Today's AFL-CIO press clips
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Forward Kentuckystory headlined "Black History is Labor History" is in the CIVIL, HUMAN, & WOMEN’S RIGHTS section of today's clips.
POLITICS
Republicans pass budget that takes Medicaid, health care from millions
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
Feb. 26, 2025
“This budget resolution is an attack on the jobs, families and communities of everyday Americans. We call on every member of Congress to stand with the working people of this country and vote ‘no,’” federation President Liz Shuler declared. “While Elon Musk,” Trump’s multibillionaire puppeteer, “is busy trying to fire the federal workforce and gut the government services we all rely on, Congress is gearing up to pass a massive tax giveaway to giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy on the backs of working people,” Shuler warned.
Veterans feel ‘left behind’ and ‘disparaged’ after Trump’s government cuts: Iraq Veteran (Video)
MSNBC
By Chris Jansing Reports
Feb. 26, 2025
Executive Director of the Union Veterans Council William Attig, who was deployed in Iraq from 2003 to 2009, joins Chris Jansing to discuss how “millions” of veterans could be affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping government cuts and the “devastating impact” these cuts could have.
What Can House Republicans Cut Instead of Medicaid? Not Much.
The New York Times
By Margot Sanger-Katz and Alicia Parlapiano
Feb. 26, 2025
The House passed a budget resolution Tuesday night after Speaker Mike Johnson persuaded several Republican lawmakers, including those who have expressed reservations about possible Medicaid cuts, to support the bill. In theory, the budget, which kicks off the process of passing an extension of tax cuts enacted in 2017 and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts meant to partly offset them, could become law without significant cuts to Medicaid. But it won’t be easy.
DOGE workers quit, refuse to "dismantle public services" on Musk's orders
Axios
By April Rubin
Feb. 25, 2025
More than 20 Department of Government Efficiency employees resigned on Tuesday, saying that DOGE's actions are incompatible with their mission as civil servants. The big picture: The workers, who were folded into DOGE via executive order when President Trump took office, warned in their resignation letter about the risks that DOGE presents to Americans' data and public services. "We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle public services," they wrote in the anonymous letter directed to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. "We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions."
'Where is Mr. Musk in all of this?' Judges question secrecy of DOGE's activities
Reuters
By Tom Hals and Jack Queen
Feb. 26, 2025
On social media and at political rallies, Elon Musk has taken credit for leading the team that is cutting allegedly wasteful U.S. government spending, even waving a chain saw on stage at a conference. In court, it's a different story. During a hearing on Monday in a case trying to block access by the DOGE cost-cutting team to Treasury Department systems, a federal judge repeatedly pressed a government lawyer to clarify who is running things. "Where is Mr. Musk in all of this?" asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
DOGE expects to send another round of emails to federal workers
NPR
By Heidi Glenn
Feb. 26, 2025
President Trump on Wednesday warned that the roughly 1 million federal workers who did not respond to recent emails asking them to describe "five things" they accomplished are "on the bubble" suggesting they are at risk of losing their jobs. At the first meeting with the Cabinet, Trump welcomed tech billionaire Elon Musk, head of the administration's cost-cutting team called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who said federal workers should expect another email in an effort to figure out if workers exist. "We're going to send another email," Musk said.
Army Veteran Says He Was Fired Twice Amid Elon Musk Cuts
Newsweek
By Sophie Clark
Feb. 26, 2025
An Army veteran has said he was fired not once but twice from his job as a disaster recovery coordinator in Alaska. Mike Macans, who served as an airborne infantryman before joining the Small Business Administration's emergency management team, told Alaska Public Media that since losing his job, he had received no communication from the government about his future. The American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO are suing the United States Office of Personnel Management in federal court over the mass firings.
Teachers union sues Trump administration over anti-DEI ultimatum
Fast Company
By Associated Press
Feb. 26, 2025
A new federal lawsuit in Maryland is challenging a Trump administration memo giving the nation’s schools and universities two weeks to eliminate “race-based” practices of any kind or risk losing their federal money. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the American Federation of Teachers union and the American Sociological Association, says the Education Department’s February 14 memo violates the First and Fifth Amendments. Forcing schools to teach only the views supported by the federal government amounts to a violation of free speech, the organizations say, and the directive is so vague that schools don’t know what practices cross the line.
The US Postal Service is more efficient than you think. Privatizing it could cause problems for many
CNN
By Chris Isidore
Feb. 26, 2025
“The Postal Office remains the most affordable way to ship,” Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told CNN. “The destruction of any part of the public service we provide is going to have one bottom line result for the customers, it’s going to cost more and take longer to get there.” “It really comes down to the core meaning of a public service,” he said. “The Post Office is going to serve you at the same cost no matter where you are. That really should be the very definition of a public service.”
UAW Local 4811 leaders meet to fight National Institutes of Health funding cuts
Daily Bruin
By Charlie Hamilton
Feb. 26, 2025
Members of the United Auto Workers Local 4811 joined students across the UC on Wednesday to protest the Trump administration’s cuts in National Institutes of Health funding. Trump’s policy would decrease NIH funding for indirect costs – any expenses that do not directly go to lab workers or safety measures – to only 15%, said Sydney Campbell, a postdoctoral researcher and head steward organizer for UAW Local 4811 at UCLA, which represents academic student employees, graduate student researchers and academic and postdoctoral researchers across the UC, in a speech to union workers.
DOGE barrels toward a fresh round of firings, the most widespread yet
The Washington Post
By Emily Davies, Jeff Stein and Hannah Natanson
Feb. 26, 2025
At the Department of Labor, cuts proposed in a report reviewed by The Post would have a dramatic impact. The internal memo details plans to shrink the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from more than 50 offices nationwide staffed by nearly 500 people to just four offices staffed by 50 people, the documents show. Those people will be focused on ensuring the office does the bare minimum to fulfill its duties required by law, the document shows.
Senate Republicans voice DOGE concerns in meeting with White House chief of staff
NBC News
By Frank Thorp V, Julie Tsirkin, Kate Santaliz and Nnamdi Egwuonwu
Feb. 26, 2025
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles worked to alleviate concerns by Senate Republicans Wednesday over Elon Musk’s dismantling of the federal bureaucracy, as lawmakers increasingly raise questions about the Department of Government Efficiency's work. “Everybody’s concerned when you have people cutting out of your state,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said. “But we all understand, it’s — that’s just part of it, you know, we’re way over, bloated we got to cut back.”
A Project 2025 author carries out his vision for mass federal layoffs
AP
By Bill Barrow
Feb. 26, 2025
The Trump administration’s demand that federal agencies plan to radically downsize is driven by a key figure in the conservative movement who has long planned this move. In President Donald Trump’s first term, Russell Vought was a largely behind-the-scenes player who eventually became director of the influential but underappreciated Office of Management and Budget. He is back in that job in Trump’s second term after being the principal author of Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint that Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign was not part of his agenda.
Environmental Protection Agency Will Lose 65 Percent of Staff, Trump Says
The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
Feb. 26, 2025
During his cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Trump casually mentioned that Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, intended to fire 65 percent of employees, an incision so deep that officials said it would hobble the E.P.A. Mr. Trump said Mr. Zeldin “thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental. And we’re going to speed up the process, too, at the same time.”
Federal agencies given deadline for plans to move offices out of D.C. area
The Washington Post
By Aaron Wiener
Feb. 26, 2025
The Trump administration is giving federal agencies until mid-April to suggest relocations of bureaus and offices out of the D.C. region, a move that would have widespread impacts on the local economy. In a guidance issued Wednesday to the heads of all executive departments and agencies, the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management laid out steps for compliance with President Donald Trump’s order to eliminate “waste, bloat and insularity” in the government. Part of that is a directive to submit “any proposed relocations of agency bureaus and offices from Washington, D.C. and the National Capital Region to less-costly parts of the country” by April 14.
The Trump administration sets the stage for large-scale federal worker layoffs in a new memo
AP
By Chris Megerian
Feb. 26, 2025
The U.S. government is facing a generational realignment as President Donald Trump directs federal agencies to develop plans for eliminating employee positions and consolidating programs. Senior officials set the downsizing in motion on Wednesday with a memo that dramatically expands Trump’s efforts to scale back a workforce described as an impediment to his agenda. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now the Republican administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.
LABOR AND TECHNOLOGY
How AI is infiltrating labor union contracts, in Pittsburgh and beyond
Technical.ly
By Alice Crow
Feb. 26, 2025
With the rise of AI tools in the workplace, workers across sectors are wondering how it might impact their livelihoods. Workers in industries with strong unions, meanwhile, are recognizing the necessity of proactively addressing potential threats AI poses to job security by leveraging their bargaining power.
Mass Timber, Robotics & AI: How Ironworkers Are Embracing the Future
US Glass Magazine
By Joshua Huff
Feb. 25, 2025
Ironworkers throughout North America traveled to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando for the 2025 North American Iron Workers and the Ironworker Management Progressive Action Cooperative Trust (IMPACT) Conference. The four-day event aims to strengthen relationships between ironworkers, contractors and customers. This year’s conference embraces the theme “Accomplish the Mission” and features general and breakout sessions designed to provide ironworkers and contractors a platform to showcase their portfolios, expertise and skills.
MANUFACTURING
CBS News
By Mike Darnay
Feb. 26, 2025
The United Steelworkers union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board and is accusing U.S. Steel of undermining the union and discouraging workers from voicing skepticism about the potential sale of the company. The union says it has raised concerns since the sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel, Japan's largest steelmaker, was proposed in 2023. The union says U.S. Steel initiated a coordinated attack to silence those views. U.S. Steel tells KDKA that it engages employees in all business matters and the charges filed are another example of the union's attempt to thwart the sale of the company.
TRANSPORTATION
Report: Airlines Flew 41 Million Flights In 2024 With Seven Fatal Accidents
Forbes
By Ted Reed
Feb. 26, 2025
"Following the accident, we supported the NTSB investigation to understand what happened and advocated for changes to improve the safety of our skies,” ALPA President Jason Ambrosi said on Feb. 12 in a prepared statement. “Out of that tragedy, we strengthened the law to require more training and experience and prohibit pilots from being forced to work when fatigued. Those changes helped build the safest aviation system in the world.” Referring to Flight 5342, Ambrosi said, "We recognize that the Colgan anniversary isn't the only reason for our grief today,” and noted, "Just as we did 16 years ago, we are a party to the investigation and assisting the NTSB to understand exactly what happened. The NTSB will issue their findings and from those will make meaningful recommendations needed for change so an accident like this can never happen again.”
ORGANIZING
OnPoint United Workers Fight to Unionize America’s First Overdose Prevention Site
Left Voice
By Staff
Feb. 25, 2025
Management has also worked to undermine our union efforts through illegal firings. When one of our coworkers was found to have been illegally fired, UNITE HERE filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), resulting in a settlement win for the worker. UNITE HERE has also filed charges against OnPoint for surface bargaining, illegally firing an employee due to union involvement, bad faith bargaining, and failing to sign agreements over the year-long negotiation process. Unfortunately, these case filings have not led to the substantial changes we need, leaving some of us disillusioned with the institutional efforts under labor law. While the NLRB is supposed to protect workers, these cases often linger unresolved, and in the meantime, we continue to lose jobs and work in unsafe conditions without meaningful change.
Minnesota rideshare drivers push for ability to unionize
Inforum
By Mary Murphy
Feb. 25, 2025
Greg Nammacher, president of SEIU Local 26, said his union was proud to be part of a driver-led coalition in the last two legislative sessions, that “those were important first steps,” but that drivers need more.
Yes! Weekly
By Maggie Marshall
Feb. 26, 2025
Reconsidered Goods is nestled on the corner of the Food Lion on Spring Garden Street, across the street from Pho Hien Vuong. Unlike its surrounding businesses, Reconsidered Goods is a 501c nonprofit organization that takes donated materials and helps divert them from landfills, putting them into the hands of artists, makers, teachers, children, and other reuse advocates to create something new. Their mission is to promote sustainability, environmental awareness, community engagement, and creative expression through reuse, education, and the arts. Unfortunately, despite the organization’s noble morals, the staff of Reconsidered Goods have had enough. Due to safety regulations, lack of training, and more the workers have banded together to try and unionize to get these policies changed.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
UAW members at Rolls Royce's Indiana unit reach tentative agreement
Reuters
By Reuters
Feb. 26, 2025
The United Auto Workers union's president Shawn Fain said on Wednesday its members representing Rolls Royce's Indianapolis Local 933 unit reached a tentative agreement with the company.
Thousands of UC healthcare and research employees go on strike
Los Angeles Times
By Suhauna Hussain
Feb. 26, 2025
Thousands of University of California healthcare, research and technical employees walked off the job Wednesday, urging the university to address staffing shortages and end what they describe as restrictions on employees’ ability to raise concerns about workplace conditions. The planned three-day strike comes amid strained negotiations between the 10-campus UC system and University Professional and Technical Employees-CWA Local 9119, the union representing nearly 20,000 employees.
Thousands of UC workers in San Diego, across California start multi-day strike
ABC 10 News San Diego
By City News Service
Feb. 26, 2025
Nearly 60,000 University of California workers represented by a pair of unions went on strike Wednesday amid continuing contract negotiations, with both unions alleging unfair labor practices and the university accusing them of spreading misinformation and failing to negotiate in good faith. Roughly 37,000 UC service and patient care workers represented by AFSCME Local 3299 will take part in a two-day strike, starting Wednesday at 7 a.m., with picketing anticipated at all 10 UC campuses, including UC Riverside, and at UC medical facilities statewide.
County workers appear ready for strike as contract negotiations remain stalled
Bakersfield.com
By Peter Segall
Feb. 25, 2025
County workers appear to be headed for a one-day strike next week as calls for a higher wage increase in contract negotiations were once again rebuffed by the Kern County Board of Supervisors. Dozens of Service Employees International Union Local 521 filled the supervisors' chambers Tuesday, repeating their calls for higher pay and saying low pay has driven away experienced workers and worsened county services.
UAW members rally over Indianapolis Rolls-Royce contract
WTHR
By WTHR.com staff
Feb. 26, 2025
Members of the United Auto Workers rallied across from the Rolls-Royce manufacturing complex in Indianapolis Tuesday as the clock winds down on their contract. The current pact covers more than 800 workers at the company's Indianapolis facility, where they manufacture aircraft engines. That deal expires Wednesday night, Feb. 26.
Brooklyn Museum workers protest mass layoffs and alleged union-contract breaches
The Art Newspaper
By Elly Belle
Feb. 26, 2025
Amid plans to move forward with mass layoffs at the Brooklyn Museum, members of the institution’s two unions rallied outside the main entrance on Eastern Parkway on Tuesday (25 February) to protest the plan to terminate 47 employees by 10 March. Members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110 and Local 1502 of District Council 37—a division of the DC 37 union that represents art handlers, curatorial assistants and maintenance workers—gathered to make their concerns known to the public and to museum leadership. Workers represented by the unions range from clerical workers, assistants, educators, curators, conservators, guards and retail workers to technicians.
The Original Pantry Cafe continues labor negotiations amid plans to close
CBS News
By Julie Sharp
Feb. 26, 2025
Negotiations continue Wednesday between operators of the Original Pantry Cafe Los Angeles restaurant and its employee union, as a March 2 closure date looms. The late Mayor Riordan owned and operated The Pantry as a personal passion, he bought the business in 1981. He passed away in 2023 and upon his death, ownership of the Pantry passed to the Richard J. Riordan Trust. Representatives with the trust said that The Pantry's employees and the union representing its employees, Local 11, have known since last summer that The Pantry would likely be closing, either as part of the sale of the property to a new owner or because of economic circumstances. They said this is not a new development.
STATE LEGISLATION
House advances bill aimed at protecting worker rights ahead of possible Trump challenges
Maryland Matters
By Jack Bowman
Feb. 25, 2025
The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would ban an effective union-busting tactic, a first step toward codifying the worker-protection measure at the state level in the face of a threat from the Trump administration. “I’m hoping that more legislation moves through the House of Delegates and through the Senate this session that really advocates for working people in our state,” the bill’s sponsor, Del. Joe Vogel (D-Montgomery), said Monday. “We need to be on the side of workers right now.”
IN THE STATES
Concerns raised over potential cuts to federal fish, wildlife and co-op programs in Wisconsin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Paul A. Smith
Feb. 26. 2025
Alarms are being raised over potential cuts or elimination of fish, wildlife and cooperative research programs run in Wisconsin by the U.S. Geological Survey. The possible losses are feared as reductions in the federal workforce have been sweeping through agencies in recent weeks under President Donald Trump and the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by Elon Musk.
Federal employees protest at Iowa Statehouse over DOGE scrutiny
KCCI
By Beau Bowman
Feb. 24, 2025
Federal employees and union members gathered outside the Iowa Capitol Building on Monday afternoon to express their concerns over the scrutiny they have faced in recent weeks from Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. Chad Finch, vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees 2119, highlighted the pressure and chaos experienced by federal workers.
Maine VA workers caught in nationwide job cuts
News Center Maine
By Pearl Small
Feb. 26, 2025
Maine's AFL-CIO union has called it a "widespread purge of federal workers being carried out by Elon Musk and the Trump administration." The group claims the move is politically motivated and called on Maine's congressional leaders to speak out.
Togus VA Medical Center employee shocked by sudden termination
WGME
By Aysia Reed
Feb. 26, 2025
A spokesman for AFL-CIO, a union representing Togus employees, says they have no idea how many probationary employees were fired in Maine and says the VA is not being transparent. White says he's looking at unemployment now, which he finds ironic because it’s funded by taxpayer dollars. “I’m still looking to go back to VA, just because the VA itself, I love the mission there," White said.
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH
SEPTA is launching its first buses with armored compartments for operators
The Philadelphia Inquirer
By Thomas Fitzgerald
Feb. 25, 2025
SEPTA plans this spring to begin road testing safety compartments with bullet-resistant glass for bus operators — protection demanded for several years by members of Transport Workers Union Local 234 amid a surge in assaults on drivers. A police SWAT Team is scheduled to fire on a prototype Tuesday afternoon at a law-enforcement training ground in Upper Bucks County during a demonstration by the manufacturer building the enclosures, Custom Glass Solutions. Transport Workers Union of America asked for the display to boost its push for the same level of protection on other transit systems. Bus operators and union officials from Houston, New York and other cities are attending the demonstration.
CIVIL, HUMAN, & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Black history is labor history
Forward Kentucky
By Berry Craig
Feb. 25, 2025
“Black History is American history,” wrote Colman Elridge, the Kentucky Democratic Party’s first Black chair, in recognition of this year’s Black History Month. Black history is also labor history. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the country’s greatest civil rights leader, saw the civil rights and union movements as natural allies. King was murdered on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to stand in solidarity with striking sanitation workers of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1733. The night before he was killed, he delivered his immortal “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at Mason Temple in support of the strikers.