Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
Trump vowed to champion US workers - the reality has been a relentless assault
The Guardian
By Steven Greenhouse
Feb. 16, 2025
“Trump has already shown that he’s not a friend of working people,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s main union federation, said in an interview. “Project 2025 is playing out exactly as we feared, and America’s workers are right at the heart of those attacks.”
Donald Trump Has Launched a War Against the Working Class
Truthout
By Michael Arria
Feb. 16, 2025
After labor reporter Kim Kelly revealed that Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) was planning to access the internal systems of the Department of Labor, hundreds of workers showed up outside the Frances Perkins Building to protest the move. “This is about our health,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told the crowd. “This is about our safety. This is about our jobs,” she declared. “Mine workers, construction workers, laborers, nurses — all are protected by DOL [Department of Labor]. And because of the people in this building, we can stand up.” On the same day, a coalition of unions filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking Musk’s team from accessing Department of Labor files.
Trump Promised to Support American Workers, Yet the Reality Has Been Persistent Attacks
The Union Journal
By Joe Killer
Feb. 16, 2025
“Trump has already demonstrated that he is no ally to working people,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the main union federation in the country, remarked in an interview. “The realities of Project 2025 are unfolding as we feared, and America’s workforce is at the center of these attacks.”
POLITICS
Musk's Data Access Hinges on DOGE Status as Government Agency
Bloomberg Law
By Rebecca Rainey
Feb. 14, 2025
The request for a temporary restraining order against DOGE was filed by the AFL-CIO and other unions on Feb. 12. They argued that the attempt to access sensitive information systems at the three agencies violates the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The Privacy Act requires agencies to get consent from individuals if their records are disclosed to another agency. The unions requested the court order the government to return or destroy data collected by DOGE and to remove any software installed by DOGE at the agencies. The AFL-CIO and other unions initially had sued over DOGE’s attempt to access data at the DOL, but amended their lawsuit to include HHS and the CFPB earlier this week. Bates had rejected their prior TRO request involving the DOL only on Jan. 7, finding that the union groups didn’t have standing to sue. In the amended complaint filed Feb. 12, the groups included testimony from multiple members of the plaintiff unions whose personal data could potentially be exposed by DOGE’s access.
Fed unions take lead in resistance to Trump’s presidential power grab
The Washington Post
By Joe Davidson
Feb. 14, 2025
During the AFGE annual legislative conference this week, including in a packed hotel ballroom on Monday and during a large rally across from the Capitol Building on Tuesday, a long line of senators, representatives, union leaders and civil rights activists didn’t focus on demands for greater pay and benefits’ protection, as was the usual fare in previous years’ gatherings. Rather, Trump’s power push was a central focus. Notably, the rally, held in frigid weather with a snowstorm looming, was much larger this year, with many more demonstrators, police, news cameras and so many prominent people wanting to speak that some had to double and triple up at the microphone to save time.
Judge Lets Musk’s Team Keep Access to Records at Some Agencies, for Now
The New York Times
By Chris Cameron
Feb. 15, 2025
A federal judge declined on Friday to block the access of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to records systems containing personal information at the Health and Human Services Department, the Labor Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a setback for unions and nonprofits trying to fight Elon Musk’s effort to cut and reshape government.
Layoffs Begin at Energy Department, Part of Trump Purge
The New York Times
By Brad Plumer and Madeleine Ngo
Feb. 14, 2025
The Energy Department began laying off staff as the Trump administration accelerated sweeping cuts across the government, according to three people familiar with the matter. Around 1,000 federal workers, all probationary employees, were told they were losing their jobs on Thursday, according to one of the people.
Musk's DOGE team to visit US FAA command center on Monday
Reuters
By David Shepardson
Feb. 16, 2025
Personnel from Elon Musk's government downsizing team DOGE will visit the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Control command center in Warrenton, Virginia, on Monday, as the Trump administration says it wants to reform the system. On Saturday, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union said several hundred FAA probationary employees were among thousands fired as part of a campaign by President Donald Trump and Musk to slash the U.S. bureaucracy. The union said the "draconian action will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin."
Trump Administration Fires Immigration Judges
The New York Times
By Eileen Sullivan
Feb. 15, 2025
The Trump administration fired 18 immigration judges on Friday, despite a pledge from the president to hire more judges to address the growing backlog of 3.7 million cases, a union official said. In addition to the 18 fired on Friday, the Trump administration had fired two immigration judges earlier in the week, Matthew Biggs, the president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, said on Saturday. The union represents the judges and other federal workers. The administration did not give the judges a reason for why they were fired.
With blitz of policies, Trump goes beyond Project 2025's goals
Reuters
By Brad Heath and Mike Spector
Feb. 14, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s early actions in office have in many cases expanded upon proposals from Project 2025's conservative policy blueprint that the Republican tried to distance himself from on the campaign trail, a Reuters review found. From actions halting U.S. aid abroad to fortifying the southern border and restrictions on transgender athletes, Reuters identified more than a dozen Trump executive orders or other policy moves that exceed in ambition or scope what Project 2025’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” book advocated in a series of detailed policy proposals.
Hundreds of FAA probationary workers fired by Trump administration, union says
CNN
By Pete Muntean
Feb. 16, 2025
The Trump administration has started firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration probationary employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure, according to their union. An exact number of firings is not yet known, but the head of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, said that “several hundred” workers started getting firing notices on Friday — and that they could even be barred from FAA facilities Tuesday after the federal holiday. CNN has reached out to the FAA for comment.
Judge extends temporary block against Elon Musk's access to Treasury Department records
USA Today
By Bart Jansen, Lauren Villagran and Maureen Groppe
Feb. 14, 2025
A federal judge in New York on Friday extended the temporary block against Elon Musk, President Donald Trump’s appointee to look for government waste, from gaining access to confidential government information. New York Attorney General Letitia James led a lawsuit from 19 states seeking to continue blocking Musk's Department of Government Efficiency's access to Treasury Department computer systems. U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas extended the order Friday that another judge put in place Feb. 8 but did not say when she would rule on a more permanent preliminary injunction. The case was one of three featuring challenges from states and unions against Musk's efforts to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
Treasury watchdog begins audit of Musk DOGE team’s access to federal government’s payment system
AP
By Fatima Hussein and Josh Boak
Feb. 14, 2025
The audit marks part of the broader effort led by Democratic lawmakers and federal employee unions to provide transparency and accountability about DOGE’s activities under President Donald Trump’s Republican administration. The Musk team has pushed for access to the government’s computer systems and sought to remove tens of thousands of federal workers.
DOGE discussing Housing Department layoffs
Politico
By Mohar Chatterjee, Sophia Cai and Sam Sutton
Feb. 14, 2025
While no official announcements have been made, cutbacks at the department could reduce headcount by as much as 50 percent, shuttering as many as half of the department’s field offices, according to AFGE Council 222 President Antonio Gaines, whose union represents HUD employees nationally.
Trump administration turns to US Supreme Court in bid to fire agency head
Reuters
By Andrew Chung
Feb. 16. 2025
President Donald Trump's administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in its bid to fire the head of an independent U.S. agency that protects government whistleblowers, bringing its first legal battle involving Trump's actions to the nation's highest judicial body since he took office in January. The Justice Department asked the court to immediately lift a federal judge's February 12 order that temporarily blocked Trump's removal of Hampton Dellinger as the head of the Office of Special Counsel while litigation continues in the dispute, according to a copy of the filing reviewed by Reuters. The case has not yet been docketed by the court.
Here are the Ways the Trump Admin Is Already Trampling on Workers’ Rights
In These Times
By Margaret Poydock
Feb. 14, 2025
Less than a month into his second term, President Trump has undertaken dozens of actions that harm workers, the economy and our democracy. If it feels like déjà vu, it is. Many of these actions were introduced during his first term, when President Trump attacked unions, workers’ wages and workplace health and safety. But now, equipped with policies from the Heritage Foundation’s far-right Project 2025, Trump is going even further to prioritize the interests of corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk over working people. On day one, President Trump issued several executive orders that impact the federal workforce. This included reinstating Schedule F, which upends longstanding job protections for federal career employees and makes it easier to fire them for any reason. He also overturned federal collective bargaining and affirmed due process protections, instituted a federal hiring freeze, and mandated federal workers return to in-person work five days a week.
Layoffs halted at CFPB for now as judge considers union’s lawsuit
The Washington Post
By Abha Bhattarai
Feb. 15, 2025
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday issued an order reflecting the agreement to not terminate the agency’s employees, delete CFPB data or transfer money out of its reserves for now. Jackson will hold a March 3 hearing on a lawsuit filed by the National Treasury Employees Union, whose members include CFPB workers.
Want to defeat Trump? Support unions
The Guardian
By Eric Blanc
Feb. 14, 2025
But there’s no need to despair. A powerful force in our society has the legitimacy, resources and leverage to turn things around: organized labor. Unions can beat back Donald Trump’s attacks, expose his sham populism, and – by uniting workers around their shared economic interests – help isolate his xenophobic scapegoating. Rather than hibernate for the next four years, or limit ourselves to posting online about the president’s latest outrages, each of us can lend support to workers organizing at federal agencies, schools, Starbucks, Amazon, auto plants and beyond. Just as importantly, we can expand the labor movement’s reach by unionizing our own workplaces. It won’t be easy to counter Trump’s shock-and-awe offensive, or to fill the void left by the Democrats’ disarray. But it’s both necessary and possible.
Trump Shrinks Funds for Navigators Who Help Americans Enroll in Obamacare
The New York Times
By Noah Weiland
Feb. 14, 2025
The Trump administration on Friday said that it would drastically cut annual spending on so-called navigator groups that help Americans enroll in Obamacare health insurance plans, from around $100 million to just $10 million. The announcement was one of the first significant health policy actions by the Trump administration, a day after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as health secretary. It also indicated that President Trump was returning to a health policy playbook from his first-term, when he steadily reduced spending for the navigators program to $10 million.
Federal Workers Rise up Against Musk, Trump and Drastic Cuts
In These Times
By Sarah Jaffe
Feb. 14, 2025
Chris Dols was one of hundreds who flooded to the streets of Washington, D.C. this week to protest the shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB was one of the few remnants of the 2008 financial crisis that actually aimed to help ordinary people. The workers locked out of the agency spoke about their jobs, the value of the work they did, reminding themselves and their audience that federal employees have vital jobs that working Americans rely on.
CNN
By Tami Luhby, Rene Marsh, Matt Egan and Sean Lyngaas
Feb. 14, 2025
The reason cited for their termination was that they did not accept the deferred resignation package, according to AFGE. After 3 p.m. those who were let go no longer had access to the building or government emails. Union representatives were not allowed on the call, AFGE said.
Trump’s federal firings imperil government services from cities to farm towns
The Washington Post
By Hannah Natanson, Emily Davies, Lisa Rein and Rachel Siegel
Feb. 14, 2025
The Trump administration’s move to fire thousands of federal employees could have a swift and severe impact on public services, staffers warned Friday, making it harder for veterans to get mental health care and hampering electric service to some rural residents as a beleaguered workforce struggles to cover for lost colleagues. The full impact of the terminations will not be fully known for weeks or months, and some job losses may be reversed or challenged by law. At least one agency, the Department of Energy, paused some cuts to assess their effect on nuclear defense programs, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Still, workers said basic functions at many agencies are slowing almost immediately and could break down as critical colleagues are shown the door.
DOGE, Education Department threaten states’ funding if they don’t cut DEI programs
Politico
By Ali Bianco
Feb. 15, 2025
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the Department of Education put state education departments on notice Friday, threatening to revoke federal funding for public schools and universities unless they remove all “diversity, equity and inclusion” programming within 14 days. It’s the latest move in DOGE’s sweeping changes of the federal government, which have slashed budgets, bulldozed federal agencies and caused panic with federal workers at risk of layoffs. The Department of Education — whose nominee to lead the agency, Linda McMahon, has yet to be confirmed — is also a target for drastic reductions or complete elimination, as President Donald Trump seeks to punt education regulation back to the state-level.
See inside DOGE’s playbook for eliminating DEI
The Washington Post
By Leslie Shapiro, Daniel Wolfe, Hannah Natanson and Chris Dehghanpoor
Feb. 15, 2025
Documents obtained by The Washington Post detail step-by-step plans the U.S. DOGE Service developed to purge federal agencies of diversity, equity, and inclusion workers and offices. DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, aims next to target hundreds of non-DEI workers and what they called “corrupted branches” of offices required by law, which protect civil and employment rights. Reproduced below are selected portions of the documents, which were last edited in mid-January, and outline DOGE’s strategy from Day 1 to Day 180 of the administration. The plan is divided into three phases.
Musk’s takeover of US health agencies raises pandemic threat, experts warn
The Guardian
By Melody Schreiber
Feb. 15, 2025
The so-called “department of government efficiency”, the Donald Trump-created program known as Doge and headed by the billionaire Elon Musk, has accessed or requested access to sensitive systems at multiple health agencies as the US president attempts to grant the committee sweeping powers within the federal government. The bid for access comes amid an unprecedented effort to halt government spending, despite multiple court orders to unfreeze funds and reverse staff suspensions.
Trump's spending cuts target probationary workers. What does the status mean?
NPR
By Emma Bowman
Feb. 15, 2025
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 civil servants, including federal workers subject to the cuts, said it would challenge the layoffs of probationary workers. "AFGE will fight these firings every step of the way," AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. "We will stand with every impacted employee, pursue every legal challenge available, and hold this administration accountable for its reckless actions."
National Park Service will fire 1,000 employees — but hire 5,000 seasonal workers
The Washington Post
By Maxine Joselow
Feb. 14, 2025
The National Park Service plans to fire roughly 1,000 probationary employees who have worked at the agency less than one year, according to three people familiar with the matter, while reinstating around 5,000 seasonal job offers that were rescinded last month due to President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze.
Trump administration fires thousands of federal workers as purge deepens
Axios
By Emily Peck
Feb. 14, 2025
All 18 career communications staffers at The Office of Personnel Management, effectively the government's HR department, were fired, an official at the American Federation of Government Employees told Axios. A source familiar with the decision also confirmed.
NBC News
By Allan Smith
Feb. 16, 2025
Letters went out to dozens of probationary employees in at least one section of the Department of Transportation that said part of the reason they were being fired was for poor performance, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News. But as a source familiar and a secondary document viewed by NBC News laid out, most of those employees were rated as being “exceptional” performers by their supervisors.
DOGE Plans To Ramp Up DEI Purge, Leaked Documents Reveal
Black Enterprise
By Daniel Johnson
Feb. 16, 2025
Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and to that end, leaked documents from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) show that the attacks are about to escalate to a full-on war over the next six months. Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and to that end, leaked documents from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) show that the attacks are about to escalate to a full-on war over the next six months.
Musk’s DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS
The Washington Post
By Jacob Bogage
Feb. 16, 2025
Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is seeking access to a heavily-guarded Internal Revenue Service system that includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country, according to two people familiar with the activities, sparking alarm within the tax agency.
As Musk reshapes the government, some ask: Where are the guardrails?
The Washington Post
By Lisa Rein
Feb. 16, 2025
In less than a month, Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service has fired thousands of federal employees, frozen billions of dollars in funding, sifted through reams of private data and left many Americans with a simple question: How could this happen? The breakneck campaign to eviscerate the U.S. Agency for International Development, hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and give young tech engineers access to sensitive computer systems — among them the trillion-dollar payment systems for the entire government — have left many inside and outside the civil service stunned.
Judge expected to rule in 24 hours in case that aims to sharply curtail Musk's DOGE
Reuters
By Tom Hals
Feb. 17, 2025
A U.S. judge said on Monday she hoped to rule within 24 hours in a lawsuit that aims to protect information systems at major government agencies from Elon Musk's DOGE team, which President Donald Trump has tasked with overhauling the government. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., heard arguments on Monday, the Presidents Day holiday when federal courts are closed, to consider an emergency request by 13 Democratic state attorneys general seeking to block Musk and DOGE from accessing government systems and firing employees at seven agencies.
Education Dept. Gives Schools Two Weeks to Eliminate Race-Based Programs
The New York Times
By Zach Montague
Feb. 17, 2025
The Education Department warned schools in a letter on Friday that they risked losing federal funding if they continued to take race into account when making scholarship or hiring decisions, or so much as nodded to race in “all other aspects of student, academic and campus life.” The announcement gave institutions 14 days to comply. It built on a major Supreme Court ruling in 2023 that found that the use of race-conscious admissions practices at colleges and universities was unlawful. But it went far beyond the scope of that decision by informing schools that considering race at all when making staffing decisions or offering services to subsets of students would be grounds for punishment.
Federal judge hands Musk’s DOGE a win on data access at 3 agencies
ABC News
By Peter Charalambous
Feb. 15, 2025
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency can continue to access sensitive records from at least three federal agencies after a federal judge in Washington denied a request to block Musk's budget-slashing team from the Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. U.S. District Judge John Bates, in a late-night ruling, denied a request made by a group of unions and nonprofits to issue a temporary order blocking DOGE from the sensitive records maintained by the three agencies.
Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk’s DOGE over data
The Washington Post
By Lisa Rein, Holly Bailey, Jeff Stein and Jacob Bogage
Feb. 17, 2025
The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said Monday. Michelle King, who spent several decades at the agency before being named its acting commissioner last month, left her position Sunday after the disagreement, the people said.
White House claims Elon Musk does not run DOGE in new filing
ABC News
By Peter Charalambous
Feb. 17, 2025
As its influence within the federal government grows daily, one question routinely emerges about the Department of Government Efficiency: Who is in charge? That answer continues to evade the lawyers tasked with defending President Donald Trump's administration in court. In an affidavit filed in federal court on Tuesday, a White House official clarified that Elon Musk is not the administrator of the newly formed entity -- seemingly contradicting public statements by Trump. Since announcing DOGE in December 2024, he has routinely referred to Musk as its leader.
Who’s in charge of DOGE? Not Elon Musk, White House says
Politico
By Kyle Cheney
Feb. 17, 2025
Elon Musk is not the leader of DOGE — the mysterious Trump administration operation overseeing an effort to break and remake the federal bureaucracy. In fact, he’s not even technically part of it at all, the White House said in court papers Monday night. In a three-page declaration, a top White House personnel official revealed that Musk’s title is “senior adviser to the president,” a role in which he has “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself.” That explanation, provided to a federal court by Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House’s Office of Administration, seems to directly contradict the way President Donald Trump and Musk have spoken publicly about the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, widely seen as a Musk-driven project to shrink and dismantle key aspects of the federal government.