Posts tagged Executive Order
DOL Awards $86M for Skilled Trades Training
October 29, 2025 // Administered by the department’s Employment and Training Administration, these grants will provide outcome-based reimbursements to employers for providing training in high-demand and emerging industries that align with President Trump’s Executive Order 14278, Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future, and Executive Order 14629, Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance. These priorities are also in line with the goals published in America’s Talent Strategy and America’s AI Action Plan. “President Trump has directed the Labor Department to Make America Skilled Again by providing states with the resources they need to expand on-the-job training opportunities,” said Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Union Lawsuit Challenges NASA National Security Rebrand
October 27, 2025 // The IFPTE lawsuit, filed earlier this month, challenges the White House’s assertion that national security is NASA’s “primary function,” adding that NASA has been collectively bargaining with IFPTE local unions for over 60 years and “at no time has such bargaining ever been questioned as inconsistent with national security.” It argues that President Donald Trump’s actions exceed his authority and unfairly target the union, which has publicly protested the administration’s cuts at the agency. IFPTE represents approximately 6,000 employees at NASA. The lawsuit follows an August executive order that bars some agencies — including NASA and parts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — from engaging in collective bargaining on the grounds that negotiating union contracts could hinder agencies’ ability to operate effectively and quickly, creating a national security risk.
How are unions pushing back against Trump’s attacks on labor and layoffs?
October 21, 2025 // Unions are battling the administration in federal courtrooms nationwide, after filing dozens of lawsuits to try to halt attempts to shed hundreds of thousands of government employees, strip collective bargaining rights from over a million workers, and gut some federal agencies. On Wednesday, they made a significant breakthrough: Judge Susan Illston, of the US district court’s northern district of California, granted a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s latest mass layoffs from the government shutdown.
Why some federal workers aren’t scared by the threat of shutdown layoffs
October 7, 2025 // NPR has not learned of any layoffs due to the shutdown since congressional appropriations lapsed on Oct. 1, although many federal agencies have filed reorganization and reduction-in-force plans with the administration as a result of a February executive order and subsequent guidance directing them to do so.
Commentary: Trump gave the Labor Department more control over career-technical education. Will students benefit?
October 6, 2025 // In May, Trump officials signed an interagency agreement that maintains the Education Department’s oversight authority for career-technical education, but hands over the day-to-day operations to the Labor Department. That includes distributing over $1 billion to states in Perkins funding, which pays for CTE programs in K-12 schools and community colleges, making compliance monitoring visits, and helping states and schools with technical questions. High-ranking Democrats in Congress have said this transfer of funds and responsibilities is illegal, and the proposal should have gone to Congress. Others in the career and technical education field say the Education and Labor Departments already work closely together and this move isn’t necessary to improve collaboration.
Trump administration moving to end federal prison workers’ union protections
October 1, 2025 // Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director William K. Marshall III wrote a letter to nearly 35,000 employees outlining plans to dismantle their contract negotiated by the Council of Prison Locals (CPL) labor union. “The current contract has too often slowed or prevented changes that would have made your jobs safer and your workdays better,” Marshall said in the memo to workers. “This is not about questioning the value of representation; it’s about ensuring representation moves us forward, not holds us back.”
A Senate bill seeks to restore collective bargaining for a huge swath of federal workers
September 22, 2025 // Warner was quick to point out what union representation for federal workers does not do. “Let’s be clear, a federal union doesn’t have the ability to strike, or negotiate pay or benefits,” Warner said. But, he said, union representation for federal workers is designed to prevent discrimination and unlawful firings, as well as offer protections for whistleblowers.
No LIRR strike for at least 4 months as Trump steps in on labor dispute
September 17, 2025 // The emergency board will probe the contract fight and prevent and mediate negotiations under the Railway Labor Act, which triggers a 120-day “cooling off period.” That means neither the MTA nor the unions can change wages, hours or working conditions — and workers cannot legally strike — for roughly four months unless both sides agree to a deal.
Op-ed: Can Zohran Make NYC a Union Town Again?
September 9, 2025 // The new mayor could host big online unionization trainings with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have already done. If this led even a small fraction of Zohran’s 60,000-plus volunteers and over 6 million social media followers to start organizing their own workplaces—or to take a strategic job to unionize it—this could potentially generate thousands of new unionization campaigns. And were Mamdani to act upon our proposal to launch a broad Movement for an Affordable New York (MANY), then the pool of new potential workplace organizers would grow significantly.
Louisville union members urge lawmakers to protect bargaining rights
September 8, 2025 // John Hetzel is the president of the Louisville chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees. He said federal and veterans’ rights need to return to employees. “Specifically, that is stripping people of their bargaining rights and their contracts. We just had that happen to us at the VA, and it affected 300,000 employees, and it’s devastating,” Hetzel said. Hetzel’s union and other allies are calling for support on HR 2550. That would overturn the president’s executive order that removes collective bargaining rights for workers at more than 30 federal agencies.