengthy clearance process at what can be significant cost.

Such land could otherwise be used to grow crops and help reestablish returning farmers. Ukraine remains a huge food exporter despite the war, ensuring the issue is significant beyond its borders.

Some farmers AFP spoke to highlighted the complexity of trying to figure out which areas were contaminated and which were not.

Ukrainian farmer Ihor Kniazev, 45, stands in front of his field that is divided between one that is still contaminated by landmines and one that has been decontaminated in the village of Dovhenke, Kharkiv region, on May 2, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Ivan SAMOILOV / AFP)

When Detectors Become Useless

In the town of Kamyanka in Kharkiv Oblast, Victor and Larisa Sysenko talk about their gratitude to a team from the Fondation Suisse de Déminage (FSD) who helped clear their land with the help of a specialist demining machine. “There were lots of explosions under that machine,” recalled Larisa.

Many of the mines were PFM-1 anti-personnel mines, which are more sensitive than anti-tank mines and can be deadly if stepped on by people. The Sysenkos have also had to deal with the danger of unexploded shells, remnants of a Ukrainian assault on retreating Russian troops in 2022 that remained burrowed in the soft soil without exploding.

However, in a selection of other fields nearby, it was a different story as FSD deminers found only three explosive remnants after a long and time-consuming search.

One of the FSD team told AFP that the metal contamination in these fields was “so immense that our detectors became useless, constantly beeping”. Of the thousands of metal fragments detected, the vast majority proved non-explosive.

An interactive map shows the area around Kamyanka overlaid with data from Ukraine’s National Mine Action Centre (NMAC). Areas shaded red depict confirmed hazardous areas, according to NMAC data. Areas shaded yellow depict suspected hazardous areas, according to NMAC data. Data source here. Areas coloured light green on the map depict agricultural land as defined by Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture crop map tool. Data source here. Map credit: Logan Williams and Galen Reich/Bellingcat.

A few hundred miles to the west in the town of Korobchyne, Mykola Pereverzev describes building a remote-controlled tractor to try and activate all of the mines laid in around 200 hectares of fields present there.

Pereverzev, who works for an agricultural firm, describes the tractor being blown up and building another as the first was beyond repair.

The land is eventually being used again, and Pereverzev is putting down herbicides in the soil to sow sunflowers.

But doubts remain about what may lie beneath.

“Soldiers have the saying that you can pass through one place normally five times, and blow up on the sixth time. Even professionals blow up, so what about us? We are just an agriculture company,” he says.

An interactive map shows the area around Korobchyne overlaid with data from Ukraine’s National Mine Action Centre (NMAC). Areas shaded red depict confirmed hazardous areas, according to NMAC data. Areas shaded yellow depict suspected hazardous areas, according to NMAC data. Data source here. Areas coloured light green on the map depict agricultural land as defined by Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture crop map tool. Data source here. Map credit: Logan Williams and Galen Reich/Bellingcat.

Falling Exports

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s agricultural exports have been severely impacted since the onset of Russia’s full invasion.

The country’s Agriculture Minister, Vitaliy Koval, told AFP that “grain production has dropped from 84 million tons in 2021 to 56 million tons.”.

He continued: “Ukraine has 42 million hectares of agricultural land, including arable land. On paper, we can cultivate 32 million hectares. But available, non-contaminated, non-occupied land? 24 million hectares.”

“When we come to Brussels (to prepare Ukraine’s future EU membership), they show us an infographic saying we have 42 million hectares. But the reality, unfortunately, is 24 million,” Koval said.

Not all of this is down to the presence of landmines or explosive ordnance, of course. Other factors also contribute to agricultural output. These include land being located in areas of ongoing fighting, farm equipment being destroyed or farmers joining the armed forces, fleeing to safety or not returning.

Yet landmines remain a significant part of the mix.

Koval’s office stated that just over 123,000 km2 of land still needs to be assessed for the presence of landmines or explosives. That is a huge area, almost the same size as Greece, much of which remains inaccessible along the 1,500 km frontline.

In terms of agricultural areas that are accessible and have been assessed thus far, however, 14,200 hectares was defined by the Ministry of Agriculture as being contaminated. As of May 2025, 11,800 hectares of this area had been cleared, the ministry said.

To be clear, though, these figures don’t take into account areas that remain suspected of being contaminated or the large frontline area that is currently inaccessible to demining groups, all of which will need to be assessed at some point in the future. If Ukraine was to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines, as it said it would last week, this likely would add another layer of complexity to future demining efforts. Russia never signed the 1997 convention and several of Ukraine’s neighbors have recently signaled they may leave the treaty as well.

Making Choices

Paul Heslop is Programme Manager for Mine Action at the UN Development Programme in Ukraine. Like all experts who were interviewed for this article, he is cautious about making precise estimations as to the scale of the landmine issue given the length of the frontline and the many unknowns that remain in a country at war.

Yet he acknowledges to AFP that it is significant, with likely millions of mines or unexploded shells in the ground in Ukraine.

But he adds that by organising and being strategic about which areas are prioritised for assessment, land that is of the most importance can potentially be put back to productive use first.

The most contaminated land will fall within the area closest to the frontline, he told AFP. Just beyond that, there is still an area that is still significantly impacted, although less intensely, he adds. Within this area “you have got critical infrastructure, bridges, power lines, power plants … transformers, schools, hospitals. They need to be cleared first,” he says.

By way of example, Heslop points to farming areas north of Kyiv or between the Ukrainian capital and Kharkiv that were occupied in the early days of the war. “A lot of that land has now been assessed as not contaminated … or the areas that were contaminated have now been cleared.”

Still, some areas – especially along the current front line area – will be being assessed for a long time, he acknowledges.

A mine warning sign is on display in the yard of the Sysenko family in the village of Kamyanka, Kharkiv region, on May 1, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Ivan SAMOILOV / AFP)

Pete Smith is another prominent hand in the demining game.

He oversees the work of the Halo Trust and their 1,500 staff in Ukraine. Like Heslop, he recognises the scale of the challenge, suggesting Ukraine may be the most mined country in the world. But he also sees hope in new technological solutions that may quicken the pace of demining.

Speaking to AFP, he said: “We are able to innovate and bring technology such as satellite imagery, drone imagery, all helping us just to drill down to identify where those pockets of concentration of landmines and explosive ordnance are.”

He describes analysts looking at drone and satellite images “pixel by pixel” to locate mines and employing AI algorithms to aid the search. Yet while enthused by such developments, Smith adds: “It’s not an industrial process yet.”

“We’re getting low-level benefits,” he adds. “But I think it is that area where we will continue to grow.”

For the time being, those out in the field, like Viktoria Shynkar, will continue the job of demining Ukraine.

Viktoria Shynkar, 36, a HALO Trust deminer, works in a minefield near the village of Bezymenne, Mykolaiv region, on May 5, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Ivan SAMOILOV / AFP)

As of May 31, 2025, she had been with the Halo Trust for a year. It’s a position she feels comfortable in despite the danger that comes with the job.

“Not once have I regretted [taking on the work], not at all,” she says. “I like the job very much. Because there are many good people here, and I feel like I’m resting at work.”

On top of that, the impact of what she is doing gives her satisfaction.

“There’s a lot of contamination … and farmers can’t work, can’t grow crops,” she says.

“We really need this, so I want to help however I can, so that our country can prosper.”

Eoghan Macguire, Gyula Csák, Logan Williams and Galen Reich contributed to this report for Bellingcat.

Boris Bachorz reported for AFP with contributions from Yulia Surkova, Kseniia Tomchik and Oleksii Obolensky.

Editor’s note: This article was updated on July 2, 2025, to include the name of the Fondation Suisse de Déminage.

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