Posts tagged National Security
GOP Unveils Bill To End Taxpayer-Funded Union Organizing
April 8, 2025 // Lee and Cline’s No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act would end the practice of “official time”— paid time given to federal employees to perform union duties during work hours and using government office space. This practice costs taxpayers more than $100 million annually, according to data from the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Pro-labor Republicans push Trump to rescind order busting most federal unions
April 3, 2025 // “This executive order, which ruthlessly strips collective bargaining agreements for over 1 million federal workers, is the most recent attack your administration has levied against our merit-based civil service in the effort to cut the workforce and replace them with political cronies,” they wrote. “While the CSRA does give the president the authority to limit collective bargaining agreements due to national security concerns, the executive order’s direction to terminate mass swaths of federal employee collective bargaining agreements is clearly intended to broadly dismantle the CSRA, which is specifically designed to grant federal employees the right to collective bargaining as a means to resolve workplace issues while maintaining the smooth functioning of government operations.”
Face The Nation UAW president Shawn Fain says “tariffs are a tool in the toolbox” in helping auto workers
April 1, 2025 // "Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox to get these companies to do the right thing, and the intent behind it is to bring jobs back here, and, you know, invest in the American workers," Fain told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in an interview that aired Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." Mr. Trump announced the 25% tariffs last week, which he said will take effect on April 2, escalating his administration's effort to boost domestic manufacturers through aggressive trade measures. Fain, who leads the 400,000-member union that went on a 46-day strike in 2023, called the tariffs a "motivator,"
‘This is the revenge’: Unions lash out at Trump administration over collective bargaining clampdown
March 31, 2025 // “This is the retaliation. This is the revenge. This is the shut ’em up effort,” said Hoyer, adding the actions are “consistent with the Republican Party’s long-standing hostility for the rights of working men and women to organize.” “Federal law gives federal employees the right to engage in collective bargaining,” said Raskin, adding, “That’s how these unions were formed.”
Trump Order Could Cripple Federal Worker Unions Fighting DOGE Cuts
March 30, 2025 // The move added to the list of actions by Mr. Trump to use the levers of the presidency to weaken perceived enemies, in this case seeking to neutralize groups that represent civil servants who make up the “deep state” he is trying to dismantle. In issuing the order, Mr. Trump said he was using congressionally granted powers to designate certain sectors of the federal work force central to “national security missions,” and exempt from collective-bargaining requirements. Employees of some agencies, like the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., are already excluded from collective bargaining for these reasons.
Trump signs executive order to end collective bargaining at agencies involved with national security
March 27, 2025 // President Donald Trump moved Thursday to end collective bargaining with federal labor unions in agencies with national security missions across the federal government, citing authority granted him under a 1978 law. The order, signed without public fanfare and announced late Thursday, appears to touch most of the federal government. Affected agencies include the Departments of State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Justice and Commerce and the part of Homeland Security responsible for border security.
Labor unions call on Trump to boost US shipbuilding against increasing Chinese dominance
February 20, 2025 // Last year under President Joe Biden, the unions filed a petition seeking to address China’s shipbuilding under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, hoping to start a process by which tariffs and other measures could be enacted. The letter notes China manufactured more than 1,000 ocean-going vessels in 2023, while the United States made fewer than 10 ships. It adds that the Chinese shipbuilding industry received more than $100 billion in government support from 2010 to 2018, such that Chinese shipyards accounted for the majority of worldwide orders last year.
‘We Are Hopeful’ Q&A with Patrice Onwuka and Kim Kavin
January 24, 2025 // Congress should consider enshrining the Trump-era definition for independent contractors, and/or consider ways to get ahead of the opposition to flexible work. The Employee Rights Act was a federal bill that, among many pro-worker provisions, sought to protect independent contractors as a counter to a national ABC Test in the now-defunct Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Portable benefits also provide a pathway for companies to provide independent contractors with workplace benefits without triggering a reclassification.
Unions Sue DOGE, Calling It ‘Unbalanced’ For Excluding Opponents Of Efficiency
January 20, 2025 // The lawsuit said AFGE’s president, Everett Kelley, requested that a representative of the federal employees union be appointed to the cost-cutting panel because AFGE “has a deep knowledge of the federal government.” It complains that Norm Eisen, a far-left lawyer and lawfare practitioner who has tried to thwart Trump, also applied, only to be told that “we have no room in our administration for Democrats.” The lawsuit claims that DOGE is an advisory committee that should be subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which would require it to have members with balanced views, and meetings and materials open to the public. It said the Grace Commission, a Reagan-era cost-cutting panel, was structured under FACA.
Opinion: Mitch McConnell: Nippon Steel Isn’t the Enemy
January 10, 2025 // In Georgetown, Ky., hundreds of skilled workers build automotive parts at a facility owned by Nippon Steel. About 5 miles away, another Japanese firm, Toyota, employs nearly 10,000 people full-time at the company’s largest vehicle-manufacturing plant in the world. Toyota recently announced more than $2 billion in new investments to expand and modernize its facilities there. Japan likely wonders why the Biden administration considers a major investment in American jobs and manufacturing a national-security risk but not its purchase of cutting-edge American military technologies.