Worker Policy Watch
Your source for accurate and reliable information on how federal policies are shaping workers’ rights—and what’s at stake for working people nationwide under the Trump administration.
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U.S. EEOC Will Meet to Rescind Workplace Harassment Guidance
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will meet on January 22 to consider the rescission of its guidance on workplace harassment. The Harassment Guidance is a critically important resource that helps ensure all workers can work safely and with dignity. Between FY 2016 and 2023, more than 1 in 3 discrimination charges received by the EEOC included an allegation of harassment based on race, gender, or other characteristics. The guidance was issued in 2024 following a notice and comment period, during which the EEOC received more than 38,000 comments.
Impact: The document provides much-needed updated guidance for the first time in nearly a quarter century. It reflects notable developments in the law and provides more than 70 examples of how the law applies to different factual scenarios, including harassment of survivors of gender-based violence, Black people and other people of color, teenagers, individuals with disabilities, immigrants, pregnant workers, and harassment of people online. Rescinding the Harassment Guidance will not alter workers’ rights under federal anti-discrimination laws, but getting rid of this resource will create confusion and make it harder for workers to enforce their right to be free from harassment in the workplace and for employers to understand their obligations.
In Power Grab, EEOC Rescinds Voting Procedures
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas and Commissioner Brittany Panuccio voted to rescind the commission’s voting procedures. These procedures formalized longstanding agency practice, like document circulation timelines and the right of any commissioner to agenda a public meeting before a commission vote could take place. Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal voted no, and her motions to delay the rescission or replace it with a temporary suspension were not agreed to.
Impact: This is the latest step in Lucas’s effort to reshape the EEOC from the bipartisan commission envisioned by Congress to an agency that carries out President Trump’s political agenda. Lucas has indicated that she plans to undermine civil rights protections by rolling back longstanding regulations and guidance, including the workplace harassment guidance, the EEO-1 data collection, guidance and regulations prohibiting unjustified discriminatory effects (disparate impact discrimination), and more. Centralizing her authority and removing opportunities for dissent and transparency are a step toward that goal. These changes harm all workers, particularly Black workers and other workers of color, women workers, LGBTQ workers, and workers with disabilities.
DOL Recovers $259 Million in Back Wages Despite Lower Overall Enforcement Efforts
An analysis of 2025 data shows the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered $259 million in back pay while at the same time closing fewer cases against employers compared to the previous year.
Impact:
According to Wage and Hour compliance action data, DOL is concluding fewer compliance actions than it did in fiscal year 2024. The Trump administration's cuts to the federal workforce as well as a deregulatory policy agenda likely contributed to the reduction of enforcement actions, and many of the penalties recovered were originally levied under the Biden administration.
Judge Rules Trump Administration Must Share Federal Worker Reduction of Force Plans
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Trump administration cannot conceal internal reduction of force plans from federal worker unions challenging them in court.
Impact:
Unions represented federal workers have argued they must be able to view plans from the Trump administration for reductions in force in order to pursue legal challenges to mass-layoffs across different federal agencies. The case is in response to Trump's Executive Order 14210, which instructed agency heads to prepare for large-scale reductions in force.
DOL Allocates $98 Million To Expand Youth Pre-Apprenticeship Programs
The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) offers $98 million in grant funding for projects that support academic instruction, occupational skills training, and job placement services with an emphasis on creating pathways to registered apprenticeships for youth ages 16-24.
Impact:
The funding will be offered through the YouthBuild program, and is targeted to support individuals 16-24 that are not currently employed or enrolled in school.
U.S. Department of Transportation Makes Renewed Deferred Resignation Offer to Employees
The U.S. Department of Transportation renewed its efforts to reduce its workforce through deferred resignation. This initiative targeted workers in the agency’s Office of Civil Rights and the Maritime Administration.
Impact:
The civil rights office enforces federal employment civil rights laws internally across the department, and externally for beneficiaries of the agency’s financial assistance. As part of a broader trend of degrading civil rights enforcement across the federal government, targeting this office for deferred resignations will likely lead to lower capacity to address instances of employment discrimination in these areas.
Trump Administration Attempts Again to Dissolve TSA Workers’ Union Contract
For a second time, the Trump administration moved to unilaterally cancel the 2024 collective bargaining agreement between the Transportation Security Administration and its baggage screening workers. The administration’s first attempt to do so earlier this year was blocked by a federal judge.
Impact:
The agency hasn’t appealed the preliminary injunction issued by Senior U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of the Western District of Washington. Instead, it is claiming a national security exemption. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents the workers, said that the union “will continue to challenge these illegal attacks on our members’ right to belong to a union” and noted that weeks earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had been praising the dedication of TSA workers who had continued to work unpaid while the government was shut down.
U.S. DOL To Consider Black Lung Protection Rollback
The U.S. Department of Labor informed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Secretary of Labor intends to reconsider portions of the Silica Rule. The rule reduced exposure limits for miners to airborne silica — crystals that can reach deep into the lungs when inhaled — to 50 micrograms. The rule also called on companies to conduct more testing for silica in all types of mines and expand medical surveillance programs that are available to coal miners.
Impact: The DOL had estimated the rule would prevent more than 1,000 deaths and 3,700 cases of black lung. Mine workers are contracting black lung at younger ages, and the DOL found that disease occurs at exponentially higher rates in regions like Appalachia where intensive coal mining has been practiced for decades.
Trump Nominates Carter Crow to be EEOC General Counsel
President Trump nominated Carter Crow to be General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Crow is a Houston-based attorney whose career has focused on representing corporations in employment cases, with an emphasis on wage and hour claims. In a recent interview, Crow stated that he is “strongly supportive of all of the priorities” of EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas.
Impact: The EEOC general counsel plays a critical role in enforcing our federal civil rights laws in the workplace. EEOC Chair Lucas and Commissioner Panuccio have made it clear that they see President Trump, not the law, as their highest authority. They have followed Trump's lead in targeting LGBTQ workers, immigrant workers, and more. If confirmed, Carter Crow must follow the law and the agency’s mission, not Trump, Lucas, and Panuccio. The Senate must scrutinize Crow’s record and hold him accountable to that responsibility.
Federal Judge Indefinitely Blocks Mass Layoffs of Federal Workers During Shutdown
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who had issued the emergency order to block the Trump administration from issuing new layoff notices or implementing layoff notices during the government shutdown, indefinitely barred the Trump administration from doing so by issuing a temporary restraining order.
Impact:
Federal agencies are enjoined from issuing layoff notices or acting on notices issued since the government shut down Oct. 1.