Today's AFL-CIO's press clips
POLITICS
Trump rolls back over a dozen Biden-era executive orders, actions
The Hill
By Filip Timotija
March 14, 2025
President Trump rolled back on Friday over a dozen former executive orders and directives signed by former President Biden focused on gender, labor policies and industry regulations. Trump signed an executive order late Friday that rescinded 18 executive actions signed by Biden during his four-year term in an effort to “reverse damaging policies and restore effective government,” according to a White House official.
Trump Orders Gutting of 7 Agencies, Including Voice of America’s Parent
The New York Times
By Tyler Pager
March 15, 2025
Mr. Trump directed the heads of the agencies, largely obscure entities that address issues like labor mediation and homelessness prevention, to eliminate all functions that are not statutorily mandated. The leaders should also “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law,” the order said. The other agencies Mr. Trump targeted Friday are the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which works to prevent and resolve work stoppages and labor disputes; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan think tank; the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which funds and supports museums, libraries and archives; the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which works to prevent and end homelessness; the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which provides financial assistance to struggling communities; and the Minority Business Development Agency, which aims to bolster minority-owned businesses.
Trump’s next agency cuts include US-backed global media, library and museum grants
Politico
By Ali Bianco
March 15, 2025
The order said the agencies and offices will have all of their federal grants reviewed and they will be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
It marks the next step of the administration eliminating government entities Trump deems “unnecessary,” and it follows weeks of the Department of Government Efficiency, helmed by Elon Musk, slashing entire agencies, cutting off funds and instituting mass layoffs of federal workers.
Trump cuts funding for federal agencies with executive order: See list of what's affected
USA Today
By Greta Cross
March 15, 2025
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service provides conflict management services for enhancing labor-management relationships. The independent federal agency provides training, mediation, facilitation, dispute systems design and other resolution services to federal agencies, according to its website. An example of the agency's work includes, if an agency and union have negotiated over a particular subject and have been able to reach a mutual decision, the parties may seek assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, according to the U.S. Federal Labor Relations Authority. The Mediation and Conciliation Service was established in 1947.
Trump moves to gut several agencies, targeting Voice of America, libraries
The Washington Post
By Brianna Tucker and Emily Davies
March 15, 2025
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to eliminate several additional federal agencies, including one that oversees the federally funded media outlet Voice of America (VOA), testing the limits of his authoritative power as he seeks to shrink the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy. One order signed Friday night calls for the agencies — some of which are focused on minority business enterprises, museum and library services, and homelessness prevention — to “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
USPS agrees to work with DOGE on reform, planning to cut 10,000 workers
AP
By Staff
March 14, 2025
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy plans to cut 10,000 workers and billions of dollars from the U.S. Postal Service budget and he’ll do that working with Elon Musk ’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to a letter sent to members of Congress on Thursday. DOGE will assist USPS with addressing “big problems” at the $78 billion-a-year agency, which has sometimes struggled in recent years to stay afloat. The agreement also includes the General Services Administration in an effort to help the Postal Service identify and achieve “further efficiencies.”
USPS to slash 10,000 jobs under new deal with Musk’s DOGE
Fast Company
By Sarah Bregel
March 24, 2025
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will begin working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut costs. On Thursday, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy signed an agreement with the Trump-era organization, welcoming the agency’s infiltration, something many other federal organizations have railed against in recent weeks.
Fortune
By Sara Braun
March 16, 2025
Unions have played a major role in legal challenges to the mass firing of federal workers. On Thursday, two separate rulings came down ordering the Trump administration to reinstate these terminated employees.
A 2nd judge orders thousands of fired federal employees temporarily reinstated
WAMU
By Andrea Hsu
March 14, 2025
A federal judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate thousands of federal employees terminated in recent weeks, after finding 18 federal agencies acted unlawfully in carrying out the mass firings. U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, an Obama appointee, issued a 14-day stay in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general representing the District of Columbia, Maryland, and 18 other states. His ruling on Thursday came hours after another federal judge in San Francisco ordered the Trump administration to reinstate workers fired from six federal agencies. The Trump administration has already filed an appeal.
Federal judge considers blocking DOGE from accessing Social Security data of millions of Americans
AP
By Lea Skene and Lindsay Whitehurst
March 14, 2025
A federal judge is considering whether to temporarily block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Social Security Administration systems that hold sensitive data on millions of Americans. A group of labor unions and retirees sued the Trump administration and asked the court to issue an emergency order limiting DOGE’s access to the agency and its data. DOGE’s “nearly unlimited” access violates privacy laws and presents massive information security risks, they said. A recently departed Social Security official who saw the DOGE team sweep into the agency said she is deeply worried about sensitive information being exposed.
Workers join rapid response network to fight ‘billionaire coup’
People’s World
By Brandon Chew and Mark Gruenberg
March 14, 2025
“An unelected billionaire,” Musk, “is literally wielding a chainsaw” against workers and their jobs “without thinking what it means to people’s lives,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, an Electrical Worker.
Union sues DHS to protect TSA screeners’ collective bargaining rights
Government Executive
By Erich Wagner
March 14, 2025
The nation’s largest federal employee union on Thursday sued the Trump administration seeking to reverse the decision to revoke the collective bargaining rights of airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration. The American Federation of Government Employees filed the legal challenge in the U.S. District Court for Western Washington against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Adam Stahl, a senior official performing the duties of the Transportation Security administrator. At issue is TSA and DHS’ announcement last week that management would strip TSA workers of their collective bargaining rights and unilaterally repudiate the union contract signed just last May.
TSA union leaders & members gather against Trump Administration's anti- union attack
WKOW
By Caitlin Tylka
March 15, 2025
TSA union leaders and members gathered just outside the Dane County Airport Saturday. They gathered to protest against the Trump Administration's anti-union attack against the TSA. Protestors gathered outside to fight back and stand in solidarity with those affected by the Trump Administration's efforts to downsize the federal workforce. Leaders and members of the TSA union say that it was an illegal move for the Trump Administration to eliminate their bargaining rights.
Musk Keeps His Eye on Social Security
The New York Times
By Jess Bidgood
March 14, 2025
Elon Musk keeps talking about Social Security. Two weeks ago, he called it a Ponzi scheme. This week, he suggested that his Department of Government Efficiency would scrutinize the agency’s spending. And he has repeatedly suggested, without evidence, that Social Security payments are flowing to undocumented immigrants and dead people.
Social Security Employees Warn of Damage From DOGE
The New York Times
By Tara Siegel Bernard
March 17, 2025
The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the “third rail” of politics — largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken its chain saw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12 percent of its work force, at a time its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff.
DOGE attacks on Social Security officials could have dire consequences (Opinion)
MSNBC
By Molly Weston Williamson
March 16, 2025
With Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency leading the charge, the Trump administration is intensifying attacks on the Social Security Administration and jeopardizing the vital benefits 1 in 5 Americans rely on. Under President Donald Trump-appointed leadership, the SSA recently announced its intent to eliminate 7,000 jobs, slicing the agency’s already skeletal staff down to the marrow. The SSA’s shrinking workforce already has been covering an increasing number of beneficiaries for years. With no capacity to spare, the consequences could quickly turn dire.
Federal agencies plan for mass layoffs as Trump's workforce cuts continue
NPR
By Stephen Fowler
March 15, 2025
Federal agencies have begun to announce plans to implement President Trump's request for large-scale job cuts and the elimination of government functions. Already, the Department of Education is moving forward with a proposal to get rid of nearly half its workforce, the Department of Veterans Affairs is targeting a reduction of 80,000 employees and the Social Security Administration has offered voluntary buyouts ahead of a reduction in force.
Department of Education cuts expected to have 'huge impacts' on teachers
ABC News
By Emily Chang, Arthur Jones II, and Rebecca Gelpi-Ufret
March 15, 2025
Following the Department of Education's gutting of nearly 50% of its workforce Tuesday evening, educators have expressed deep concern -- not only for students' futures but for their own as well. Tara Kini, chief of policy and programs at the Learning Policy Institute, told ABC News on Friday the job cuts will have "huge impacts" on teachers. She pointed to the loss of federal money that previously funded teacher training programs as particularly devastating, especially for programs for teachers of special needs, marginalized and multilingual students.
Appeals court lifts blocks on Trump’s orders restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs
AP
By Lindsay Whitehurst
March 14, 2025
An appeals court on Friday lifted a block on executive orders seeking to end government support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, handing the Trump administration a win after a string of setbacks defending President Donald Trump’s agenda from dozens of lawsuits. The decision from a three-judge panel allows the orders to be enforced as a lawsuit challenging them plays out. The appeals court judges halted a nationwide injunction from U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson in Baltimore.
Trump Axes $15 Contractor Wage, Infrastructure Project Orders
Bloomberg Law
By Rebecca Rainey
March 15, 2025
President Donald Trump scrapped Biden-era executive orders that raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 and drove federal infrastructure investments toward companies that agree to union neutrality. The president also nixed an order directing federal agencies to incentivize the use of registered apprenticeships by their contractors. The rescissions came late Friday and add to Trump’s revocation of more than six dozen executive orders on Inauguration Day.
Parallels to the 1980s for US Workers
Time
By Staff
March 16, 2025
President Ronald Reagan’s hard-line approach to public-sector unions in the early 1980s—especially his firing of striking air traffic controllers—emboldened private-sector employers such as Phelps Dodge, International Paper, and Hormel to become more aggressively anti-union and contributed to the decline of organized labor in the US. Could the Trump administration’s sweeping layoffs of federal workers and undermining of workplace regulations similarly set a hard-line tone for the private sector, giving business executives more confidence to push back aggressively against workers?
AMNY
By Gabriele Holtermann
March 16, 2025
A coalition of labor unions, political action, and community groups united for a rally and march on March 15, protesting Elon Musk’s and President Trump’s mass federal layoffs and proposed $2 trillion cuts from Medicaid, Medicare, housing and food assistance, education, and other vital programs. The march kicked off with a rally in Foley Square in downtown Manhattan, where Marcella Gohen held a sign with images of her husband, Robert Viteri. Gohen told amNewYork Metro that Viteri was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease and has been in a nursing home for the past nine years. Viteri relies on Medicaid to pay for his care.
AFT President Randi Weingarten sounds alarm on Trump education cuts
CBS News
By Marcia Kramer and Mark Prussin
March 16, 2025
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is sounding the alarm on the Trump administration's cuts to the Department of Education. Twenty states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, are currently suing the administration over the plan to dismantle the department and slash its workforce by nearly 50%. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the cuts are needed for efficiency, accountability and redirecting resources to people who need them, but Weingarten sees them getting in the way.
LABOR AND TECHNOLOGY
As AI nurses reshape hospital care, human nurses are pushing back
AP News
By Matthew Perrone
March 16, 2025
Hospitals say AI is helping their nurses work more efficiently while addressing burnout and understaffing. But nursing unions argue that this poorly understood technology is overriding nurses’ expertise and degrading the quality of care patients receive. “Hospitals have been waiting for the moment when they have something that appears to have enough legitimacy to replace nurses,” said Michelle Mahon of National Nurses United. “The entire ecosystem is designed to automate, de-skill and ultimately replace caregivers.”
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
Pushkin Industries Workers Ratify First Union Contract With Podcast Company
Deadline
By Katie Campione
March 13, 2025
The 12-member unit at Pushkin Industries has reached its first collective bargaining agreement with the podcast company. Per the Writers Guild of America East, the group, which includes writers, producers, editors and engineers, unanimously ratified the contract, establishing a minimum salary of $73,000 and guaranteed raises, among other provisions.
Hawaiian Airlines Reaches Tentative Agreement With Flight Attendants On Contract Extension
Simple Flying
By John Pullen
March 15, 2025
Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants reached a major milestone recently. The carrier, which was just recently acquired by Seattle-based Alaska Airlines , reached a tentative agreement with its flight attendant union for a contract extension. This new agreement, which will last for several years, comes with a variety of improved benefits for Hawaiian cabin crew. While the airline's flight attendants have not yet voted on the contract, each side seems optimistic regarding the agreement.
Governor Moore signs MOUs with first responder unions
Nottingham MD
By Chris Montcalmo
March 16, 2025
In a show of support for first responders, Governor Wes Moore signed three memoranda of understanding (MOU) with labor unions representing firefighters and police officers in Maryland. The agreements, signed on March 13, 2025, guarantee benefits and reaffirm the state’s commitment to organized labor. The MOUs were signed with the BWI Airport Professional Firefighters-International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 1742, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 34-Maryland Transportation Authority Police (MDTA/FOP), and the State Law Enforcement Officers Labor Alliance (SLEOLA).
Santa Clara VTA Union Strike Persists Despite Mediation Efforts, Disrupts 100,000 Daily Rides
Hoodline
By Tony Ng
March 15, 2025
Efforts to resolve the ongoing labor conflict between the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and its unionized workers fell through last week, as mediators failed to broker a deal during sessions intended to end a disruptive strike. According to a VTA statement, their organization initiated two additional mediation sessions with Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 265 representatives on Thursday and yesterday.
South Bay Public Medical Workers Planning Strike Over Contract Talks
KQED
By Joseph Geha
March 14, 2025
As transit workers in the South Bay continue their historic strike for a fifth straight day, a unionized group of Santa Clara County medical employees is threatening a work stoppage of their own later this month. Hundreds of workers represented by the Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20 say they plan to hold an unfair labor practice strike from March 24 through 26 to push back against what they call “bad faith” negotiating by the county during long-running contract talks.
SOLR, Chicago labor leaders join striking dining workers to demand new contract
The Daily Northwestern
By Isaiah Steinberg
March 14, 2025
On the fifth day of the Compass Group dining workers’ strike, members of Students Organizing for Labor Rights and the Chicago Federation of Labor assembled at The Arch early Friday afternoon to picket with the workers. SOLR members arrived around 11:30 a.m. for a scheduled rally supporting the workers. Then, around noon, several local labor leaders spoke on the workers’ commitment to their jobs and Northwestern students as roughly 100 workers watched. “You are such a special part of this school,” CFL Secretary-Treasurer Don Villar said to the crowd of workers. “This university can’t function — it’s not the same without you.” Along with UNITE HERE Local 1 Executive Vice President Lou Weeks, CFL Chaplain Clete Kiley and Foster-Walker Complex dining worker Veronica Reyes, Villar took the microphone to laude the union workers and demand that Compass negotiate a new contract with them.
JOINING TOGETHER
'Don't have the resources that they need': Hospital purposely understaffs to save money, nurse says
WBAL
By Lisa Robinson
March 14, 2025
Baltimore nurses called for change on Friday outside Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital, saying the hospital has chronic understaffing. Melissa Larue, a registered nurse in the hospital's intensive care unit, said they are short staffed on purpose to save money.
Columbia Spectator
By Dora Gao
March 15, 2025
Dozens of demonstrators gathered at the Studebaker Building Friday afternoon, denouncing the University’s “expulsion and firing” of Grant Miner, the president of Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers, just one day before contract negotiations were set to begin. Miner was a Ph.D. candidate in the department of English and comparative literature. In a joint Instagram post on Thursday, SWC-UAW and the United Auto Workers, its national parent organization, wrote that “it is no accident that the University is targeting a union leader whose local went on strike in the last round of bargaining.”
San Jose workers rally against hiring freeze
San Jose Spotlight
By Vicente Vera
March 14, 2025
Marcell Leath, a San Jose housing department data analyst and MEF-AFSCME Local 101 member, estimated up to $80 million in vacancy savings in the city’s general fund. “The city does have the ability to maintain a balanced budget that invests both in the city of workers and in the services that we provide every single day,” said MEF-AFSCME Local 101 president Nick Rovetto.
STATE LEGISLATION
WBIR
By Emily Crabtree
March 14, 2025
Some unions in Oak Ridge are concerned a bill in the Tennessee legislature could cost their members job opportunities. "This is how they make their living, it's good paying jobs, great benefits and now this is becoming a deterrent for us and our employers," said Daniel Smith, a business manager for the IBEW Local 270 union.
IN THE STATES
North Carolina GOP town hall gets rowdy as attendees hurl scathing questions on Trump
AP
By Makiya Seminera
March 13, 2025
Before answering an attendee’s question about President Donald Trump’s “destructive and disastrous trade war,” U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards made a plea to the rowdy crowd at his Thursday town hall in Asheville, North Carolina. “Let me answer and then if you don’t like it, you can boo or hiss or whatever you’d like to do,” Edwards said, visibly exhausted. As he expanded on Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiating tactic, it took less than a minute for the crowd to break out in outrage. He continued to plow ahead in his response and eventually punctuated it by telling attendees he would “stop there and you can yell.” The crowd gladly took him up on the offer.
Unions begin fight to overturn bargaining bill
KPCW
By Sydney Weaver
March 14, 2025
Protect Utah Workers have 30 days to collect enough signatures to qualify a citizen-led referendum of the ban for the 2026 ballot. The campaign comes weeks after the Utah Legislature passed HB267, which bars unions from representing public employees, like police officers, firefighters and teachers in contract negotiations. On Saturday, March 15, the coalition will host eight separate events across the state including in Logan, Ogden, the Salt Lake Valley, Utah County and St. George.
‘Their country promised to support them’: Protestors gather at Utah Capitol in support of veterans
KSL-TV
By Eric Cabrera, Ksl Newsradio, and Carlysle Price
March 14, 2025
Veterans and their families gathered at Utah’s Capitol Friday as part of a nationwide protest against recent cuts to Veteran Affairs hospitals and programs under the Trump administration. The rally was a powerful display of unity and frustration as approximately 200 protestors raised their voices in opposition to cuts they said harm veterans in need of support.
Public labor unions launch campaign to repeal law banning collective bargaining
KPCW
By Kristine Weller
March 15, 2025
Utah public labor unions have officially launched a referendum campaign to repeal a law prohibiting them from collective bargaining. A coalition of public labor unions, called Protect Utah Workers, started gathering signatures Saturday in an effort to overturn a state ban on collective bargaining — a process where an employer and a union negotiate wages, benefits and other aspects of worker compensation.
Hands Off Medicaid rally in downtown Medford
KOBI 5
By Michael Gonzalez
March 15, 2025
At Vogel Plaza, dozens were in attendance for a rally dubbed Hands Off Medicaid. SEIU 503 Local, an organization that represents more than 72,000 workers in the state, organized the rally. It was an answer to President Donald Trump and congregational republicans working toward cuts to critical programs over the next decade. President of SEIU 503, Johnny Earl, said, “Medicaid helps in a multitude of ways. It helps those who are suffering from addiction get off drugs, it helps those who are in desperate need of some financial assistance because times have gotten tough. It’s a bridging gap.”