This is a breaking story and will continue to be updated.
A coalition of unions is now asking a federal court to block far-right billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the internal systems of the Department of Labor (DOL), after In These Times broke the news of the planned meeting with the agency today.
For the past several weeks, Musk and his DOGE project have been slashing and burning their way through the U.S. government on a self-directed mission of destruction. Now, he’s coming after the DOL.
On February 4, in an afternoon meeting with senior management, workers were ordered to turn over access to the DOGE operatives wherever they ask for it. Those who impede the process or refuse to reply were told they risk termination. Sources said that the orders came down from Acting Secretary of Labor Vince Micone, and that the DOGE operatives will be staying for “an indeterminate period of time.” Workers were dismayed. “I work for the American people,” one DOL worker told me. “To turn over their data to a bunch of idiots without proper clearance feels wrong.”
“We’re supposed to stop everything we’re doing and do whatever the DOGE kids ask,” one employee who works with agency data and asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons told In These Times. “I needed to tell someone because this goes against every protocol of our jobs. It feels dirty and illegal.”
With just a few hours of notice, a crowd of about 300 federal workers and union members — many sporting navy American Federation of Government Employees bomber jackets and assorted union swag — gathered in front of the Frances Perkins Building this afternoon to protest the planned arrival of Musk and DOGE to the Department of Labor.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler spoke alongside members of Congress, including Democratic Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Suzanne Bonamici.
“We are here today because Donald Trump and his unelected co-president Elon Musk are waging a war on workers and a war on federal employees,” Bonamici said to boos from the crowd. “We’re here to say no.”
Musk and DOGE personnel had scheduled a “kickoff meeting” with DOL staffers, according to sources inside the agency. But by 4 p.m., the meeting’s scheduled time, Musk had reportedly moved the in-person kickoff to a virtual one, as federal workers and union members continued to rally outside.
Sources within the department told In These Times on February 4 that Musk’s DOGE henchmen would hold a “kickoff” meeting with DOL management the following day at the Frances Perkins Building at 4 p.m.
DOL staffers and their allies didn’t take this affront lying down. Once I broke the news on social media, after speaking with nearly a dozen agency employees, rank-and-file workers and union staffers erupted in a flurry of late-night organizing; by 11 p.m., a flyer was being circulated calling on workers to “Keep DOGE out of DOL!” This morning, the AFL-CIO sent out an email to members calling for a “peaceful emergency rally” outside the building, cheekily asking people to join them and their “Department of People Who Work for a Living (DPWL)” to protest DOGE.
Today at 3 p.m., workers and union members from across the city will rally in front of the Frances Perkins Building and demand that Elon Musk keep his hands off the DOL. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents thousands of federal employees, posted on social media, “No one elected Elon Musk or his cronies to office. Next, they’re setting out to attack the Department of Labor. If you’re in D.C., join us at the @USDOL to make our voices heard: Keep billionaires out of the DOL!”
DOGE (which is not a new agency, but the renamed Obama-era United States Digital Service) has been running roughshod over a number of government agencies, including the Treasury Department and United States Agency for International Development, seizing access to highly-sensitive information systems, taking down websites and placing thousands of federal employees on leave.
This isn’t the first time Musk has tangled with the DOL, or with labor in general. The notoriously anti-union South African has been part of a broader effort to dismantle the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and overturn the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, in addition to racking up numerous citations from the NLRB itself for union busting. Members of IF Metall, Sweden’s largest labor union, have been on strike against Tesla since October 27, 2023 — the nation’s longest strike since 1938 — over Musk’s refusal to collectively bargain, and accuse the company of flying in scabs from across Europe to try to weaken the strike.
The protest is just the beginning of the resistance Musk can expect as he tries to take down the DOL. On February 5, the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Communications Workers of America (CWA), and the Economic Policy Institute filed an injunction against the Department of Labor, Acting Secretary Micone, DOGE and the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They’re seeking a temporary restraining order or administrative stay to keep Musk and his minions out. They warn that failing to grant the injunction will result in DOGE’s unqualified, unelected operatives having access to “highly sensitive data,” including but not limited to medical and benefits information about all federal workers with worker compensation or black lung claims, the identities of vulnerable workers who have filed wage and hour or occupational safety complaints, and critical Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist and author based in Philadelphia, PA. She is a labor writer for In These Times, a labor columnist at Teen Vogue and Fast Company, and regularly contributes to many other publications. Her first book, FIGHT LIKE HELL: The Untold History of American Labor, is now available from One Signal/Simon & Schuster. Follow her on Twitter at @grimkim and subscribe to her newsletter, Salvo, here.
