Today's AFL-CIO press clips
MUST READ
Unions Form Pro Bono Legal Network for Federal Workers Targeted by Trump
The New York Times
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien
April 16, 2025
“We are still operating as though there is a rule of law,” Liz Shuler, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said of the network’s intent to bring individual cases through the administrative board process. “We are suing when things go awry, but we are watching closely to see that the rule of law holds.”
POLITICS
Unions, groups launch pro bono legal network for federal employees
Reuters
By Daniel Wiessner
April 16, 2025
A coalition of labor unions and left-leaning groups on Wednesday announced an initiative aimed at providing free legal advice to federal employees who lose their jobs or believe their legal rights were violated amid the Trump administration's purge of the government workforce. The project led by the AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. labor federation, and We The Action, which connects volunteer lawyers with nonprofits, will recruit and train thousands of lawyers to consult with federal employees about their legal options, the groups said in a joint release.
Unions Launch Legal Defense Project to 'Rise Up' Against Trump Attack on Federal Workers
Common Dreams
By Eloise Goldsmith
April 16, 2025
"Attacks on federal workers are attacks on all workers and on the essential services that our communities rely on daily," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler in a statement released Wednesday. "Getting these workers the justice they deserve in the face of this onslaught will take all of us... This new network is a critical tool empowering federal workers to fight back. When we come together, we are stronger than any of us alone." In addition to the AFL-CIO, the network is supported by several unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Federation of Federal Employees, and the National Treasury Employees Union.
Coalition Offers Free Legal Aid To Fired Federal Workers
Law360
By Andrea Keckley
April 16, 2025
In a statement, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called the network "a critical tool empowering federal workers to fight back." "Attacks on federal workers are attacks on all workers and on the essential services that our communities rely on daily," she said. "Getting these workers the justice they deserve in the face of this onslaught will take all of us."
Unions launch Rise Up legal defense network for federal workers fired under Trump
The Hill
By Rebecca Beitsch
April 16, 2025
“Federal workers’ unions and allied organizations are already fighting back in court, but thousands of federal workers still need individual legal advice and representation. Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network will mobilize and train thousands of lawyers to provide pro bono legal guidance to federal workers,” the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal government union, wrote in a statement announcing the program.
Laid-off federal employees can access legal advice under new union-backed network
Government Executive
By Sean Michael Newhouse
April 16, 2025
As federal employees continue to face widespread layoffs, unions and advocacy groups on Wednesday launched a network to provide legal advice to government workers. The goal of the Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network is to recruit attorneys to provide individual guidance to federal employees who fear losing their jobs or have already lost them.
Judge says labor unions’ lawsuit over DOGE access to Labor Department systems can move forward
AP
By Rebecca Boone
April 16, 2025
A federal judge says he won’t dismiss a lawsuit from labor unions seeking to block Elon Musk’s team from accessing systems at the Labor Department. The labor unions say that allowing Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access the systems violates the federal Privacy Act because they contain medical and financial records of millions of Americans. They also contend DOGE doesn’t have the legal authority to direct the actions of congressionally created agencies like the Department of Labor.
AFL-CIO plans nearly 400 events to protest government overhaul
NBC News
By Megan Lebowitz and Amanda Terkel
April 16, 2025
The AFL-CIO will launch nearly 400 events nationwide over the next two weeks in an effort to push back on the administration’s changes to the federal government. The events are organized under the AFL-CIO’s Department of People Who Work for a Living campaign — a shot at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Some of the events, beginning during this two-week congressional recess and going until April 28, will be rallies outside federal agencies and protests outside lawmakers' offices. But the centerpiece will be 19 "field hearings," according to Eddie Vale, who is consulting with the AFL-CIO. Workers from across different unions and sectors will be able to share their stories and solutions to the Trump administration's cuts.
AFL-CIO and allies plan more mass protests through April 19
People’s World
By Mark Gruenberg
April 16, 2025
The 10:45 am Eastern Time rally at the site of the first battle of the Revolution is one of 540-and-counting events nationwide and abroad, organized by the grass-roots 50501 movement, the AFL-CIO and many of their allies. and its allies. In addition to the nation’s largest labor federation the 150 endorsing groups include, Indivisible, the. Progressive Democrats of America, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign. Their objective: To once again demonstrate the mass resistance of millions to the cutthroat tactics of Trump against federal workers wholesale Musk slashing of numbers of workers, federal programs and federal agencies. The demonstrators aim also to warn about what both Trump and Musk intend to do going forward, particularly with regards to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards
The Washington Post
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
April 16, 2025
Thirty-eight of 43 people cut last month from the boards that review the science that happens in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health are female, Black or Hispanic, according to an analysis by the chairs of a dozen of the boards. The scientists, with expertise in fields that include mental health, cancer and infectious disease typically serve five-year terms and were not given a reason for their dismissal. About a fifth of the roughly 200 board members — who provide an independent, expert layer of review for the vast research enterprise within the NIH — were fired.
Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health cuts
The Washington Post
By Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Rachel Roubein, Joel Achenbach and Lauren Weber
April 16, 2025
The Trump administration is seeking to deeply slash budgets for federal health programs, a roughly one-third cut in discretionary spending by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a preliminary budget document obtained by The Washington Post. The HHS budget draft, known as a “passback,” offers the first full look at the health and social service priorities of President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget as it prepares to send his 2026 fiscal year budget request to Congress. It shows how the Trump administration plans to reshape the federal health agencies that oversee food and drug safety, manage the nation’s response to infectious-disease threats and drive biomedical research.
Schumer, local veterans condemn federal cuts at VA facilities
Democrat & Chronicle
By Madison Scott
April 16, 2025
Ronnie Orlowski, a Canandaigua VA employee and President of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3306 that represents Canandaigua VA workers including the suicide hotline workers, said that 30 percent of his coworkers are veterans and many of them work the Canandaigua crisis hotline which helps veterans from across the country.
Trump administration plans to end the IRS Direct File program for free tax filing, AP sources say
AP
By Fatima Hussein
April 16, 2025
The Trump administration plans to eliminate the IRS’ Direct File program, an electronic system for filing tax returns directly to the agency for free, according to two people familiar with the decision. The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency was credited by users with making tax filing easy, fast and economical. But Republican lawmakers and commercial tax preparation companies complained it was a waste of taxpayer money because free filing programs already exist, although they are hard to use.
IMMIGRATION
Union president "almost 100% certain" Abrego Garcia is not MS-13 gang member (Video)
CNN
April 16, 2025
Michael Coleman, general president of SMART Union, told CNN's Pamela Brown that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is "an outstanding employee" whom employers would love to have back if he’s returned from a mega prison in El Salvador.
El Salvador refuses to allow senator to meet with mistakenly deported man
The Washington Post
By Theodoric Meyer
April 16, 2025
El Salvador’s government rebuffed a request Wednesday from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) to free Kilmar Abrego García, whose case has become a flash point in the battle over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign since the administration mistakenly deported him last month. Van Hollen flew to El Salvador on Wednesday to lobby for the release of Abrego García, a Salvadoran-born man living in Maryland who fled that country more than a decade ago. Abrego García is one of hundreds of migrants whom the Trump administration has deported to El Salvador, where they have been imprisoned without due process in El Salvador’s notorious megaprison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
ICE, DOGE seek sensitive Medicare data as immigration crackdown intensifies
The Washington Post
By Hannah Natanson, Rachel Roubein and Dan Diamond
April 16, 2025
Trump immigration officials and the U.S. DOGE Service are seeking to use a sensitive Medicare database as part of their crackdown on undocumented immigrants, according to a person familiar with the matter and records obtained by The Washington Post. The database, which is managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and includes reams of health and personal information, contains addresses sought by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to the person and documents reviewed by The Post. Current and former health officials said they were deeply concerned by what appears to be an unprecedented use of the Medicare database as part of immigration enforcement efforts, and they were unsure whether it was legal.
NLRB
DOGE assigns staffers to work at agency where it allegedly removed sensitive data
NPR
By Stephen Fowler and Jenna McLaughlin
April 16, 2025
The ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency team is assigning two staffers to work at the independent agency where a whistleblower alleged Tuesday DOGE may have already removed sensitive labor data from its systems. Just one day after NPR reported on the disclosure filed by whistleblower Daniel Berulis, DOGE representatives visited the National Labor Relations Board office in Washington, D.C. for a meeting, according to an email obtained by NPR.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
Boston School Committee to vote on proposed teacher contract Wednesday
Boston Globe
By John Hilliard
April 16, 2025
The Boston School Committee is expected to vote on a proposed three-year contract with the city’s educators Wednesday night that would boost pay for employees like teachers and paraprofessionals, according to the board’s agenda. The committee, which is expected to hold its first hybrid session of the year, is scheduled to meet starting at 6 p.m. at the district’s Roxbury headquarters.
Chicago firefighters rally amid contract negotiations ahead of city meeting
ABC 7 Chicago
By ABC7 Chicago Digital Team
April 16, 2025
Chicago firefighters rallied for a new contract ahead of the City Council meeting on Wednesday. Firefighters and paramedics are calling on the city to settle the contract. Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2 representatives said emergency responders have been working without a contract for nearly four years.
How An Upcoming UC Strike Will Impact Campuses
Patch
By Albert Gregory
April 16, 2025
Nearly 40,000 University of California service and patient care workers, along with an additional 20,000 UC professional and research workers, announced a statewide one-day strike for May 1 across the entire university’s school system in response to what the unions are calling an "illegal hiring freeze," according to two UC unions.
Mobile union workers now under contact after 7 months of negotiations
WKRG 5
By Christina J. Harris
April 16, 2025
Amalgamated Transit Union drivers are now under a contract for the first time in seven months. The bittersweet victory is a three-year agreement. “It wasn’t everything we wanted, but we had to do what was best for the members,” Maiben said. “We didn’t have no other choice but to go ahead and make some type of concession on our wages and things like that.” Last month, union bus drivers walked off the job for two days shutting down several routes around Mobile.
STATE LEGISLATION
The Salt Lake Tribune
By Robert Gehrke
April 16, 2025
Labor groups submitted some 320,000 signatures Wednesday, more than double the number required, in their effort to repeal an anti-union bill passed by the Republican-led Legislature this year. The overwhelming number makes the union’s Protect Utah Workers campaign the largest signature-gathering campaign in state history. Union members lined up Wednesday morning to unload and deliver about 20 bankers boxes of signature packets to the Salt Lake County Clerk’s office before gathering outside and singing “Solidarity Forever,” a popular anthem of trade unions.
IN THE STATES
Unions, community members speak out against Trump administration at public hearing in Warner Robins
WMGT
By Taylor Gilchrist
April 16, 2025
Elected officials, business owners and other community members concerned about the direction of the country joined forces in Warner Robins Wednesday night. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) hosted a public hearing where union members shared their testimonies on how they’ve been impacted by the Trump administration’s job and funding cuts.
No vote held on sidewalk plan resolution at City Council
Midland Daily News
By Dominic Sevilla
April 15, 2025
In other business, the City Council proclaimed April 28 as Workers Memorial Day. Many guests attended the meeting wearing red to commemorate and remember those who have died in the workforce. The proclamation was accepted by Leah Leszczynski, press secretary for the Michigan American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Building worker power through better communication strategies
America’s Work Force Union Podcast
April 15, 2025
Alyssa Goodstein, Communications Director for the Illinois AFL-CIO, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss her background in labor history, the impact of storytelling in union organizing and an upcoming digital media workshop aimed at empowering labor communicators.