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.
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.
Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Mass Layoffs of Federal Workers During Shutdown
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the emergency order to block the Trump administration for issuing new layoff notices or implementing layoff notices sent out last Friday to federal workers.
Impact: The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and other federal labor unions had asked Judge Illston for a temporary restraining order, saying the layoffs are an illegal abuse of power by the Trump administration.
Trump Begins Unlawful Layoffs of Federal Workers During Government Shutdown
The Trump administration has begun laying off thousands of federal workers in an effort to reduce the federal workforce during the government shutdown and pressure Democrat members of congress to accept his demands.
Impact:
An estimated four thousand federal workers across seven major departments and agencies received layoff notices on Friday, October 10. Unions representing federal workers quickly denounced the attempted firings as illegal and criticized the Trump administration for trying to use federal workers as a bargaining chip for Republicans in the government shutdown.
The Trump Administration Threatens to Withhold Backpay from Federal Employees Once the Shutdown Ends
In spite of the very clear language of The Government Employee Fair Treament Act of 2019, which Trump himself signed into law, he and his administration claim they don't have to give federal employees backpay once they return to work.
Impact:
This is the latest example of the administration using hard working public servants as pawns in their political fights. There is no basis in law, fact, or historical tradition to deny backpay.