The IAM Union, along with the AFL-CIO and several affiliated unions that represent workers across private and public sector industries, sued the Trump administration over its dismantling of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), including firing mediators and staff, and closing field offices across the country.
“The Trump administration’s reckless attempt to eliminate FMCS is yet another attack on working people and our rights to collectively bargain,” said IAM International President Brian Bryant. “FMCS is a small, but vitally important agency that serves as a much-needed independent arbiter during negotiations between workers and employers. For the IAM Union, FMCS has been vital in resolving contract disputes with national and international economic consequences, including a strike of 4,300 U.S. Navy shipbuilders at Bath Iron Works, and helping to avoid work stoppages on numerous occasions. We are proud to stand with our partners in the labor movement to fight back against this illegal attack on the rights of all working families.”
FMCS is a small but important independent federal agency that is integral to the federal government’s labor relations infrastructure. Among the critical services FMCS provides is helping resolve contract negotiations between workers and employers to protect both the economy and workers’ rights, generating more than $500 million in national economic savings each year, even by conservative estimates. But Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts have decimated the agency: 93% of FMCS staff have been placed on leave, the mediation workforce has been taken down from the 80 to 100 needed for the agency’s work to just five, and all of the field offices have been closed.
“FMCS is a little-known but critical government agency that works to bring labor and management together to solve problems between workers and employers—and it’s illegally under attack by Elon Musk and his DOGE,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “Without FMCS, there will be longer and drawn-out contract negotiations, as well as delays in implementing increased wages and improved benefits won through collective bargaining. The unnecessary cuts to FMCS make absolutely no economic sense and will cost taxpayers, consumers, businesses and workers. Congress created FMCS nearly 80 years ago, and only an act of Congress can shutter it. I’m proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our affiliated unions today in filing this lawsuit to challenge this illegal, cruel and wrong-headed action by DOGE.”
The legal challenge was brought by the AFL-CIO, IAM, AFGE, AFSCME, AFT, SEIU, and United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and other affiliated unions that have worked with FMCS mediators in labor disputes with their members’ employers. Many were actively engaged in collective bargaining negotiations with FMCS when the mediator was forced to abruptly leave or cancel the negotiations because they had been placed on leave. With only five mediators remaining at FMCS, these unions and their workers will be left in the lurch, working under expired contracts or no contracts, and strikes or lockouts are much more likely to occur.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint can be found online here.
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