Today's AFL-CIO press clips
EDITOR'S NOTE: President Dustin Reinstedler's interview on Forward Kentucky's "My Old Kentucky Podcast" is featured in the In The States section.
POLITICS
Diversity strengthens our workforce, Trump attacks weaken it (Opinion)
The Labor Tribune
By Merri Berry
Jan. 31, 2025
It is disheartening to see that the Trump Administration has begun its effort to end DEI programs in federal agencies. Building diversity strengthens our institutions and we have made progress over the last several decades in advancing toward fairness and justice. Sadly, the attacks on diversity we are witnessing stand to not only halt that progress, but take us backward to a time when discrimination prevented so many of us from accessing opportunities afforded to others. In the Labor Movement, we have fought hard to make our membership look like the communities we serve, and we have come a long way in making our leadership look like our membership. Women and people of color have joined unions in increasing numbers and many of us have made our way to the very top to lead our unions at the local, state and national level.
Trump Moves to Invalidate Recent Labor Agreements With Federal Workers
The New York Times
By Noam Scheiber and Rebecca Davis O’Brien
Jan. 31, 2025
“Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement. “Members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them.”
Trump’s revenge targets feds, expands his power and disrupts government
The Washington Post
By Joe Davidson
Jan. 31, 2025
Labor organizations, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) have filed lawsuits challenging what AFGE called Trump’s “efforts to politicize the civil service through illegal executive orders.”
'Politics over professionalism': Federal employees' union sues Trump over executive order
USA Today
By Aysha Bagchi
Jan. 31, 2025
The largest union representing federal employees sued the Trump administration Wednesday to block an executive order that it alleges is aimed at politicizing the federal government by stripping federal workers of job protections. The lawsuit was filed in a D.C. federal court by the American Federation of Government Employees. The union is challenging a Jan. 20 Trump executive order that claims to increase accountability for "policy-influencing positions" within the federal workforce by removing certain hiring and firing restrictions. "This scheme seeks to put politics over professionalism, contrary to the laws and values that have definedour career civil service for more than a century," according to the lawsuit.
Trump firings at labor board threaten union win at Whole Foods – and beyond
The Washington Post
By Caroline O'Donovan
Feb. 1, 2025
Soon after Whole Foods employees in Philadelphia celebrated winning a union election early this week, drama in Washington overshadowed the victory. The same night workers voted 130-100 to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, President Donald Trump rendered the federal agency that protects rights to unionize effectively toothless. He fired two leaders of the National Labor Relations Board — including one historically considered immune from presidential dismissal.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Ariana Perez-Castells and Fallon Roth
Jan. 31, 2025
“Once you determine whether it’s real or not, it’s kind of like, what is this?” said Philip Glover, national vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) District 3. His union represents about 9,400 federal workers in and near Philadelphia, among some 800,000 across the U.S. and abroad.
Trump signs memo that claims to cancel late Biden-era union contracts
Government Executive
By Erich Wagner
Jan. 31, 2025
In a statement Friday night, Kelley dismissed Trump's memo as an effort to "frighten and confuse" federal workers. "Federal employees should know that approved union contracts are enforceable by law, and the president does not have the authority to make unilateral changes to those agreements," he said. "AFGE members will not be intimidated. If our contracts are violated, we will aggressively defend them."
Amid Trump’s Anti-Diversity Effort, Black History Month Takes on New Meaning
The New York Times
By Clyde McGrady
Feb. 1, 2025
Feb. 1 is the beginning of Black History Month, which for decades has recognized the contributions of Black people to American civic life and culture with festive luncheons, serious lectures, profitable merchandise lines and staid White House receptions. But a month that was officially recognized nearly five decades ago by a Republican president, Gerald R. Ford, is dawning this year with new significance amid President Trump’s furious assault on diversity programs inside and outside the federal government.
Trump’s fierce attacks on DEI reflect a longtime GOP focus
The Washington Post
By Naftali Bendavid and Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
Feb. 1, 2025
Donald Trump knew exactly what his audience wanted to hear when he addressed a group of firebrand conservatives in March 2023, a moment when it was still far from clear he would be the Republican presidential nominee. “On day one, I will revoke Joe Biden’s crazy executive order installing Marxist diversity, equity and inclusion czars in every federal agency,” Trump promised an enthusiastic crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I will immediately terminate all staffers hired to implement this horrible agenda.” And that wasn’t all. Trump also said he would pursue a “restitution fund” to help people allegedly hurt by DEI efforts. “They’re so un-American. They’re so un-American,” Trump said of the programs. “We will ban all racial discrimination by the government.” That speech provided an early glimpse of the loathing — what critics call an obsession — that Trump and many in his orbit feel toward programs that fall under the heading of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Trump Plans To Nullify New Federal Union Contracts
HuffPost
By Dave Jamieson
Feb. 1, 2025
President Donald Trump said late Friday that he plans to nullify federal employee union contracts that agencies agreed to late in former President Joe Biden’s term. In a memo to agency heads, Trump said that Biden officials had negotiated new collective bargaining agreements meant “to harm my Administration,” in part by undermining his return-to-office mandate, and that he intended to scrap them and bargain his own.
Education Officials Placed on Leave in Trump’s Sprawling Effort to Curb D.E.I.
The New York Times
By Erica L. Green and Zach Montague
Feb. 1, 2025
Brittany Holder, a spokeswoman for the American Federation of Government Employees, said the union estimated that at least 50 department employees had been suspended. The range of people affected led several of those who had been placed on leave to conclude that they had been ensnared in a governmentwide effort to stamp out diversity initiatives, despite what they described as little more than superficial contact with mentors offering general coaching on workplace inclusivity.
NBC News
By Yamiche Alcindor
Feb. 2, 2025
Dozens of employees who attended a diversity training course that former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos encouraged during President Donald Trump’s first administration have been placed on paid leave as part of Trump’s targeting of DEI programs, a union official told NBC News. Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents hundreds of Education Department employees, said that at least 55 employees had been placed on leave as of Friday evening and that she expected the number to grow as she learns more.
NLRB changes worry labor movement watchers
Detroit Free Press
By Eric D. Lawrence
Feb. 1, 2025
Shaiken and other labor watchers see this as a precursor of an NLRB that’s unfavorable to labor. “It was the most pro-worker and pro-labor NLRB we’ve seen in awhile. That was Joe Biden’s intent, and he did it. But he didn’t do it in a narrow partisan way. He did it in a way that followed the original intent of the Wagner Act,” another name for the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, Shaiken said. “Workers would freely choose if they wanted to join a union. That right has been … shredded when it comes to unions.” Shaiken said he expects the next general counsel, for instance, to be someone antagonistic to organized labor.
Education Department employees placed on leave for attending diversity training
Politico
By Bianca Quilantan
Feb. 1, 2025
Some federal employees at the Education Department have been placed on administrative leave for previously attending a diversity training. Several employees began receiving leave notices late Friday and reported them to their local union president at the American Federation of Government Employees, confirmed Brittany Holder, deputy communications director at AFGE, which represents federal workers at the agency.
Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Access to Treasury’s Payments System
The New York Times
By Andrew DuehrenMaggie HabermanTheodore Schleifer and Alan Rappeport
Feb. 1, 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to five people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending. The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and then suddenly retired on Friday after the dispute, according to people familiar with his exit.
Top Security Officials at Aid Agency Put on Leave After Denying Access to Musk Team
The New York Times
By Edward WongErica L. GreenKaroun Demirjian and Michael Crowley
Feb. 2, 2025
The two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. And the agency’s chief of staff, Matt Hopson, a Trump administration political appointee who had started his job days ago, has resigned, two of the officials said.
Thousands of U.S. Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday
The New York Times
By Ethan Singer
Feb. 2, 2025
More than 8,000 web pages across more than a dozen U.S. government websites have been taken down since Friday afternoon, a New York Times analysis has found, as federal agencies rush to heed President Trump’s orders targeting diversity initiatives and “gender ideology.” The purges have removed information about vaccines, veterans’ care, hate crimes and scientific research, among many other topics. Doctors, researchers and other professionals often rely on such government data and advisories. Some government agencies appear to have removed entire sections of their websites, while others are missing only a handful of pages.
Trump removes Rohit Chopra as director of CFPB
The Washington Post
By Tony Romm
Feb. 1, 2025
President Donald Trump on Saturday removed Rohit Chopra as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, setting in motion a potentially landmark shift at one of the nation’s most powerful consumer watchdog agencies. The White House terminated Chopra’s tenure before the scheduled end of his term in October 2026, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions. Until the weekend, Chopra had been a prominent remaining holdover from the administration of President Joe Biden, who nominated him for the director post in 2021.
TRANSPORTATION
Air traffic controllers union hits back at Trump DEI comments
Axios
By April Rubin
Jan. 31, 2025
The union representing air traffic controllers on Friday rebutted President Trump's unsubstantiated claim that diversity policies in aviation were to blame for the fatal plane crash Wednesday near Washington, D.C. The big picture: The union's president defended the quality of his workforce while acknowledging its staff shortages. A federal investigation is still underway to determine the cause of the deadliest aviation crash in the U.S. in decades. "Air traffic controllers earn the prestigious and elite status of being a fully certified professional controller after successfully completing a series of rigorous training milestones," Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a statement on Friday. "The standards to achieve certification are not based on race or gender."
Trump blames “diversity” for fatal plane crash, investigators cite short staffing
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg And John Bachtell
Jan. 31, 2025
The Association of Flight Attendants/CWA offered condolences, but, more importantly, counseling to members who may need it. So did the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department—which also pleaded with people not to reach hasty conclusions or engage in a blame game right now. AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Greg Regan and Secretary-Treasurer Shari Semelsberger called the crash “the darkest day in aviation history” since 2009. “We are devastated by the loss of all 64 souls on board Flight 5342, including 60 passengers and four crew members, as well as the three service members aboard the Black Hawk helicopter. Our hearts are with the families, friends, and loved ones of all who perished. May their memories be a blessing.
ORGANIZING
Cambridge Health Alliance clinician union wins certification
Boston Globe
By Dana Gerber
Jan. 31, 2025
Cambridge Health Alliance clinicians won union certification Thursday, giving a bargaining unit of 230 physicians, physician associates, and psychologists the right to negotiate with the health system over working conditions. The union, called SHARE CHA/AFSCME, was certified by Massachusetts’ Department of Labor Relations about two months after 160 clinicians informed the state of their intention to organize.
Starbucks workers in Bethel Park vote to join union
WPXI
By WPXI.com News Staff
Feb. 1, 2025
Another group of local Starbucks workers have voted to unionize. The workers at the Bethel Park location voted to join Starbucks Workers United. It was the 40th location in Pennsylvania and the 19th in the Pittsburgh area to join, a union representative said. “I’m so glad that all the partners in our store got a chance to use their voice for what they thought was their best choice,” said Paige Merriweather, a 3-year barista.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
King Soopers workers in Denver and Boulder authorize strike after contract negotiations stall
Colorado Public Radio
By Sarah Mulholland and Matt Moret
Jan. 31, 2025
King Soopers workers in Denver, Parker, Broomfield and Boulder moved to authorize an unfair labor practice strike during votes on Wednesday and Thursday. UCFW Local 7, the union representing those workers, said Thursday night that 95 percent of workers in the Denver Meat Bargaining Unit and 96 percent of workers in the Denver Retail Bargaining Unit voted in favor of a strike. "The exact times, dates and locations of the strikes will be determined later and will be announced to workers and the public in advance of any strike," the union said in a statement.
Starbucks, union agree to bring in mediator for contract talks
Reuters
By Reuters
Jan. 31, 2025
Starbucks (SBUX.O) and its union representing more than 10,000 baristas have agreed to bring in a mediator to help resume stalled contract negotiations and reach a deal, they said in a joint statement on Thursday. Talks between the two parties, which began in April last year, were halted in December before a final round, with the union saying the coffee chain had yet to bring a comprehensive package to the table.
Beaumont firefighters' union, City of Beaumont close to contract resolution
12 News Now
By Scott Eslinger
Jan. 31, 2025
Beaumont city officials and the firefighters' union are close to finalizing a new three-year labor contract after four months of intense negotiations. The City of Beaumont and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 399 have tentatively agreed to most contract terms, with only three remaining articles still pending membership approval, our media partner, The Beaumont Enterprise, reported.
NCCC, IBEW Reach Tentative National Agreement
Railway Age
By Marybeth Luczak
Jan. 31, 2025
The National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) on Jan. 30 reported reaching a tentative national agreement. This agreement is the latest in a series of national pattern agreements forged between railroads and unions in the first three months of the national bargaining round; it follows a tentative pact between the NCCC and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division of the Teamsters Rail Conference that was announced Jan. 23.
JOINING TOGETHER
Remote work is the new labor battleground (Opinion)
HR Dive
By Gleb Tsipursky
Jan. 31, 2025
Remote work is reshaping the modern workplace, transforming how employees and employers approach productivity, flexibility and job satisfaction. Unions have emerged as key players in cementing remote work as a permanent feature of employment. Through collective bargaining agreements, unions are not only safeguarding telework but also revitalizing their influence across sectors. Two recent agreements — in tech and the public sector — illustrate the significant role unions are playing in shaping the future of remote work.
STATE LEGISLATION
Utah lawmakers share revised anti-public union bill shortly before expected discussion
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Carmen Nesbitt
Jan. 31, 2025
Lawmakers dropped a promised rewrite Friday of HB267, which initially aimed to eliminate collective bargaining for Utah’s public sector employees, about an hour and a half before senators were expected to discuss the revised bill. At about 9:30 a.m., a group of public union representatives waiting outside the Senate chamber looked at it for the first time. “We can’t tell you what is even good or bad about it, because we don’t even have the time to review it to be able to get [an] analysis,” said Brad Asay, president of the American Federation of Teachers Utah, early Friday. The organization, among others, has been working with lawmakers to change the bill.
Colorado lawmakers advance bill that would ease process for forming labor unions
Denver 7
By Brandon Richard
Jan. 31, 2025
Colorado lawmakers voted 4-3 last week to advance legislation that would make it easier for workers to form strong unions. A group of Democrats are proposing getting rid of a decades-old requirement they say is standing in the way of progress for the state’s working class. But opponents say their proposal will disrupt a model that has helped Colorado's economy grow for decades.
IN THE STATES
ValleyBuild program recruits women for jobs in trade fields in Northern California
KCRA
By Melanie Wingo
Jan. 31, 2025
Recruiting women into carpentry jobs, electrical work, plumbing, construction and other trades can be a challenge despite there being a growing number of available opportunities within the workforce, according to leaders in these industries. That's why a Northern California trades organization is getting the word out about the launch of its community-based recruitment efforts. One of the ways the San Joaquin Building Trades Council (SJBTC) is hoping to encourage women to join trade professions is by launching an all-women's Multi Craft Core Curriculum apprentice readiness program whereby participants learn a little bit about nearly 20 trade fields.
Dustin Reinstedler interview, Trump administration impacts, and understanding Mitch McConnell
Forward Kentucky
By Robert Kahne and Jazmin Smith
Jan. 31, 2025
This week on the show Robert and Jazmin interviewed Kentucky AFL-CIO President Dustin Reinstedler about his role, the role of AFL-CIO in Kentucky, and about the labor movement in Kentucky. Before that, Jazmin went over how the new Trump administration is already impacting Kentuckians, and Robert did a deep dive into Mitch McConnell and his role in the modern day Republican Party.