Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
AFL-CIO sues to stop Musk and team from accessing Labor Department data
Pensions & Investments
By Courtney Degen
Feb. 6, 2025
“Elon Musk has absolutely no business raiding the Department of Labor to obtain the sensitive personal information of workers,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a Feb. 5 news release. “It’s outrageous that Musk thinks he has the authority to access private data on workers from an agency that’s entrusted with protecting the fundamental rights of working people. With this lawsuit, we intend to stop Musk’s power grab cold.”
POLITICS
Labor giant trolls Musk with excellent mockery of DOGE
Daily KOS
By Morgan Stephens
Feb. 6, 2025
“The government can work for billionaires, or it can work for working people—but not both,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler in a press release. “Elon is just getting started. He has already tried to force workers doing essential services—including at the FAA and air traffic controllers even after the tragedy at Washington National Airport—to retire, gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system with everyone’s private data, and is declaring entire government agencies like USAID shut down and blocking workers from accessing the building and their email.” Shuler stressed that her goal was to help Americans access lifesaving necessities like clean food and safe medication. She emphasized that she represents 63 labor unions that include 15 million American workers who had trust her to lead AFL-CIO, and she is willing to fight to get what workers deserve.
America’s Unions Sue DOGE, Launch the ‘Department of People Who Work for a Living’
Gizmodo
By Lucas Ropek
Feb. 6, 2025
“The government can work for billionaires or it can work for working people—but not both,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, in the press release published Wednesday. “Elon is just getting started. And he has already tried to force workers doing essential services—including at the FAA and air traffic controllers even after the tragedy at Washington National Airport—to retire, gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system with everyone’s private data, and is declaring entire government agencies like USAID shut down and blocking workers from accessing the building and their email.” The organization pledged to doggedly report on how DOGE’s policies are impacting American workers.
AFL-CIO joins mass rally at Department of Labor to protest Musk coup
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Feb. 6, 2025
Then AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, keynote speaker and rally emcee, announced Musk would be a no-show, holding “a virtual meeting” instead. “Chickenshit!” the crowd roared. “Coward!”
“We are standing together and standing strong because we are sick and tired of the fear being instilled by our government,” Shuler said of Musk and his puppet, Trump.
Trump's unprecedented labor board firing draws latest lawsuit heading toward SCOTUS
MSNBC
By Jordan Rubin
Feb. 6, 2025
Several of Donald Trump’s opening moves in his second term have apparently violated the law, setting up possible Supreme Court showdowns that would test how much further the court might seek to move the law in Trump’s and Republicans’ favor. One of the latest such cases comes from a National Labor Relations Board member whom Trump purported to fire, in a dispute that directly calls into question longstanding precedent.
Musk’s DOGE agents access sensitive government personnel data, Washington Post reports
Reuters
By Reuters
Feb. 6, 2025
Agents working for billionaire Elon Musk have accessed highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees maintained by the Office of Personnel Management, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing four U.S. officials with knowledge of the developments. The records accessed by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) included Treasury and State Department officials in sensitive security positions, according to the newspaper.
Federal judge pauses deadline for Trump administration’s buyout program
The Washington Post
By Olivia George
Feb. 6, 2025
Three unions that represent more than 800,000 federal workers, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the deadline, calling the offer an “arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum,” and a federal judge scheduled a hearing for Thursday at 1 p.m. to consider whether to take urgent action.
Trump moves to shutter environmental offices across the government
The Washington Post
By Maxine Joselow and Amudalat Ajasa
Feb. 6, 2025
The latest shake-up came Wednesday, when Trump appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency notified staff members that they plan to close the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and place its employees on administrative leave, according to three people familiar with the matter who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Federal worker ‘deferred resignation' program temporarily blocked
NBC4
By Andrea Swalec
Feb. 6, 2025
“We are pleased the court temporarily paused this deadline while arguments are heard about the legality of the deferred resignation program. We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
Treasury Access by DOGE Partly Limited by Judge for Now
Bloomberg Law
By Sabrina Willmer
Feb. 6, 2025
A US judge temporarily limited access to the US Treasury Department’s payments system after a group of unions accused the agency of illegally sharing their members’ information with Elon Musk’s government efficiency group. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotellyon Thursday issued an order, with the consent of the unions and the Treasury Department, that bars Treasury from providing access “to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” with some exceptions. The arrangement holds while she considers the unions’ request for a longer pause as their lawsuit plays out.
Musk’s DOGE agents access sensitive personnel data, alarming security officials
The Washington Post
By Isaac Stanley-Becker, Greg Miller, Hannah Natanson and Joseph Menn
Feb. 6, 2025
Agents of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have gained access to highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees — including Treasury and State Department officials in sensitive security positions — as part of a broader effort to wrest control over the government’s main personnel agency, according to four U.S. officials with knowledge of the developments.
The blatant lie behind Elon Musk’s power grab
Vox
BY Eric Levitz
Feb. 6, 2025
In his frenetic efforts to increase government “efficiency,” Elon Musk has usurped Congress’s rightful authority over spending while almost certainly breaking a wide variety of federal laws. Donald Trump’s top donor — who has not been elected to any office, or confirmed to any Cabinet position — has shuttered the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a government body codified by Congress in 1998. Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had no legal authority to do that: A federal agency cannot be dissolved absent an act of Congress. He did so anyway. Musk has also secured access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, and has suggested that he wants to cancel disbursements he deems wasteful or fraudulent, a move that would effectively transfer authority over spending away from Americans’ elected representatives and toward the world’s richest man.
If Musk can make up his own department, so can workers, says AFL-CIO
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Feb. 6, 2025
In light-hearted, but serious, razzing of Donald Trump and his puppeteer, multibillionaire Elon Musk, the AFL-CIO launched a new department, whimsically named the “Department Of People Who Work For A Living.” “If Elon Musk can make up his own government department, so can workers,” the federation explained in its announcement. The razzing occurs because Trump, the felonious Republican president, named Musk, the labor-law-breaking worker-hating plutocrat, to head a “Department Of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE.
Elon Musk’s DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts
The Washington Post
By Hannah Natanson, Gerrit De Vynck, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Feb. 6, 2025
Representatives from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service have fed sensitive data from across the Education Department into artificial intelligence software to probe the agency’s programs and spending, according to two people with knowledge of the DOGE team’s actions.
Trump administration agrees to restrict DOGE access to Treasury Department payment systems
NBC News
By Daniel Barnes, Dareh Gregorian and Zoë Richards
Feb. 6, 2025
Attorneys for the Justice Department have agreed to temporarily restrict staffers associated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing information in the Treasury Department’s payment system. The agreement comes after a group of union members and retirees sued the Treasury Department alleging that providing DOGE access to the federal government’s massive payment and collections system — and the personal data housed in it — violated federal privacy laws.
DOGE was tasked with stopping Treasury payments to USAID, AP sources say
AP
By Fatima Hussein
Feb. 6, 2025
Officials working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sought access to the U.S. Department of Treasury payment system to stop money from flowing to the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to two people familiar with the matter. DOGE’s efforts to stop USAID payments undermine assurances that the department gave to federal lawmakers in a Tuesday letter that it sought only to review the integrity of the payments and had “read-only access” to the system as part of an audit process.
State Attorneys General to Sue Over Musk’s Access to Government Systems
The New York Times
By Hurubie Meko
Feb. 6, 2025
The legal drive she is spearheading is happening simultaneously with resistance from workers across the federal government. On Tuesday, three unions sued the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources division, to block an effort to persuade roughly two million federal employees to resign.
Senate confirms Russell Vought to lead White House budget office
The Washington Post
By Tony Romm
Feb. 6, 2025
For Vought, 48, it is his second time serving as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. He departed that post at the end of the president’s first term, later founding a conservative Christian group, the Center for Renewing America, while helping to craft Project 2025, a controversial policy blueprint that has informed Trump’s return to the White House. In a chapter on the executive branch, Vought described OMB as the “air-traffic control system” of government, tasked to “ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync” and “ground planes that are flying off course.” In recent years, Vought has proposed vast changes to the federal workforce, including making it easier to fire employees.
Major Unions Sue DOGE to Block Musk Labor Department “Power Grab”
Truthout
By Sharon Zhang
Feb. 6, 2025
“Elon Musk has absolutely no business raiding the Department of Labor to obtain the sensitive personal information of workers,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement. “It’s outrageous that Musk thinks he has the authority to access private data on workers from an agency that’s entrusted with protecting the fundamental rights of working people. With this lawsuit, we intend to stop Musk’s power grab cold.” On the same day the lawsuit was filed, AFL-CIO and affiliates held a rally outside of the Department of Labor to protest Musk’s government pillaging campaign. Thousands attended, according to Zeteo.
VA nurses are in short supply. Unions say Trump’s deferred resignation plan could make things worse
AP
By Carla K. Johnson and Brian Witte
Feb. 5, 2025
“We’re already facing a staffing crisis in our hospitals,” said Irma Westmoreland, a registered nurse who heads the Veterans Affairs unit for National Nurses United. “We cannot afford to lose any more staff.” Nurses for the VA — the federal government’s largest employer — comprise the biggest single group of federal workers, numbering more than 100,000 and accounting for 5% of all full-time permanent employees, according to an Associated Press analysis of personnel data.
CNN
By Katelyn Polantz and Phil Mattingly
Feb. 6, 2025
Four days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk’s top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off all USAID payments using the department’s own ultra-sensitive payment processing system.
Senate Confirms Russell Vought as Office of Management and Budget Director
The New York Times
By Alan Rappeport
Feb. 6, 2025
The Senate voted along party lines on Thursday to confirm Russell T. Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, putting in place one of the most powerful architects of President Trump’s agenda to upend the federal bureaucracy and slash spending that the administration thinks is wasteful.
US judge blocks Trump buyout program as 60,000 sign up to quit
Reuters
By Daniel Wiessner, Tim Reid and Nathan Layne
Feb. 6, 2025
A U.S. judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration's proposed buyout for federal workers until at least Monday, giving an initial win to labor unions that sued to stop it.
Even as the program was stayed, more than 60,000 federal employees have already accepted the buyout offer, a White House source told Reuters. The ruling by U.S. District Judge George O'Toole in Boston pushes back a midnight deadline set by the Trump administration, which is pressuring federal workers to leave their jobs in an unprecedented drive to overhaul the federal government.
Senate confirms Project 2025 architect to head OMB
19th News
By Amanda Becker
Feb. 6, 2025
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on a party-line vote after Democrats held the floor overnight in an attempt to delay the confirmation since they did not have the numbers to block it.
Musk uses his X ownership and White House position to push Trump priorities, intimidate detractors
AP
By Ali Swenson and Chris Megerian
Feb. 6, 2025
The emergence of X owner Elon Musk as the most influential figure around President Donald Trump has created an extraordinary dynamic — a White House adviser who’s using one of the world’s most powerful information platforms to sell the government’s talking points while intimidating its detractors.
Federal Judge Deals Another Blow to Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order
The New York Times
By Jacey Fortin
Feb. 6, 2025
For the second time this week, a federal judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction to block President Trump’s effort to end automatic citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants. The decision, handed down on Thursday morning in Seattle, came a day after a judge in Maryland issued a nationwide injunction against President Trump’s executive order seeking to ban birthright citizenship.
LABOR AND ECONOMY
Deadline
By Katie Campione
Feb. 6, 2025
The WGA East slammed HuffPost and took aim at the Trump administration in a statement Thursday, following the news that the company will be laying off 30 editorial staffers in the coming weeks. “Management has chosen to slash our newsroom by over 20% at a time when the Trump administration is waging an unrelenting series of attacks on the most marginalized members of society, which is why it is so crucial that HuffPost continue to educate the public and hold those in power accountable — only now we are expected to do so with fewer reporters, editors and designers,” the statement read.
US weekly jobless claims edge up; worker productivity growth slows
Reuters
By Lucia Mutikani
Feb. 6, 2025
The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits increased moderately last week, consistent with steadily easing labor market conditions, though opportunities for those out of work are becoming scarce amid tepid hiring. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 219,000 for the week ended February 1, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 213,000 claims for the latest week.
NLRB
Amazon’s Whole Foods cites Trump’s NLRB purge as grounds for rejecting union win
CNBC
By Annie Palmer
Feb. 6, 2025
Whole Foods, the Amazon-owned grocery chain, has asked the National Labor Relations Board to overturn a union victory at a Philadelphia store, pointing to President Donald Trump’s recent ouster of several top officials at the agency. Trump last week fired former NLRB chair Gwynne Wilcox and the agency’s top lawyer, Jennifer Abruzzo. Wilcox’s firing leaves just two remaining members on the five-member NLRB panel, which already had two vacancies at the time she was dismissed. Wilcox sued Trump on Wednesday, alleging her firing was a “blatant violation” of law. With only two sitting members on the board, the NLRB lacks the necessary quorum to issue decisions on labor disputes, stymying a key function of the labor board. Whole Foods is disputing the results of a January election at its Spring Garden, Philadelphia, store, where employees voted 130-100 in favor of joining the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The vote marked the first successful organizing effort at Whole Foods since Amazon acquired the upscale grocer for $13.7 billion in 2017.
ORGANIZING
Tacoma grocery’s workers prepare for union vote after changes implemented by new owner
The News Tribune
By Debbie Cockrell
Feb. 6, 2025
Workers at a local independent grocery store known for its array of organic food and deli takeout have moved to unionize. Representatives with UFCW Local 367 told The News Tribune that the workers with Marlene’s Market & Deli, 2951 S. 38th St. in Tacoma, have filed for a National Labor Relations Board election seeking representation with the union. The union represents 8,000 workers in grocery, retail and other industries across Pierce, Mason, Lewis, Thurston, Pacific and Grays Harbor counties.
SLC librarians are pushing for a union. A state bill could put the effort back on the shelf.
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Jose Davila IV
Feb. 6, 2025
The push for a library union kicked off in 2023 when a group of workers announced they were organizing with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which also represents some other city staffers. The proposed union would be the first for library workers in Utah. Hays said library staffers are pursuing a union in hopes of boosting wages, improving health benefits, addressing long-held safety concerns and gaining more say in how the city’s branches are run.
WITF, newspaper journalists vote to join union
Current
By Tyler Falk
Feb. 6, 2025
Journalists at public radio station WITF in Harrisburg, Pa., and the LNP newspaper voted Monday to unionize. The owners of LNP and its LancasterOnline website gifted the news outlet to WITF in 2023. The journalists voted 39-10 in favor of unionizing with The NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia Local 38010, the union said in a press release. Four employees did not vote and four votes were challenged and not opened, Bill Ross, executive director of The NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia, told Current.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
Thousands of Denver-area King Soopers grocery store workers go on strike
WRAL
By Mead Gruver
Feb. 6, 2025
Some 10,000 grocery store workers across the greater Denver area went on strike Thursday, claiming unfair and illegal negotiating practices by King Soopers while their union has been negotiating a new contract with the store chain. Striking workers at 77 King Soopers stores in Denver and its suburbs, plus those in nearby Boulder and Louisville, Colorado, urged customers not to cross picket lines that began taking shape before dawn.
Portland averts strike with last-minute tentative agreement for city workers
KGW
By Jared Cowley
Feb. 6, 2025
Portland announced it had reached a tentative agreement with the District Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) on Wednesday, one day before a planned strike. The city also said it had finalized terms for the tentative agreement it reached last week with the other union with which it was negotiating, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
Brevard County firefighters rally at Viera government center over pay impasse
Florida Today
By Tyler Vazquez
Feb. 6, 2025
Firefighters and their families clad in yellow t-shirts arrived at the Brevard County Government Center Thursday to decry the pay and working conditions that have led to a prolonged contract dispute between the union and the county. Around a hundred people turned out Thursday to support the union as they bargain for better pay and hours, waving signs outside with slogans like "Support your firefighters like your life depends on it!"
Thousands of Denver-area King Soopers grocery store workers go on strike
AP
By Mead Gruver
Feb. 6, 2025
Some 10,000 grocery store workers across the greater Denver area went on strike Thursday, claiming unfair and illegal negotiating practices by King Soopers while their union has been negotiating a new contract with the store chain. Striking workers at 77 King Soopers stores in Denver and its suburbs, plus those in nearby Boulder and Louisville, Colorado, urged customers not to cross picket lines that began taking shape before dawn. “Stand together. Stay strong,” United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 President Kim Cordova wrote union members in a Monday letter announcing the strike.
UAW releases videos amid negotiations with Volkswagen Chattanooga
Local 3 News
By Cornelia Nicholson
Feb. 6, 2025
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union released a new video on Wednesday featuring Volkswagen Chattanooga employees as contract negotiations continue. The UAW emphasized that its members are determined to raise standards and improve working conditions at the plant. "I've never had the desire to be rich. I just want to be able to provide for my family and do normal American dream stuff," said Caleb Michalski, a Volkswagen bargaining committee member.
Nurses at University Medical Center in New Orleans Stage Two-Day Strike
Biz New Orleans
By Site Staff
Feb. 6, 2025
Nurses at University Medical Center (UMC) in New Orleans commenced a two-day strike on Feb. 5 advocating for improved staffing levels and workplace safety measures. This action marks the second strike by UMC nurses as they continue negotiations for their inaugural union contract with LCMC Health, the hospital’s managing entity. The strike, organized by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), began at 7 a.m. on Feb. 5 and is scheduled to conclude at 7 a.m. on Feb. 7. The union, which represents more than 600 nurses at UMC, has expressed concerns over what they describe as management’s “union-busting stall tactics” that have impeded progress in contract discussions. They also highlight issues related to preparedness and staffing during recent mass casualty events in New Orleans, emphasizing the need for contract provisions to enhance emergency response and patient care.
JOINING TOGETHER
NU contract workers to get job guarantees
Evanston Now
By Bill Smith
Feb. 6, 2025
Evanston’s Human Services Committee Wednesday night advanced an ordinance that would provide job guarantees to food service and housekeeping contract workers at Northwestern University. The ordinance would require any new contractor hired by the university to take over the work to retain the existing workers at their existing pay scale for a 90-day transition period and then keep them on the job beyond that if their work is satisfactory.
Prism
By Tina Vásquez
Feb. 5, 2025
Hundreds of low-wage workers from across the South gathered in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Feb. 1 for a “worker power” summit. The event was held on the first day of Black History Month and the 65th anniversary of the historic sit-in that occurred just a few miles away on Elm Street, where four Black North Carolina A&T students sat at a Woolworth’s counter and changed the course of history.
LABOR HISTORY
William Lucy: Black America’s Man in Labor
The Washington Informer
By James Wright Jr.
Feb. 5, 2025
William “Bill” Lucy, a District resident who served as secretary-treasurer of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) for nearly four decades, was considered by many people throughout the world as a leading African American labor leader and transformative rights activist. “Bill Lucy was a giant, one of the most accomplished and influential trade unionists ever — in any country, at any moment in history,” said Lee Saunders, president of AFSCME. “He did as much as anyone to advance the dignity of all working people here in the United States and around the world. He was one of our greatest warriors ever for civil rights, labor rights and human rights.”