Latest news with #federalworkers
The Independent
7 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Judge grants preliminary injunction to protect collective bargaining agreement for TSA workers
A federal judge on Monday granted a preliminary injunction to stop Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from killing a collective bargaining agreement for Transportation Safety Administration workers. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle said in her order that an injunction is needed to preserve the rights and benefits that TSA workers have enjoyed for years while being represented by the American Federation of Government Employees. In their lawsuit, Pechman said, the union has shown that Noem's directive to end the agreement 'constitutes impermissible retaliation against it for its unwillingness to acquiesce to the Trump Administration's assault on federal workers.' It also likely violated due process and AFGE is likely to succeed in showing that Noem's decision was 'arbitrary and capricious," she added. 'Today's court decision is a crucial victory for federal workers and the rule of law,' AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a release. 'The preliminary injunction underscores the unconstitutional nature of DHS's attack on TSA officers' First Amendment rights. We remain committed to ensuring our members' rights and dignity are protected, and we will not back down from defending our members' rights against unlawful union busting.' Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kipnis declined to comment on the judge's ruling, according to Emily Langlie, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office. AFGE had entered into a new, seven-year collective bargaining agreement with agency last May, but Noem issued a memo Feb. 27 rescinding that agreement. One week later, TSA informed the union about Noem's directive, saying the contract was terminated and all pending grievances would be deleted. AFGE filed a lawsuit against Noem, claiming the move was retaliation against the union for pushing back against the Trump administration's attacks on federal workers. AFGE had filed a separate lawsuit Feb. 19 against the Office of Personnel Management to stop the firing of probationary workers. A judge issued a temporary restraining order Feb. 27 stopping the firings — the same day Noem issued her memo. Abigail Carter, representing AFGE during oral arguments before Pechman on May 27, said Noem's move was retaliation and a violation of the union's First Amendment right to protected speech and its Fifth Amendment right to due process. 'The administration has made it clear that if you don't disagree with it politically, you and your members can keep your rights, but if you do disagree, you lose them,' Carter said. She also argued that the collective bargaining agreement was necessary because TSA workers are not covered under the federal labor-management code. The agreement protects them from dangerous working conditions and unreasonable hours. Kipnis denied the retaliation claim and said it was simply a difference in management styles. Pechman questioned that contention. Not all unions are banned by the administration, Pechman said, only the ones oppose the administration. 'Isn't this a pattern that you see?' Pechman asked Kipnis. 'Attorneys who take opposition stances get banned. Those who don't, don't have those restrictions. Isn't this the pattern that the White House has set up?" Kipnis said tension between unions and management are common and this conflict doesn't signal a violation of the workers' First Amendment rights, but instead reflects a confrontational relationship. But Pechman wasn't convinced. Previous TSA managers have found unions to be beneficial and renewed their contracts for years, she said. They found they made a happier workforce, and 'they wanted their employees to feel that they were well-treated,' she said. What has changed is this administration's attitude, she said. To that, Kipnis replied: 'Or you could characterize it as a different management style. The former administration apparently saw that as a better way to do business. ... But this administration sees a different way of doing business. And the same statute affords them the same amount of discretion.' Pechman said she understood that the administration has the right to exercise that discretion, 'but to abruptly cancel doesn't seem well reasoned, so I'm having trouble with that." She also noted, "But why the United States gets to back out of contracts that it's made is harder to accept.' In Monday's order, Pechman said TSA workers would suffer 'irreparable harm' without the injunction, noting that if they lose their collective bargaining agreement, they will lose the benefits it provides. 'While the loss of money alone does not show irreparable harm, the total harms here are more than monetary,' Pechman said. 'They include the loss of substantive employment protections, avenues of grievance and arbitration, and the right to have a workforce that can unite to demand benefits that might not be obtainable through individual negotiation.'
Associated Press
8 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Judge grants preliminary injunction to protect collective bargaining agreement for TSA workers
SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge on Monday granted a preliminary injunction to stop Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from killing a collective bargaining agreement for Transportation Safety Administration workers. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle said in her order that an injunction is needed to preserve the rights and benefits that TSA workers have enjoyed for years while being represented by the American Federation of Government Employees. In their lawsuit, Pechman said, the union has shown that Noem's directive to end the agreement 'constitutes impermissible retaliation against it for its unwillingness to acquiesce to the Trump Administration's assault on federal workers.' It also likely violated due process and AFGE is likely to succeed in showing that Noem's decision was 'arbitrary and capricious,' she added. 'Today's court decision is a crucial victory for federal workers and the rule of law,' AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a release. 'The preliminary injunction underscores the unconstitutional nature of DHS's attack on TSA officers' First Amendment rights. We remain committed to ensuring our members' rights and dignity are protected, and we will not back down from defending our members' rights against unlawful union busting.' Messages left for Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kipnis seeking comment were not immediately returned. AFGE had entered into a new, seven-year collective bargaining agreement with agency last May, but Noem issued a memo Feb. 27 rescinding that agreement. One week later, TSA informed the union about Noem's directive, saying the contract was terminated and all pending grievances would be deleted. AFGE filed a lawsuit against Noem, claiming the move was retaliation against the union for pushing back against the Trump administration's attacks on federal workers. AFGE had filed a separate lawsuit Feb. 19 against the Office of Personnel Management to stop the firing of probationary workers. A judge issued a temporary restraining order Feb. 27 stopping the firings — the same day Noem issued her memo. Abigail Carter, representing AFGE during oral arguments before Pechman on May 27, said Noem's move was retaliation and a violation of the union's First Amendment right to protected speech and its Fifth Amendment right to due process. 'The administration has made it clear that if you don't disagree with it politically, you and your members can keep your rights, but if you do disagree, you lose them,' Carter said. She also argued that the collective bargaining agreement was necessary because TSA workers are not covered under the federal labor-management code. The agreement protects them from dangerous working conditions and unreasonable hours. Kipnis denied the retaliation claim and said it was simply a difference in management styles. Pechman questioned that contention. Not all unions are banned by the administration, Pechman said, only the ones oppose the administration. 'Isn't this a pattern that you see?' Pechman asked Kipnis. 'Attorneys who take opposition stances get banned. Those who don't, don't have those restrictions. Isn't this the pattern that the White House has set up?' Kipnis said tension between unions and management are common and this conflict doesn't signal a violation of the workers' First Amendment rights, but instead reflects a confrontational relationship. But Pechman wasn't convinced. Previous TSA managers have found unions to be beneficial and renewed their contracts for years, she said. They found they made a happier workforce, and 'they wanted their employees to feel that they were well-treated,' she said. What has changed is this administration's attitude, she said. To that, Kipnis replied: 'Or you could characterize it as a different management style. The former administration apparently saw that as a better way to do business. ... But this administration sees a different way of doing business. And the same statute affords them the same amount of discretion.' Pechman said she understood that the administration has the right to exercise that discretion, 'but to abruptly cancel doesn't seem well reasoned, so I'm having trouble with that.' She also noted, 'But why the United States gets to back out of contracts that it's made is harder to accept.' In Monday's order, Pechman said TSA workers would suffer 'irreparable harm' without the injunction, noting that if they lose their collective bargaining agreement, they will lose the benefits it provides. 'While the loss of money alone does not show irreparable harm, the total harms here are more than monetary,' Pechman said. 'They include the loss of substantive employment protections, avenues of grievance and arbitration, and the right to have a workforce that can unite to demand benefits that might not be obtainable through individual negotiation.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's Reign of Terror Is Only Just Beginning
Here's what purports to be the big story out of the White House today: 'Elon's really not leaving. He's gonna be back and forth.' It's tempting to treat that statement, which was made by President Donald Trump at a press conference intended to mark Elon Musk's departure from government, as news. It certainly flies in the face of several news reports about the tech billionaire stepping away from the so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency'—his pet cost-cutting and people-killing project—as some kind of retreat. Musk had, after all, come to Washington, D.C., on a mission to remake the federal government in his own image. So, after slashing the foreign aid that helps ensure that children around the world aren't born with HIV and firing thousands of federal workers—and destroying his own public image, likely permanently—Musk had come to the end of the road. He could only do so much, after all. His companies needed him, don't you know. And so, he decided to pack his bags (which were apparently full of drugs) and return to doing whatever it was he did before he spent his days hopping around like an idiot and posting online about 'white genocide.' (Those same drugs, I'm guessing.) It's convenient framing for everyone. For the press, it tells a story about Musk, who did a lot of consequential things but ultimately failed to come remotely close to his stated goal of cutting $1 trillion from the budget by August. (The actual number is debatable, but it's unquestionably much, much lower.) For Republicans, it's an opportunity for a victory lap, celebrating Musk as a visionary who really did change the shape of the government (in that he helped destroy it; Russell Vought will now likely take the baton), while quietly ridding themselves of an albatross. For Democrats, it's an opportunity to claim a scalp and draw attention to a fissure in Trump's coalition. There's only one tiny problem with the emerging narrative: It's bunk. Elon's really not leaving. Trump himself said so. It isn't just Trump, though. Vice President JD Vance has said more or less the same thing. So has Musk. The real reason that he's 'leaving' (or 'quiet quitting') is that he has spent the last four months as a 'special government employee,' a distinction with a 130-day time limit. Were he to continue working in the same capacity, he would be required by federal law to fill out certain financial and ethical disclosures that he is currently exempted from as an SGE. Given his vast fortune (and lack of ethics), Musk does not want to do this and therefore has no choice but to 'step back.' It's undoubtedly true that he has taken more of a backseat in recent weeks, particularly as his popularity has plummeted, but there's no reason to believe that he's cutting all ties with Trump. DOGE, meanwhile, is very much still ticking. Musk is, as Trump said, just 'gonna be back and forth.' What's the worst thing that the Trump administration has done in the last four months? One could reasonably point to immigration, where masked ICE officers are ambushing people at immigration hearings, foreign students are threatened with deportation for expressing reasonable opinions, and migrants—many of whom have committed no crimes—are being disappeared to foreign gulags. To accomplish this, the administration is all but openly defying several court orders and is barreling toward a confrontation with the Supreme Court, and from there, an inevitable constitutional crisis. At the same time, Donald Trump is openly using the presidency to enrich himself and his family—his net worth has doubled—and is now unquestionably the most corrupt politician in American history. The decimation of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, is up there, though. People around the world are starving now because of Musk's cuts. They are dying of disease because of Musk's cuts. They are being born with diseases they will carry with them for the rest of their lives because of Musk's cuts. Brown University professor Brooke Nichols has estimated that Musk's destruction of USAID has already led to 300,000 deaths, the majority of which are children. As The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper noted in his excellent piece on Musk's legacy, 'Roughly 1,500 babies have been born HIV-positive every day since January 21, because Musk cut off their mothers' medication.' On a more local level, Musk's legacy is of extraconstitutional destruction, an irreversible government brain drain, and a spree of massive corruption the scale of which is still unknown: We do not know, for instance, just how much data Musk's gang of pimple-faced coders stole while they were ransacking federal departments or how much of that data related to Musk's businesses. The full scale of his cuts to, say, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service are still not fully clear, but they will register every time there is a tornado, a hurricane, or extreme weather of any kind. So the idea that Musk's time in Washington is over is an obvious farce. To promulgate this notion is to be either ignorant or nefarious: That narrative goes a long way toward letting Musk and Trump off the hook for a multitude of casualties—those already in the ledger and those to be counted later. It suggests that his reign of terror was actually ineffectual when, in fact, it was massively successful; Trump and Musk destroyed that which they'd planned to all along. Most crucially, it suggests that reign of terror has ended. It hasn't. The destruction that Musk set in motion remains running in the background as an ambient menace to our safety and livelihoods. Musk's legacy is still being written, and his culpability is still accumulating. He will do more damage soon, perhaps tomorrow, even though he's already done more than enough.
Free Malaysia Today
3 days ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
US court refuses to lift block on Trump's government overhaul
Donald Trump directed government agencies to identify targets for mass layoffs in February. (AP pic) WASHINGTON : A US appeals court today refused to allow president Donald Trump's administration to carry out mass layoffs of federal workers and a restructuring of agencies, leaving a lower court order in place that blocked the sweeping government overhaul. The decision by the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals means that, for now, the Trump administration cannot proceed with plans to shed tens of thousands of federal jobs and shutter many government offices and programs. US district judge Susan Illston in San Francisco on May 22 blocked large-scale layoffs at about 20 federal agencies, agreeing with a group of unions, non-profits and municipalities that the president may only restructure agencies when authorised by Congress. A ninth circuit three-judge panel today, in a 2-1 ruling, denied the Trump administration's bid to stay Illston's decision pending an appeal, which could take months to resolve. The administration will likely now ask the US Supreme Court to pause the ruling. 'The Trump administration will immediately fight back against this absurd order,' the White House said in a statement. 'A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the executive branch.' A coalition of plaintiffs praised the ruling: 'The ninth circuit's decision today rightfully maintains the block on the Trump-Vance administration's unlawful, disruptive, and destructive reorganisation of the federal government.' The appeals court said the administration had not provided any evidence it would suffer an irreparable injury if the lower court order remained in place and said plaintiffs were likely to prevail. 'The executive order at issue here far exceeds the president's supervisory powers under the constitution,' said the majority opinion from judge William Fletcher, who was appointed by Democratic president Bill Clinton. He was joined by judge Lucy Koh, who was appointed by Democratic president Joe Biden. Judge Consuelo Callahan, who was appointed by Republican president George W Bush, dissented, saying the administration was likely to succeed on appeal and had suffered irreparable harm from having its policy blocked. Government overhaul Illston's ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul that was spearheaded by Trump ally Elon Musk, the world's richest person and CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla. Along with blocking layoffs, Illston barred the department of government efficiency (DOGE) from ordering job cuts or reorganisation at federal agencies. Dozens of lawsuits have challenged DOGE's work on various grounds, including claims that it violated labour and privacy laws and exceeded its authority, with mixed results. Two judges had separately ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary employees, who are typically newer hires and were fired en masse in February, but appeals courts paused those rulings. Musk joined a farewell event in the Oval Office with Trump yesterday, marking the end of his active involvement with the administration. Trump in February also directed government agencies to work with DOGE to identify targets for mass layoffs as part of the administration's restructuring plans. The Republican president urged agencies to eliminate duplicative roles, unnecessary management layers and non-critical jobs, while automating routine tasks, closing regional offices and reducing the use of outside contractors. Most federal agencies have announced plans to lay off large numbers of workers, including 10,000 staffers at health agencies. In today's case, the unions and groups that sued said only congress has the authority to create agencies, shape their missions and decide their funding levels, and that large-scale layoffs undermine that power. Illston, also an appointee of Clinton, had said in her ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to suffer a range of irreparable harms if the layoffs were implemented. She said, for example, that a US department of labour office in Pittsburgh that researches health hazards facing mineworkers would lose all but one of its 222 employees. Illston gave similar examples at local offices of Head Start, which supports early learning, the farm service agency and the social security administration.
Malay Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Malay Mail
US court blocks Trump's mass layoffs and agency restructuring plans, White House likely to appeal to Supreme Court
Appeals court denies White House bid to stay May 22 decision Ruling prevents Trump administration from shedding jobs, shuttering offices White House likely to ask Supreme Court to pause May ruling WASHINGTON, May 31 — A US appeals court yesterday refused to allow President Donald Trump's administration to carry out mass layoffs of federal workers and a restructuring of agencies, leaving a lower court order in place that blocked the sweeping government overhaul. The decision by the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals means that, for now, the Trump administration cannot proceed with plans to shed tens of thousands of federal jobs and shutter many government offices and programmes. US District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco on May 22 blocked large-scale layoffs at about 20 federal agencies, agreeing with a group of unions, nonprofits and municipalities that the president may only restructure agencies when authorised by Congress. A 9th Circuit three-judge panel yesterday, in a 2-1 ruling, denied the Trump administration's bid to stay Illston's decision pending an appeal, which could take months to resolve. The administration will likely now ask the US Supreme Court to pause the ruling. 'The Trump administration will immediately fight back against this absurd order,' the White House said in a statement. 'A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch.' A coalition of plaintiffs praised the ruling: 'The Ninth Circuit's decision today rightfully maintains the block on the Trump-Vance administration's unlawful, disruptive, and destructive reorganisation of the federal government.' The appeals court said the administration had not provided any evidence it would suffer an irreparable injury if the lower court order remained in place and said plaintiffs were likely to prevail. 'The executive order at issue here far exceeds the president's supervisory powers under the Constitution,' said the majority opinion from Judge William Fletcher, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton. He was joined by Judge Lucy Koh, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden. Judge Consuelo Callahan, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, dissented, saying the administration was likely to succeed on appeal and had suffered irreparable harm from having its policy blocked. Government overhaul Illston's ruling was the broadest of its kind against the government overhaul that was spearheaded by Trump ally Elon Musk, the world's richest person and CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla. Along with blocking layoffs, Illston barred the Department of Government Efficiency from ordering job cuts or reorganisation at federal agencies. Dozens of lawsuits have challenged DOGE's work on various grounds, including claims that it violated labor and privacy laws and exceeded its authority, with mixed results. Two judges had separately ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary employees, who are typically newer hires and were fired en masse in February, but appeals courts paused those rulings. Musk joined a farewell event in the Oval Office with Trump yesterday, marking the end of his active involvement with the administration. Trump in February also directed government agencies to work with DOGE to identify targets for mass layoffs as part of the administration's restructuring plans. The Republican president urged agencies to eliminate duplicative roles, unnecessary management layers and non-critical jobs, while automating routine tasks, closing regional offices and reducing the use of outside contractors. Most federal agencies have announced plans to lay off large numbers of workers, including 10,000 staffers at health agencies. In yesterday's case, the unions and groups that sued said only Congress has the authority to create agencies, shape their missions and decide their funding levels, and that large-scale layoffs undermine that power. Illston, also an appointee of Clinton, had said in her ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to suffer a range of irreparable harms if the layoffs were implemented. She said, for example, that a US Department of Labor office in Pittsburgh that researches health hazards facing mineworkers would lose all but one of its 222 employees. Illston gave similar examples at local offices of Head Start, which supports early learning, the Farm Service Agency and the Social Security Administration. — Reuters
