President Donald Trump shakes up the federal workforce and economic landscape, ending union rights for many federal workers and preparing to impose sweeping tariffs this week. Leftwing activists are ramping up their “Tesla Takedown” protests as new investigations unveil the powerful entities behind the movement. And, is Trump’s “self-deportation” messaging for illegal immigrants working? We have the data.
It’s Monday, March 31st, and this is the news you need to know to start your week. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>Trump’s Economic Executive Orders</h2>
<div id="attachment_900177" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900177" class="size-large wp-image-900177" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-865x576.jpg" alt="" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-2048x1364.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Trump-Signs-Tariff-EO-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />(Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: President Trump signed an executive order targeting many federal worker unions as his sweeping tariffs are set to take effect this week. 
The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-exempts-agencies-with-national-security-missions-from-federal-collective-bargaining-requirements/">move</a> stripped collective bargaining rights from a wide swath of federal employees. It will not apply to all federal workers, just those who work for agencies with &#8220;national security missions,&#8221; including the Departments of Defense, State, Justice, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. 
Context: A number of large federal unions have made clear they will do everything possible to slow President Trump’s agenda, launching dozens of lawsuits to block his efforts to cut spending through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project. Other unions negotiated deals with the Biden administration that are still in effect but run contrary to the Trump administration&#8217;s agenda. The White House says this order will “ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people.” Trump added that while he “supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him, he will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.” 
Hours after the order was signed, eight federal agencies filed a lawsuit in Texas, calling for a judge to void their existing contracts. Those deals will remain in place while the case is heard, but we could see action quickly. The largest federal workers union, <a href="https://www.afge.org/publication/afge-condemns-trumps-retaliatory-attempt-to-outlaw-federal-unions/">The American Federation of Government Employees</a>, said over the weekend that hundreds of thousands of its 800,000 members could soon be stripped of their memberships — vowing to file countersuits of their own. If the courts rule in Trump’s favor, they would give him considerable power to cut the federal workforce and follow through on his promise to slash spending. 
On Wednesday, a slew of new tariffs are set to go into effect on everything from auto imports to appliances to agricultural products — the list goes on. Trump is calling it “Liberation Day,” saying on Truth Social: “For DECADES we have been ripped off and abused by every nation in the World, both friend and foe. Now it is finally time for the Good Ol&#8217; USA to get some of that MONEY, and RESPECT, BACK.” 
The Trump administration has been adamant that tariffs would help secure more favorable trade deals. It views them as a means of combating illegal immigration, incentivizing military cooperation, and spurring domestic manufacturing. Trump points to the trillions of dollars worth of investments foreign companies have made in recent months as proof that tariffs will push companies to onshore and bring their supply chains to America.
We’re still waiting on the full list of products that will be impacted, but Canada and Mexico will be among the hardest hit — facing 25% tariffs on all imports. From there will come worldwide reciprocal tariffs. The White House says if a trading partner wants a lower rate, all they have to do is reduce the tariffs imposed on U.S. exports. The president will also slap an additional 25% rate on oil and gas from Venezuela in response to the “criminals” who he says have been sent to the U.S. illegally. That tariff will also apply to countries that continue buying oil and gas from Venezuela. 
<h2>DOGE PR Battle</h2>
<div id="attachment_900179" style="width: 969px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900179" class="size-large wp-image-900179" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Tesla-Takedown-Protests-959x576.jpg" alt="" width="959" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Tesla-Takedown-Protests-959x576.jpg 959w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Tesla-Takedown-Protests-300x180.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Tesla-Takedown-Protests-768x461.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Tesla-Takedown-Protests-1536x923.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Tesla-Takedown-Protests-2048x1230.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 959px) 100vw, 959px" />(Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Topline: A new report finds that influential left-wing political organizations are paying for the “Tesla Takedown” protests that continued all over North America and Europe this weekend. Meanwhile, the DOGE team gave its first interview. 
On Saturday, there were <a href="https://www.komu.com/news/nationworld/over-200-tesla-takedown-protests-take-place-throughout-us-on-global-day-of-action-against/article_30f66e6c-6d7a-52df-8dcf-b87b7ff65f9c.html">hundreds of</a> anti-Tesla demonstrations worldwide, from Chicago to Germany to Australia. Turnout for these events varied considerably, from a handful of aging protestors waving signs that said things like &#8220;No one elected Musk&#8221; and &#8220;Drive Tesla out of business&#8221; to larger actions in major urban centers like New York City.
The objective is to hit Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Trump&#8217;s biggest donor, where it hurts while urging him to back off his activities on behalf of the Trump administration.
In response, Trump&#8217;s DOGE initiative, which Musk leads, appears to be pivoting its PR strategy — initially, Musk said that he wanted to keep DOGE analysts out of the spotlight to protect their privacy and safety. But on Friday, DOGE leaders <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1905605596943925378">sat down</a> with Fox News’s Brett Baier, giving Musk a chance to dispel the image of DOGE as just a bunch of young, rowdy tech bros. 
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<blockquote>BAIER: Some people say this shouldn&#8217;t take a rocket scientist. Steve Davis, you are a rocket scientist… Now, essentially you&#8217;re the chief operating officer of DOGE… How did you end up here? What&#8217;s the biggest challenge you see?
DAVIS: The reason I&#8217;m here, which is probably for many, is that I think the goal is incredibly inspiring. I think most of the taxpayers in the country would agree that in order to have the country going bankrupt would be a very bad thing, and therefore the country going not bankrupt is a good thing, that all of us are willing to kind of put our lives on hold in order to do. I think the thing that&#8217;s special right now is we actually believe there&#8217;s a chance to succeed,</blockquote>
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A new report in <a href="https://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/local-teslatakedown-reveals-grassroots-protests-are-astroturf/article_1c368d4d-708c-4074-b5fa-5eaf6a32ea97.html">the Fairfax Times</a> found that “Takedown Tesla” actions have been almost entirely bankrolled by well-known leftist activist networks like The Indivisible Project, which organized 29% of the protests, as well as MoveOn.org, the Disruption Project, and local Democratic Party chapters. After building a public database based on a chronology of the Tesla Takedown protests, the report concluded, “While the local #TeslaTakedown protest may appear spontaneous and community-driven, it is the product of a well-funded, tightly coordinated campaign.”
<h2>Self-Deportation Push</h2>
<div id="attachment_900181" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900181" class="size-large wp-image-900181" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/Self-Deportation-App-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: With an estimated 14 million people in the U.S. illegally, the Trump administration wants to convince many of them to self-deport. But is the message working? A new report suggests it is.
A new report from the New York Times found that the administration’s self-deport messaging might actually be working. It seems that the length of time spent in the United States is the most influential factor: long-term illegal residents are still unlikely to leave, but more recent arrivals, such as all those who crossed the border under Biden, appear more likely to be swayed by the administration’s message.
Recent deportation flights to El Salvador seem to have had an effect – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently posted a video shot at El Salvador’s state-of-the-art prison complex – the message being that violent illegal aliens in the U.S. will be found and imprisoned here. 
“I also want everybody to know, if you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you can face,” Noem said. “Do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted, but know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.” 
The administration has been clear that it is prioritizing the deportation of violent criminals, but some aliens don’t want to risk arrest. Others believe it’s only a matter of time before federal authorities catch them, so they want to leave before they’re forced out.
Additionally, hundreds of foreign students who have voiced support for Hamas have also been encouraged to self-deport. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the green cards or visas of about 300 students have been revoked so far, including Syrian national <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-view-host-defends-anti-israel-agitator-mahmoud-khalil-as-a-political-prisoner">Mahmoud Khalil</a>, who led protests at Columbia University; British-Gambian National <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-revokes-visa-of-self-styled-enemy-of-america">Momoduo Taal</a>, who participated in similar actions at Cornell; and Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk, whose visa was revoked after the State Department found she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”

President Trump Returns To White House From Florida

Morning Brief: Trump’s ‘Liberation Day,’ DOGE PR Battle, & Self-Deportation Push

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

DOGE

Elon Musk

Illegal Immigation

Immigration

Labor Unions

Tariffs

Tesla

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that will end collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of federal employees whose work is related to national security, the White House said. 
The EO applies to public sector unions representing workers in federal agencies “with national security missions,” including the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Science Foundation, and the Coast Guard. A <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-exempts-agencies-with-national-security-missions-from-federal-collective-bargaining-requirements/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a> from the White House said that Trump was given the authority to limit union activity for national security purposes based on the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
“President Trump is taking action to ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people,” the memo said. “The President needs a responsive and accountable civil service to protect our national security.”
Other agencies that would be impacted include immigration agencies like U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. International-focused departments and agencies like the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the International Trade Commission would also have collective bargaining rights ended.
The Energy Department, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, EPA,  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Treasury Department were also all named in the memo. 
The document added that Trump “supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him; he will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.”
The American Federation of Government Employees claimed that the announcement was an attack on free speech and would impact more than one million government workers. 
“President Trump&#8217;s latest executive order is a disgraceful and retaliatory attack on the rights of hundreds of thousands of patriotic American civil servants—nearly one-third of whom are veterans—simply because they are members of a union that stands up to his harmful policies,” the union said. &#8220;This administration’s bullying tactics represent a clear threat not just to federal employees and their unions, but to every American who values democracy and the freedoms of speech and association.&#8221;
A separate <a href="https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/latest-memos/guidance-on-executive-order-exclusions-from-federal-labor-management-programs.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a> from the Office of Personnel Management after the executive order was issued directed federal agencies to consult with legal counsel to begin implementing the directive.

President Trump Announces New Automobile Tariffs

Trump Signs EO Ending Union Rights At Federal Agencies With ‘National Security Missions’

Donald Trump

Executive

Executive Orders

Politics

Trump Administration

Unions

White House

One of the seven small federal agencies that President Donald Trump ordered <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-bureaucracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">downsized or eliminated</a> on Friday was rife with corruption, with its employees hiring friends and relatives, commissioning paintings of themselves, and using government credit cards to indulge in constant luxuries.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.
FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.
This reporter spent a year <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/watchdog-just-sign-here/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigating the agency</a> a decade ago, and I found egregious and self-serving violations of hiring, pay, contracting, and purchase card rules. One thing I could not discover is why the agency actually existed, other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees. Endless junkets to resort destinations, which employees openly used to facilitate personal vacations, were justified as building awareness of the agency in the hopes that someone would actually want to use its voluntary services.
FMCS seemed, quite clearly, to exist for the benefit of those on its payroll, and not much else. One employee told me: “Let me give you the honest truth: A lot of FMCS employees don’t do a hell of a lot, including myself. Personally, the reason that I’ve stayed is that I just don’t feel like working that hard, plus the location on K Street is great, plus we all have these oversized offices with windows, plus management doesn’t seem to care if we stay out at lunch a long time. Can you blame me?”
<h3>“Recreation and reception fund.”</h3>
Top FMCS official George Cohen used a “recreation and reception fund” to order champagne and $200 coasters for his office, and to purchase artwork painted by his wife. The tiny agency commissioned paintings of its top employees — as one employee told me, “like they were reigning kings or something…I’ve never seen anything like it before.” It spent $2,402 retouching the portrait of someone who briefly held the top job in an acting capacity.
FMCS employees “unblocked” their government credit cards to turn off typical abuse protections, then used them to apparently fund personal expenses and simply bill anything they’d like to the government. One employee leased a BMW; another (IT director James Donnen) billed the government for his wife’s cell phone, cable TV at both his home and his vacation home, and even his subscription to USA Today.
Employee Dan W. Funkhouser used his FMCS card to rent a storage unit near his home in rural Virginia, two hours from the office he supposedly worked at, which was used to store personal possessions such as a photo album of his dog, Buster. Funkhouser also spent $18,000 at a jewelry store near his house, and “destroyed all purchase card records upon leaving the agency,” an audit said.
When Charles Burton retired from FMCS, he incorporated an LLC to which another FMCS employee paid $85,000 using his purchase card, listing it as a “Call Center Service,” even though the company had neither a website nor a working phone.
When an accountant, Carol Booth, blew the whistle on financial abuses to the General Services Administration, which manages purchase cards and contracting, Cohen forced her to send an email (which he wrote under her name) rescinding her statement.
Like something out of “The Office,” the employees spent an inordinate amount of time and money congratulating one another for being employed there and engaging in “work” that really amounted to pampering themselves.
One purchase was for $30,000 on trinkets marking employees’ anniversaries. The agency’s office was absurdly oversized, but it refused to move. It hired a consultant for a “Hallway Improvement Project” to decorate. It had an in-house gym for employees, and purchased a $1,000 TV for the gym, a $3,867 ice-maker, and a $560 stereo.
The expenses that were actually business-related were hardly better. It paid, for example, $895 “for Suzanne Nichter’s enrollment in the English Essentials: A Grammar Refresher course” and $735 “for Lakisha Steward to attend Listening and Memory Skills Development Course.”
<h3>All expenses paid lifestyle</h3>
FMCS used federal jobs as a spigot of cash for friends and relatives. Allison Beck, a former union lawyer who became a top FMCS official, employed her sister-in-law as a “special assistant,” and an inspector general found evidence that she tried to create a high-level job for a friend.
FMCS employees allegedly steered contracts to friends, allowing them to write the “statement of work” that would be used to choose the contract winner — resulting in, of course, their own selection. Such “trainers” were paid $1,500 per day per person to train FMCS’s staff, plus $163 an hour for travel. When a low-level employee eventually said the extra travel pay ran afoul of federal rules, a contractor made clear he viewed it as an entitlement, huffing: “Work we have successfully performed for the agency for more than a decade — at great personal sacrifice, I should add — will be taken away unless we comply in an unquestioning manner with your edict.”
Scot Beckenbaugh, a top agency official, was paid $174,000 a year, but that wasn’t enough: He had his “duty station” listed as Iowa so that he could have all of his living expenses and food paid for in D.C., where he lived and worked, as if he was on a <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/384045/fmcs-paid-senior-officials-rent-meals-other-living-expenses-for-six-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">six-year-long business trip</a>. When an employee raised the issue to an agency lawyer, the lawyer told him he “should not raise these issues … it would open a can of worms.”
FMCS hired a former mail carrier who lived in Pennsylvania, Lu-Ann Glaser, for a high-level, D.C.-based job, and agreed to pay for her to stay in a hotel for half of every month — even though it would have been easy to find someone better qualified who didn’t need to be put up in a hotel to simply do her job.
Paul Voight, a human resources official, was listed as living in D.C. even though he <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/359002/fmcs-oks-higher-locality-pay-for-employees-working-in-distant-low-tax-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">actually lived</a> in Wisconsin, in order to fraudulently obtain higher cost-of-living pay. Voight’s boss was Artur Pearlstein, who left the agency to become a law professor, and was then re-hired after his academic career imploded in a plagiarism scandal. His first move in his new job was terminating an independent investigation into FMCS staff abusing taxpayer funds for personal gain.
Cohen, for his part, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1450139/despite-ethics-pledge-fmcs-hired-directors-old-boss-to-do-legal-work/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">steered work</a> to his previous employer, despite signing ethics forms saying he would not.
<h3>Constant junkets</h3>
Many of the agency’s top employees lived outside of the typical Washington, D.C., commuting area, and only stopped in the area occasionally, in an era before telework was routine. Its CFO, Fran Leonard, would come to the office twice a week but leave by 2:00 p.m.
The agency had, inexplicably, an office in Honolulu.
It funded <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/875236/exography-globe-trotting-honchos-spend-big-on-fmcs-dime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">constant travel of its employees to exotic locales</a>, on the pretext that it was drumming up business for the federal agency — an admission that there was little demand for the agency’s existence.
In one month, Beck traveled to Italy and Switzerland, where she conducted a business meeting — over video chat. Then she went to Tunisia and an island off the coast of Georgia. She flew first class and forced the agency to reimburse her for mileage when she drove to her vacation home in Maine.
The agency had three full-time media relations staffers, none of whom would speak to me, almost certainly one of the only reporters to ever call.
<h3>Cash grants for insiders</h3>
The agency’s existence is predicated on the idea that it is an impartial mediator, biased neither towards labor nor management. But its staff largely comes from a union background, and it gave out grants to promote union membership. But it was too incompetent to do much ideological damage; its employees’ comfort always came before helping unions.
Anyone could request cash grants from the agency, with the only requirement that they mention some nexus with unions, however tortured. It doled out a seemingly <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2364087/exography-federal-agency-fmcs-gave-grants-to-promote-union-membership/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">random assortment of giveaways to private businesses</a>, perhaps because they were the only ones who knew the grants existed.
It gave $63,000 to a hospital that went bankrupt; $51,000 to a childcare company to help it pay government licensing fees; and $57,000 to a company to “strengthen of culture of continuous improvement to drive us to world class excellence!”
What surprised me most about my FMCS investigation was what happened afterward: nothing. An inspector general made a referral to the FBI, but there were no prosecutions. Instead, President Barack Obama nominated a chief subject of the investigation to the top job.
A decade later, Trump has done what even the agency’s own employees said should happen: shut it down.

US President Donald Trump

Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’

The president of a major federal employee union collected a taxpayer-funded paycheck from the Social Security Administration for 34 years without working a single hour for the Social Security Administration — and at one point he wouldn’t have been able to go to the office even if he wanted to, because he was banned for allegedly sending a picture of his penis to a female employee, a Daily Wire investigation found.
Witold Skwierczynski now collects a lifetime pension close to his annual salary. He served as president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ (AFGE) Council 220, representing 22,000 Social Security employees across the country, from 1984 through 2018, when he became president emeritus. That year, the Social Security Administration banned Skwierczynski from all of its facilities, according to documents obtained by The Daily Wire.
Skwierczynski was permitted to draw full-time pay from the Social Security Administration for decades without actually providing any service for beneficiaries thanks to a policy called <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-hides-public-records-showing-how-much-taxpayers-are-paying-unions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“official time,”</a> in which the government agrees to let employees do their anti-management advocacy during the workday, rather than using union dues to pay for organizers. Some are on 100% union time, meaning they are paid as Social Security Administration employees but never actually do any work for the agency.
Skwierczynski’s status as a poster boy for the policy raises questions about whether that’s money well spent. As a result of having “free” full-time union reps, federal unions wind up being aggressive in fighting discipline and new rules, even for frivolous actions members wouldn’t have bothered to spend union dues funding. Others may simply use it to draw a paycheck while doing little at all.
Unions are perhaps the most significant <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-republicans-target-federal-unions-after-11th-hour-deals-tie-trumps-hands-on-remote-work" target="_blank" rel="noopener">roadblock</a> to President Donald Trump’s reforms to the federal workforce. Even after Skwierczynski became president emeritus in 2018, he has continued to play an important behind-the-scenes role as a power-broker in the union, which in November signed a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-security-head-drank-with-union-members-before-giving-them-telework-through-2029">five-year agreement</a> with Joe Biden&#8217;s Social Security commissioner attempting to force the Trump administration to leave COVID-era telework rates in place.
One career manager told The Daily Wire that in 2018, “they got every manager in the country on [a call] and said, if you see this guy, don’t let him in your office, he’s banned.”
Another employee told The Daily Wire that he inquired why, and the agency official who oversaw labor relations told him it was because “Witold had sent a d*** pic to an employee in the office at like 2 a.m. one day, and so they told him, ‘We’re going to give you a termination notice unless you retire immediately’&#8230; he agreed he’d immediately retire and never come back to any SSA office.”
“This is a disgusting old man,” the employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission from the Social Security Administration, added.
That same year, Skwierczynski retired from government and decided not to run for re-election as union president.
In late 2018, Skwierczynski wrote in an email obtained by The Daily Wire that a grievance had &#8220;been filed by the General Committee in July regarding my space access.”
In December, a union official wrote to the agency that it planned to file a second grievance for “denying Mr. Skwierczynski access to Agency space, and refusing to deal with him in representational matters.” But Skwierczynski wrote that &#8220;Frankly, since I am retired from SSA and did not seek re-election, I have no interest in pursuing this issue. I have been able to perform my assigned functions for the Council without access to SSA space.&#8221;
According to minutes of the union arbitration committee, union leaders said Skwierczynski claimed he did not know why he was banned. The committee voted to advance a grievance anyway, highlighting how aggressively unions fight any discipline action.
Skwierczynski told The Daily Wire he retired because Trump issued an executive order capping “official time” at 25% of an employee&#8217;s hours, meaning Social Security employees would have to work at least some of the time for the agency — something he had no intention of doing. “I retired in 2018 due to SSA&#8217;s imminent implementation of President Trump&#8217;s Executive Order limiting official time to 25% and the fact that SSA was going to send me and other union officials back to our desks to process claims making it virtually impossible to perform my union President&#8217;s duties. Also, I was 68 years old and would receive a pension close to equal to my salary from SSA,” he said in an email.
Biden later withdrew that executive order, and it has not yet been reinstated in Trump&#8217;s second term. But on Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Agency-Reporting-to-OPM-for-Fiscal-Year-2024-Taxpayer-Funded-Union-2-27-2025-final_0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report data</a> about how much &#8220;taxpayer-funded union time&#8221; was being used, and how. The Biden administration broke from past Democrat and Republican administrations by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-hides-public-records-showing-how-much-taxpayers-are-paying-unions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concealing</a> such data from the public.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who chairs the House’s Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency (DOGE), said the case highlights why &#8220;official time&#8221; must be reformed or abolished.
“Not only was this union boss working for his public union against the American taxpayer on official time, he also allegedly sent a photo of his penis to another employee. Both of these things are appalling. It is a slap in the face to every hard-working American,” she told The Daily Wire.
In 2019, Skwierczynski continued to work for the union, this time <a href="https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/orgReport.do?rptId=720102&amp;rptForm=LM2Form" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paid</a> with union funds instead of taxpayer dollars. But in October of that year, the council’s new president wrote to Skwierczynski that Social Security Administration management told him of “the events that lead to your being banned from SSA property.” The letter said &#8220;I understand how that is embarrassing to you,&#8221; and gave him an opportunity to quietly withdraw from his paid union role.
It said if Skwierczynski did not send a memo &#8220;asserting that you have moved on to greener pastures&#8221; by November 5, the president would be forced to tell people what happened. On November 3, Skwierczynski did just that, writing that he was busy with his “work for the Ben Jealous for governor campaign in Maryland, for the Bernie Sanders for president campaign in Maryland, and for the labor campaign to elect Virginia democrats,” and therefore could not sign another paid contract with Council 220.
“I know that these are difficult times for the Council as a result of the Trump Executive Orders&#8230;I will help in the future where I can. I just think it’s best that I not be an employee of the Council,” he wrote.
<div id="attachment_885067" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-885067" class="size-large wp-image-885067" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/witold-composite-1024x512.png" alt="" width="1024" height="512" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/witold-composite-1024x512.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/witold-composite-300x150.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/witold-composite-768x384.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/witold-composite-1536x768.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/witold-composite-2048x1024.png 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Witold Skwierczynski (CSPAN/Facebook)</div>
In an email to The Daily Wire, Skwierczynski said &#8220;I gave up my stipend with Council 220 because I wished to expand my horizons of activity with other organizations as a volunteer.&#8221;
&#8220;I was never banned from SSA facilities. I have accessed SSA facilities since I retired in 2018. The allegation regarding sending pictures of genitalia is false,” he said, adding, “I was never threatened with termination.”
He did not respond to a follow-up asking him to address documents that reference his ban. The Social Security Administration did not return requests for comment.
A union official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Daily Wire that Skwierczynski told him he&#8217;d meant to send the picture to someone else, but was drunk.
Even after his second exit, Skwierczynski has remained a powerful and active figure in the union. As president emeritus, the union pays for him to attend its major events, where they strategize against the administration. That has continued even as the circumstances of his ban from the Social Security Administration became widely known.
On April 19, 2021, Edwin Osario, the Council’s current vice president, wrote, “I was going to make a resolution to remove Witold’s emeritus status,” but “I am afraid it would have a negative impact on the Council furthering the narrative that the Council is more about exclusion and marginalization than solidarity.”
Skwierczynski saw a resurgence in his influence in 2022 with the election of Jessica LaPointe, Council 220’s current president, after he helped secure her victory, members said.
Skwierczynski was appointed chair of the union’s Retirement Committee. He even met with Martin O’Malley, President Joe Biden’s Social Security Commissioner, in 2023, leading a female union member to write to O’Malley with the subject line: “Protect Women from Witold.”
“Skwierczynski was banned from all 1,200 Social Security Offices,” the email said. “Since Jessica LaPointe became Council 220 President, she has chosen to fully involve Mr. Skwierczynski in Union activities despite his outrageous behavior.” The email faulted O’Malley for letting employees use “official time” to go to union conventions where Skwierczynski would be.
O’Malley did not respond, and both men were at the council’s convention in November 2024, where O’Malley <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-security-head-drank-with-union-members-before-giving-them-telework-through-2029" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drank and partied with union members</a> before signing the work-from-home contract days later.
A union member told The Daily Wire that LaPointe is “this ultra-liberal, safe-space person and she knows about the d*** pic.” LaPointe did not return a request for comment.
AFGE, which is quick to paint conservatives as racist and sexist, protected and elevated Skwierczynski for decades despite complaints about his conduct.
As far back as 2001, AFGE paid about $30,000 to settle a <a href="https://casetext.com/case/stone-v-american-federation-of-government-employees">lawsuit</a> filed by Skwierczynski’s then-assistant, Ulander Stone. The suit alleged that another union employee, who was close with Skwierczynski, called Stone the n-word, and that after she complained, Skwierczynski engaged in precisely the type of retaliatory discipline that unions say they exist to prevent. He allegedly reprimanded her for using a fax machine for “personal business” when she used it to file a discrimination complaint, and killed the ensuing investigation.
<blockquote>
<h1>Emails show that Skwierczynski has continued to participate in discussions among top SSA union leadership, including strategizing about how to stop Trump from making employees go into the office.</h1>
</blockquote>
Skwierczynski rejected the allegations, telling The Daily Wire that Stone was a felon and he fired her because she was a bad employee.
In 2015, “Skwierczynski called National Secretary Treasurer Eugene Hudson, the union’s highest ranking African American official, a ‘N*****’ for the second time during the AFGE national convention,” another <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.218955/gov.uscourts.dcd.218955.11.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> alleged.
In September 2021, 40 union members filed a complaint with AFGE President Everett Kelley against Skwierczynski, saying he should be stripped of his title of president emeritus and his union membership over his alleged sexual misconduct. Union members said even though the union’s constitution requires such complaints to trigger an investigation, they saw no evidence that basic fact-finding interviews occurred.
“AFGE took no action against me,” Skwierczynski said. “I denied the allegations and the complaint contained no evidence of the allegations.” Kelley did not return a request for comment.
Emails show that Skwierczynski has continued to participate in discussions among top Social Security Administration union leadership, including strategizing about how to stop Trump from making employees go into the office.
AFGE may have a worse track record of empowering abusive managers than most government agencies. In 2020, J. David Cox Sr., then-president of the entire AFGE, which represents 800,000 employees across federal agencies, resigned after being accused of sexually harassing employees including his male personal driver, using union resources to facilitate a lavish life of strip clubs and prostitutes, engaging in racism against his subordinates, and retaliating against those who objected.
The allegation about Skwierczynski using the n-word in 2015 came in a lawsuit centered upon Cox, and said Cox’s lieutenants did nothing to discipline Skwierczynski, but instead “filed disciplinary charges against Mr. Hudson for overreacting to being called the racial slur.”
The lawsuit was dismissed, but 10 men and women came forward to say they were victims of Cox, including an AFGE spokesman who said Cox had stuck his <a href="https://www.nextgov.com/people/2020/02/afge-member-alleges-ex-president-abused-her-adult-son-for-years/195982/">tongue in his ear</a>. An investigation commissioned by the union <a href="https://www.workingideal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Working-IDEAL-Report-for-AFGE.pdf">substantiated</a> most of the Cox allegations.
The lawsuit alleged that Kelley, the union’s current president, signed a secret deal with Cox that led to Cox resigning and Kelley taking his place.
Kelley has called it racist for Trump to excise diversity, equity, and inclusion from the federal government, pledged to stand in the way of his orders to return to the office, and filed a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/unions-sue-doge-calling-it-unbalanced-for-excluding-opponents-of-efficiency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit against</a> the Department of Government Efficiency. The suit said AFGE should have a seat on DOGE as a &#8220;voice for advocating for the resources that government employees need to effectively perform their duties while supporting fair treatment, equitable pay, and safe working conditions.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/government-union-that-wants-feds-to-work-from-home-brings-staff-back-to-office-to-fight-trump">Union That Wants Feds To Work From Home Brings Staff Back To Office To Fight Trump</a>

Witold Skwierczynski (Facebook)

Union Prez On Gov’t Payroll Was Banned From Federal Buildings For Sexual Misconduct, Sources Say

Marjorie Taylor Green

Social Security

A U.S. District judge has <a href="https://www.nteu.org/~/media/Files/nteu/docs/public/2025/Mass%20Firing%20TRO%20Denied">rebuffed an effort</a> by labor unions representing federal workers to block President Donald Trump’s layoffs of federal employees.
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the National Federation of Federal Employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, and the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agriculture Implement Workers of America employees sued Trump on February 12, claiming that Trump’s executive actions laying off workers violated constitutional separation-of-powers principles “because they undermine Congress’ authority to set and fund the missions of federal agencies.” They demanded a temporary restraining order.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that his court would deny the unions the relief they sought because it “likely lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear their claims.” He added, “The claims must instead be brought before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute.”
The FLRA is a three-member agency responsible for handling federal labor disputes. “The FLRA is an independent administrative federal agency that administers the labor-management relations program for 2.1 million non-postal federal employees worldwide,” the agency notes on its <a href="applewebdata://93BF6EE8-F13D-469F-9E84-A074F2335552/v">website</a>.
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“NTEU contends that no meaningful judicial review is available to it because it will suffer irremediable financial harm and loss of bargaining power in the interim,” Cooper noted. “But NTEU will be able to seek ‘meaningful review,’ as the D.C. Circuit has interpreted it, via the statutory scheme.”
“NTEU appears to suggest that the constitutional challenges it brings are not of the type appropriately resolved under the statutory scheme,” he continued. “But absent any challenge to the very FLRA procedures it wishes to circumvent, NTEU’s constitutional claims do not defeat preclusion.”
“NTEU argues that the firings at issue are so numerous that they will overwhelm the FLRA, thereby foreclosing, or at least forestalling, any meaningful review,” he wrote. “But NTEU provides no reason why it could not seek relief from the FLRA on behalf of a class of plaintiffs and admits that it would ask other agencies to follow an administrative judge’s ruling in its favor.”
“Plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction is denied,” he concluded.

President Trump Signs Executive Orders At Mar-a-Lago In Palm Beach, Florida

Judge Rebuffs Labor Unions’ Effort To Block Trump Laying Off Federal Workers

Courts

Judge

layoffs

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump&#8217;s pick to lead the Department of Labor, told lawmakers on Wednesday that if confirmed she would respect state right-to-work laws after previously backing a bill that would have repealed laws allowing workers to opt out of labor unions. 
Chavez-DeRemer, a former Republican congresswoman from Oregon, told lawmakers in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions multiple times that she would not oppose right-to-work states. This is a reversal from her time in Congress, when she backed the PRO Act, legislation that would have overturned state laws allowing a worker to not be forced to join a union or pay union dues to be employed. 
During the hearing, Chavez-DeRemer indicated to both Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that she would not challenge right-to-work laws. 
When asked by Cassidy whether she still supported the PRO Act, Chavez-DeRemer responded by saying that she recognized she was “no longer a lawmaker,” and would work to implement President Donald Trump’s agenda. 
“I respect the right of the right-to-work states, and I have said that. That bill was imperfect, I understand that, and I am no longer a lawmaker,” she said. 
Later, she more explicitly said she would support the laws of right-to-work states during a back-and-forth with Paul, who had previously said he would not back her nomination. 
“The right to work is a fundamental tenant of labor laws where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right to work state,” she told Paul. “I fully, fairly, and support states who want to protect their right to work. I have said that to every senator I have visited with.” 
“So you no longer support the aspect of the PRO Act that would’ve overturned state right-to-work laws?” Paul asked.  
“Yeah,” she responded. 
“That’s a yes?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, and Paul said that he had “no more questions.” 
When asked after the hearing about whether he would potentially change his vote on her confirmation, Paul said that he would be reexamining her answers. 
“I’m going to think about her answers and think about whether or not a conversion at this last moment is sincere,” he said. 
Chavez-DeRemer was also asked during the hearing about her previous work at Planned Parenthood when she was in her 20s. 
“I am supportive of the president’s agenda. I have a 100% pro-life voting record in Congress and I will continue to support the America First agenda, which we know includes life,” she said when asked by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) whether she was pro-abortion or pro-life.
“Good answer,” he replied. 
Chavez-DeRemer has a “B” rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which notes she did vote to oppose some pro-life measures in Congress, saying that she “publicly opposed passage of bills that would permanently stop taxpayer funding of abortion across the federal government.”
Her confirmation appears to be on track as most of the Republicans on the committee and a few of the Democrats appeared likely to vote to advance her nomination. 
A number of unions, including the International Franchise Association, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation, and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, have also announced support for her nomination.

Chavez-DeRemer Labor Hearing in Washington

Trump Labor Nominee Says She Will Respect State Right-To-Work Laws

Cabinet

Rand Paul

Two government unions representing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) workers sued the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/trump-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump administration</a> on Thursday, alleging that the overhaul of the agency is &#8220;unconstitutional and illegal.&#8221; 
The <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25515264-1complaint-for-declaratory-and-injunctive-relief/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suit</a>, filed by the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees, accuses President Donald Trump of creating a global crisis through his actions to pause certain USAID programs. The suit comes after a post on the agency&#8217;s website on Tuesday <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-placing-almost-all-usaid-employees-on-leave-as-musk-looks-to-cut-agency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that nearly all of its employees would be placed on leave as the administration evaluates how taxpayer dollars are being spent. 
“These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperiled U.S. national security interests,” said the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Trump <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/usaid-to-be-reduced-to-about-290-foreign-service-officers-and-civil-servants/3786112/?os=wtmb5utkcxk5refapp6kovwamr&amp;ref=app" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> plans to reduce staffing levels at the agency from the thousands to the hundreds.
In addition to Trump, the suit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as defendants. It accuses them of separation of powers and administrative procedure act violations. Rubio was named the acting director of USAID on Monday. 
“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization. And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency,” the suit added. 
Under Trump, the State Department ordered a freeze on funding for foreign aid but allowed exceptions for “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” which included support for “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”
Elon Musk and his team at Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” program have been behind much of the efforts to gut USAID. Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/beyond-repair-musk-says-trump-has-given-the-go-ahead-to-get-rid-of-usaid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on Monday that Trump had given him the go-ahead to start shutting down the agency due to its wasteful spending on ideological projects. 
Nearly all USAID employees will be placed on administrative leave starting Friday at 11:59 p.m. and have been asked to return to the U.S. 
Exceptions will be made for “designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs,” according to the administration. 
Rubio <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/XQYd2J3cOps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on Thursday that the U.S. would continue to provide foreign aid but would slash programs that don’t align with the national interest. 
“The goal of our endeavor has always been to identify programs that work and continue them,” he told reporters in the Dominican Republic. “And to identify programs that are not aligned with our national interest, identify those, and address them.” 
Rubio said the administrative leave action was taken because USAID employees had tried to evade transparency. 
&#8220;I&#8217;d have preferred not to do it this way,&#8221; he added. &#8220;When we tried to do it from the top down by getting cooperation from the central office and USAID, what we found instead are people trying to use the system to sneak through payments and push through payments despite the stop order. We found people that were uncooperative in terms of giving us information and access.&#8221;

Capitol Hill

Trump Admin Sued Over Plans To Place Thousands Of USAID Workers On Leave

Marco Rubio

State Department

USAID

Washington D.C.

The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">report</a> confirms the continuation of a decades-long trend: American workers are rejecting union membership in record numbers. For the first time since the BLS began tracking this data in 1983, less than 10% of the workforce belong to a labor union.
This historic decline isn&#8217;t happening by accident — it’s the direct result of workers having the freedom to choose whether their hard-earned dollars fund unions that consistently prioritize political activism over member interests.
The numbers tell a stark story. While overall union membership sits at 9.9%, Big Labor still maintains a stranglehold over public employees, 32.2% of whom are union members.
Of the 14.3 million union members nationwide, half work in government jobs, with teachers unions alone accounting for nearly one-quarter of all union members.  
The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers together report around 3.5 million working members — but even this has declined consistently in recent years, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME striking down laws requiring public employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
In states like Florida, where recent reforms ended government deduction of union dues from public employees’ paychecks, many workers didn’t feel the need to sign up to pay the union directly. The Florida Education Association alone lost <a href="https://www.freedomfoundation.com/labor/florida-teachers-union-loses-20000-members-after-government-stops-collecting-dues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than 20,000 members</a> in just one school year when teachers were given a meaningful choice about whether to fund union activities.
Overall, the percentage of public employees who were union members <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declined</a> from 32.5% in 2023 to 32.2% last year. That’s down from <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/union2_01182019.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34.4% in 2017</a>, the last year before the Supreme Court made union membership voluntary for government workers, despite government growth.
This exodus speaks volumes about the disconnect between union leadership and rank-and-file members.
Across the country, public employees are waking up to the reality that their unions aren’t fighting for their salaries, their benefits or their working conditions. In fact, government unions have morphed from worker advocacy organizations into political machines more interested in advancing progressive causes than representing their members’ interests.
They collect millions in dues from workers’ paychecks, then funnel that money into political campaigns and causes that many of their own members oppose.
My organization, the Freedom Foundation, has seen firsthand how workers respond when they learn the truth about their union’s political spending via its ongoing education campaign to help public employees understand their rights and make informed decisions about union membership.
The results are clear: When workers know they have a choice and understand how their dues are being spent, huge numbers of them choose to opt out.
This trend isn&#8217;t just about numbers — it’s about fundamental fairness and worker empowerment. Public employees shouldn’t be forced to fund political activities they disagree with just to keep their jobs. The dramatic membership declines indicate that when workers are given the freedom to choose, they often decide their unions no longer represent their best interests.
The success of reforms like Florida’s payroll protection law provides a roadmap for other states. When unions can no longer extract dues directly from workers&#8217; paychecks, individual employees are empowered to make their own decisions about union membership.
This isn&#8217;t union-busting — it’s democracy in action.
As union membership continues its historic decline, union executives face a choice — return to their core mission of representing workers&#8217; interests or continue losing members as they prioritize political activism. The numbers suggest they’re choosing the latter, and workers are voting with their wallets.
The path forward is clear. More states should follow Florida’s lead in implementing reforms that protect worker freedom.
Meanwhile, the Freedom Foundation will continue educating public employees about their rights and options. The era of unions treating worker dues as a blank check for political activism is ending — and the latest BLS numbers prove it.
The decline in union membership isn’t just a number — it&#8217;s a wakeup call. Government unions can no longer take their members for granted or assume their political agenda aligns with their members’ wishes.
Workers are speaking clearly through their actions. They want unions that represent their interests, not unions that see them as ATMs for progressive political causes.
* * *
Aaron Withe is the CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a group dedicated to combatting government unions. He is the author of the book &#8220;Freedom is the Foundation: How We Are Defeating Progressive Tyranny By Taking On The Government Unions.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Side view of worker welding airplane wing at night

Government Unions Are Hemorrhaging Members. Here’s Why.

Government Unions Are Hemorrhaging Members. Here's Why.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Education

Federal Government

Florida

Opinion

Teachers Unions

The House&#8217;s oversight commitee on Friday asked the largest union of federal employees to produce documents showing its communications with the Biden administration resulting in union contracts designed to bind President Donald Trump throughout his term.
The letter comes as Trump sent a memo to agency heads aimed at unwinding union contracts that were finalized in the final 30 days of the Biden presidency and setting a policy that such contracts should not be entered into in the final month of any president&#8217;s term.
Reps. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, and Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), its DOGE subcommittee chair, <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AFGE-Contract-Letter-013125.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> the American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley that the panel was investigating the &#8220;use—and abuse—of the federal collective bargaining process.&#8221;
The Department of Education signed a contract locking in telework on January 27, 2025, just three days before Trump took office. Biden Education Department officials signed the contract even though they admitted that the union had hamstrung the Biden administration&#8217;s own desire to bring the workforce back into the office, with COVID years in the past.
&#8220;Nearly all of ED’s 4,245 employees are telework eligible and they only spend 43.4 percent of their working hours in the office. Further, 2,341 ED employees are completely remote, never showing up to the office. When the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to increase the federal workforce’s in-person work, ED struggled to bring its employees back to the office, citing CBA [collective bargaining agreement] negotiations as the &#8216;largest barrier the agency faces to completing execution,'&#8221; the letter, first obtained by The Daily Wire, said.
&#8220;On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order requiring the &#8216;heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch … to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.&#8217; CBAs entered into by the outgoing Administration with AFGE should not undermine President Trump’s ability to bring the federal workforce back to the office to better serve the American people,&#8221; it continued.
The letter demanded that AFGE produce all contracts signed in 2024 or January 2025, and all correspondence with the Biden administration about them.
&#8220;This process was used extensively toward the end of the Biden-Harris Administration to negotiate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) intended primarily, not to manage the workforce under its own watch, but to constrain the ability of President Donald Trump to do so. The Biden-Harris Administration’s CBAs unduly infringe on President Trump’s ability to exercise his broad authority to oversee the federal workforce and ensure the laws of the land are faithfully executed,” Greene said in a statement.
Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/uncategorized/2025/01/limiting-lame-duck-collective-bargaining-agreements-that-improperly-attempt-to-constrain-the-new-president/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a> said &#8220;In the final days of the prior administration’s tenure, it purposefully finalized collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with Federal employees in an effort to harm my Administration by extending its wasteful and failing policies beyond its time in office&#8230; Such last-minute, lame-duck CBAs, which purport to bind a new President to his predecessor’s policies, run counter to America’s system of democratic self-government.&#8221;
&#8220;The Supreme Court has explained that a President &#8216;cannot choose to bind his successors by diminishing their powers,&#8217;” it added. &#8220;To the extent that subordinate agency personnel have executed a CBA that violates the requirements of subsection (a) of this section, but the applicable agency head has not yet approved such agreement pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 7114(c), such agency head shall promptly disapprove such agreement as inconsistent with the requirements of this memorandum.&#8221;
Union contracts were designed as adversarial documents negotiated between management and labor, but there is evidence that in the Biden administration, both sides were representing government employees, with no one defending the interests of taxpayers and recipients of services. They were not willing to run the agencies under the constraints of the contracts, but instead signed them on the way out the door, binding the Trump administration.
Biden&#8217;s Social Security Commissioner, Martin O&#8217;Malley, notoriously signed a five-year contract locking in telework on November 27. The memo from Trump, which he is expected to sign as soon as Friday afternoon, is rumored to cover contracts signed in the last 30 days of a presidency, so it is unclear whether that agreement would be lifted.
The Daily Wire revealed that O&#8217;Malley flew to Florida to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/social-security-head-drank-with-union-members-before-giving-them-telework-through-2029" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drink and party with the Social Security union</a>, then signed the five-year telework contract hours before resigning his job to run for the Democratic National Committee, where the favor to unions could help his chances.
A slew of other agencies signed contracts with AFGE in the waning months of Biden&#8217;s presidency, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/government-union-that-wants-feds-to-work-from-home-brings-staff-back-to-office-to-fight-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a>. For example, on December 18, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signed a five-year contract that says employees can come into the office as little as two days a week. “The employer, in consultation with the union, shall maintain a Telework Program in every EEOC Office… All EEOC positions are eligible for some amount of telework,” it says.
On December 3, 2024, the National Park Services signed a contract with two unions representing Washington, D.C.-based employees that would also, coincidentally, run through the entirety of the Trump administration. One of the unions said to expect “virtually all NPS positions” to be “eligible for telework,” with no requirement to come in more than once a week.
This story has been updated to include details from Trump&#8217;s memo and a link to the House letter.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/government-union-that-wants-feds-to-work-from-home-brings-staff-back-to-office-to-fight-trump">Union That Wants Feds To Work From Home Brings Staff Back To Office To Fight Trump</a>

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)

Biden Signed Union Contract Hours Before Inauguration, And DOGE Wants Answers

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/011325zor_5425.pdf">declined</a> to hear a challenge to New York’s “Taylor Law,” which gives unions monopoly bargaining privileges in the public sector. At best, the Court missed an opportunity to protect the First Amendment; at worst, the Court endorsed Marxism.
We are Jewish academics who have been forced to accept the “exclusive representation” of unions that we consider anti-Semitic. One of us, a professor at the City University of New York, <a href="https://www.nrtw.org/goldstein/">brought the eponymous challenge</a>, Goldstein v. Professional Staff Congress/CUNY. The other, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, similarly <a href="https://www.nrtw.org/news/jewish-mit-students-eeoc-03212024/">filed federal charges</a> against the MIT Graduate Student Union. Both unions engage in the anti-Israel “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement (BDS), which we vehemently oppose.
At CUNY, the faculty union in 2021 <a href="https://2022.psc-cuny.org/sites/default/files/Final_Resolution_in_Support_of_the_Palestinian_People.pdf">condemned Israel</a> “dating back to its establishment as a settler colonial state in 1948.” At MIT, the graduate student union in 2024 <a href="https://mitgsu.org/resolutions/ceasefire">called for</a> “an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” without mentioning Hamas or the hostages they still hold. The resolutions compare Israel to apartheid South Africa — ironic, given that the unions treat objectors like us as second-class citizens without voting privileges.
One need not share our opposition to BDS to see that these unions cannot represent us at the bargaining table. Yet that is exactly what is happening. Had the Supreme Court taken up Goldstein, the Justices could have struck down the Taylor Law on the grounds that it violates employees’ freedom of speech and association. Instead, the Court let stand the Second Circuit&#8217;s <a href="https://www.fairnesscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Second-Circuit-Goldstein-v.-PSC-Decision.pdf">ruling</a> that “Designating PSC as Plaintiffs’ exclusive bargaining representative does not impermissibly burden Plaintiffs’ ability to speak with, associate with, or not associate with whom they please, including CUNY and PSC.” In other words, it is permissible to subordinate individual rights to collective interests — classic Marxism.
The Supreme Court knew this when it declined to take the case. An <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-71/323009/20240821101037349_240806a%20AC%20Brief%20for%20efiling.pdf">amicus brief</a> supporting the petitioners, filed by the Upper Midwest Law Center and the Manhattan Institute, cites the MIT Graduate Student Union as an example of the problem: “Jewish students are being compelled to associate with and implicitly endorse these views despite their most sincere religious beliefs, so they filed discrimination charges with the EEOC.”
The outcome of those charges was that religious students at private universities could divert their union dues to charity, but they would still be subject to exclusive representation. Public employees, including CUNY professors, already have the right to opt out of union dues under Janus v. AFSCME, but they too remain subject to exclusive representation by a union they abhor. While the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recognized</a> in Janus that “Designating a union as the employees’ exclusive representative substantially restricts the rights of individual employees,” the validity of exclusive representation was not squarely before the Court — until Goldstein, which the Justices declined to hear.
The result has been predictable. Ten days after the Court denied the petition, the CUNY faculty union adopted a <a href="https://psc-cuny.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/PSC-and-NYCERS-Israeli-Investments-Divestment-Resolution-1-23-25.pdf">resolution</a> “expressing its support for complete disinvestment from Israel,” further resolving to “divest its own funds from any investment vehicle that includes in its portfolio stocks and bonds of Israeli companies and Israeli government bonds.” In response, a Jewish civil rights organization <a href="https://x.com/_SAFECAMPUS/status/1884323681675141318">filed a complaint</a> with the New York State Division of Human Rights, arguing that the union “has abandoned their sacrosanct Duty of Fair Representation.” Under Janus, “That duty is a necessary concomitant of the authority that a union seeks when it chooses to serve as the exclusive representative of all the employees in a unit.”
There is another way. New York and other states could amend their labor laws to give employees the right to opt out of union representation. Unions could thus continue to engage in BDS, but not on behalf of those who oppose it. Additionally, the states could adopt laws that give private employees the right to work without paying compulsory dues to unions that they oppose. Twenty-six states already have such a law, which Congress could extend to all fifty states by passing the National Right to Work Act.
The Soviet Union put up a physical wall to keep people in; New York’s labor law puts up a legal one. If unions are as good as they claim to be, they should not need to compel representation or financial support. To borrow a phrase: Governor Hochul, tear down this wall!
* * *
<a href="https://x.com/AvrahamGoldste3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Avraham Goldstein</a> is an assistant professor of mathematics at the City University of New York.
<a href="https://x.com/WillSussmanPhD/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Will Sussman</a> is a collegiate associate at the Manhattan Institute and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

CUNY Students Hold Rally In Support Of Palestine

Did The Supreme Court Just Endorse Marxism?

Anti-Semitism

City University of New York (CUNY)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

New York

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

A woman who served as an official in Joe Biden&#8217;s White House and on Kamala Harris&#8217;s transition team, whom bureaucrats tried to hide in the Department of Labor&#8217;s non-political workforce after the election, has been terminated after The Daily Wire exposed her scheme.
“Elizabeth Peña was terminated, effective today. The Administration is actively working to ensure no other political operatives from the Biden-Harris administration were secretly burrowed into the government,” an individual with direct knowledge of staffing decisions told The Daily Wire.
The firing suggests the Trump team is hitting the ground running with attention to detail when it comes to the federal workforce, prepared to detect and respond to tricks and evasion that at times thwarted the president&#8217;s administration in his first term.
There are strict rules around political appointees converting to career employees to stay in the government after their president&#8217;s term ends, designed to prevent the subversion of the new administration. Conversions must be approved by the Office of Personnel Management and reported to Congress.
But between the election and Inauguration Day, the Biden Department of Labor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-biden-admin-uses-loophole-to-put-kamala-transition-aide-in-trump-workforce">skirted that process</a> by creating a three-year position and appointing Peña to it, The Daily Wire revealed on January 15. It contended that because it wasn&#8217;t a permanent position, the rules didn&#8217;t apply, even though that would place her in the workforce for the majority of Trump&#8217;s term.
Peña had been a Biden political appointee to the Labor Department before leaving to work for the Harris transition team, which would have positioned her for a top political slot had Harris won the presidency. Instead, she was left unemployed — but in between Harris&#8217; election loss and Trump&#8217;s inauguration, the Labor Department tried to sneak her into a non-political role.
The maneuver was especially jarring because Peña&#8217;s whole career involved strategically placing political operatives into roles. According to her LinkedIn, she previously worked for the Biden White House&#8217;s Presidential Personnel Office, the nerve center for recruiting and dispatching political operatives across the government. Before that, she worked for the Joe Biden presidential transition team, which prepares lists of political operatives to install in key roles to take over the government.
Prior to that, she worked for Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, where she “authored over 500 vetting reports analyzing employees.”
Democrats maintain that Trump&#8217;s concern that a &#8220;deep state&#8221; has attempted to subvert him is a conspiracy theory, but the move only seemed to corroborate those suspicions.
In a LinkedIn post announcing her new position on January 15, Peña said she planned to use her new job working for Trump&#8217;s Labor Department to promote “equity,” a left-wing policy opposed by the incoming president.
“I’m thrilled to announce that I have returned to the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) as an International Relations Officer! This new role marks a continuation of my journey to protect and promote labor rights globally. Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working on issues that matter deeply to me and at ILAB, I look forward to collaborating with partners at home and abroad to uphold the principles of dignity, equity, and justice in the workplace,” she wrote.
The Biden administration also lauded Peña as a DEI hire, quoting her on its website that &#8220;My Latina/Hispanic identity shapes my work by providing me with the core values that are embedded in me, like a strong work ethic, compassion, and resilience.&#8221;
Although the now-aborted &#8220;non-political&#8221; job had an end date in three years, it carried a salary of up to $153,354, and a Labor Department spokesperson under the Biden administration said she would be able to apply for a permanent job then.
He declined to say whether the job was created especially for her, but a Daily Wire review of job listings found that hers was the only position of its type to use a &#8220;term&#8221; rather than permanent status, and a similar job with the permanent status was canceled the same month the term job was advertised.
In a post to LinkedIn after publication of this article, Peña confirmed that she was terminated and blamed coverage in The Daily Wire.
&#8220;Yesterday, I was terminated from my position at the Department of Labor,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;This decision appears to have been influenced by an article published in a conservative outlet, which alleged that I had &#8216;burrowed&#8217; into the position. The article insinuated that the role was simply handed to me. Let me be clear: nothing in my life has ever been handed to me.&#8221;
&#8220;I am both surprised and, in some ways, flattered that my work would draw such attention and concern from the current administration,&#8221; the post said.
Peña also said that she didn&#8217;t believe she was hired due to DEI, but &#8220;would take pride&#8221; in it if that was the case.
&#8220;The article also misrepresented comments I previously made about my identity as a Latina during Hispanic heritage month, claiming I was a &#8216;diversity, equity, and inclusion&#8217; hire. This statement was taken out of context. But even if I had been hired as part of DEI efforts, I would take pride in that,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;While this chapter may have closed, it only strengthens my resolve to continue advocating for a brighter, more inclusive future for this country.&#8221; 
There are signs that the vigilance over Peña may also be present when it comes to enforcing Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-to-put-all-federal-dei-officials-on-leave-by-end-of-day-tomorrow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order abolishing DEI roles</a>, where bureaucrats may try to change or obscure their titles to avoid the axe.
A memo sent to all employees of most federal agencies on Wednesday said DEI positions would abolished because they &#8220;divide Americans by race, waste taxpayer dollars, and result in shameful discrimination,&#8221; and also that &#8220;We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.&#8221;
It said employees with knowledge of such maneuvers had 10 days to come forward without facing repercussions.
This piece was updated on Friday, January 24 with additional comment from Peña.

Elizabeth Peña with Joe Biden / LinkedIn

Labor Department Fires Kamala Aide Exposed By The Daily Wire For ‘Burrowing’ In Trump Workforce

Deep State

Joe Biden

Four lawsuits were filed in D.C. federal court on Monday challenging the Department of Government Efficiency.
The American Federation of Government Employees, along with two left-wing nonprofits, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276598/gov.uscourts.dcd.276598.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> President Donald Trump and the Office of Management and Budget. 
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.
Donald Trump has tasked DOGE, led by Elon Musk, with “partnering with the White House and Office of Management &amp; Budget to drive large scale structural reform.”
<a href="https://store.dailywire.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqndn5W5hXuxOh4Dnzj3NrHSVayyLGsEShWj2n2EVNnohFOnXKd"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-861893 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/image.png" alt="" width="1024" height="391" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/image.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/image-300x115.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/image-768x293.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Also on Monday, the American Federation of Teachers joined the American Public Health Association and four other liberal groups filed a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276601/gov.uscourts.dcd.276601.1.0.pdf">similar lawsuit</a>.
“DOGE does not currently have an individual who will speak on behalf of government workers and their interests,” the suit said. Teachers are employed by local governments, not the federal government, but the AFT has used union dues to pursue a general leftist agenda.
The suit said “FACA requires that any advisory committee, including DOGE, be ‘fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.’ … DOGE’s stacked membership, far from being fairly balanced, reveals that only one viewpoint is represented: that of ‘small-government crusaders.’”
It described cost savings to taxpayers as a “hefty price tag for the American people,” saying it has “a goal of slashing between $500 billion and $2 trillion in federal spending.”
It also challenged secrecy, saying “DOGE’s use of Signal threatens to irreparably deprive Plaintiffs and the American public of records to which they are entitled under FACA.”
In a third lawsuit, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276600/gov.uscourts.dcd.276600.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Security Counselors, Inc.</a>, which says it “has represented federal employees,” sued DOGE and OMB. It cites media coverage to argue that DOGE is an “advisory committee” and names Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who it says largely make up the entity. 
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl=1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl=1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA.." data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-23795">CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT</a>
“Not a single member of DOGE has experience working on matters of national security or representing people who do,” it says. It said Jerald Lentini, a lawyer for a union and the security counselors group, applied for a job at DOGE but never heard back.
His job application said he was “deeply concerned that the D.O.G.E. may be bereft of staff—and leadership—who understand and prioritize the considerations of the civil servant&#8230; As a proud member of AFSCME Local 2663, I hope to ensure that these workers’ livelihoods are not capriciously upended by those whose expertise and sympathies lie elsewhere.”
The <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276599/gov.uscourts.dcd.276599.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Center for Biological Diversity</a> sued OMB, saying Biden’s OMB had failed to fulfill a FOIA request for the Trump transition materials about DOGE, and that it has an interest since DOGE could advocate for removing regulations that it says could protect wildlife.
Federal unions, which are invested in keeping the paychecks to government employees flowing, have tried to block Trump&#8217;s reforms, make it difficult to fire poor performers, and prevent the president from requiring employees to stop working from home.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/government-union-that-wants-feds-to-work-from-home-brings-staff-back-to-office-to-fight-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Union That Wants Feds To Work From Home Brings Staff Back To Office To Fight Trump</a>

Unions Sue DOGE, Calling It ‘Unbalanced’ For Excluding Opponents Of Efficiency

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