March 28, 2025
The latest administration attack on independent agencies is also an attack on working people.
Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency that promised to fight for working people. While the hypocrisy of this requirement was clear from the first day of his presidency, the data continues to increase.
Last case? Apparently not satisfied with the attempt kneecap Several independent federal agencies regulating corporate America-national labor council, the Federal Trade Commission, the Equal Employment Commission, and much more, the illegal dismissal of the democratic bodies, Trump is now trying to eliminate an important but little-known independent agency. And so far it seems to be successful – to the detriment of companies, workers and trade unions, which depend on the agency’s services to achieve agreements and resolving disputes.
Agency – this Federal mediation and reconciliation (FMCS)-a minting independent agency 200 people created by Congress to support and assist on the sides in the process of collective talks. That’s right – Congress considered collective talks and industrial peace as important enough to create a whole federal agency to support this work and help resolve disputes.
FMCs roots return to the 1947 anti -Union The act of TAFT-Hartley This sought to weaken unions by banning secondary boycott and creating new unjust work practice, among others restrictions. Congress has created FMC to prevent and restrict strikes and other labor disputes. He installed FMC as an independent federal agency, removed about the lab.
Despite these relentless roots, the obvious purpose of the FMCS is to support the parties in the process of collective negotiations and help them reach the agreements that the private sector negotiates every year through the work of its expert media. The National Labor Council (NLRB) also supports the collective negotiation process, following the union elections, as well as the investigation and resolution of unfair work practice, but these administrative and judicial roles are completely different from the role of FMCS. The National Mediation Council (NMB) conducts elections and mediation in the airline and railway fields.
FMCs are not a body of regulation and law enforcement agencies – companies and trade unions voluntarily work with the agency, and mediators support and urge the parties to reach an agreement. In addition to these mediation services, FMCS prepares companies and trade unions for collective talks, establishing relations and partnerships on work management. All these services are provided for the parties for free because Congress considered support for the collective negotiation process as worthy (tiny – $ 55 million) annual federal investments.
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But now Donald Trump is aimed at FMC to eliminate, and FMCs – the first agency listed in March 14, 2025, Executive order entitled “Continuation of Federal Bureaucracy”. FMCs and other listed agencies are aimed at eliminating “maximum” their “non -statutory components and functions and”, as well as “reduce the productivity of their statutory functions and related to the minimum presence and functions needed by the law”. FMCs has been placed in a need for need justify The very existence and explain how its work fits the mandate in the congress. At the same time, the right-wing media echo has instituted 12-year-old alleged abuse of FMCs, trying to justify Trump’s shutdown in the Agency, which have long been investigated and investigated and investigated and investigated and investigated and investigated and investigated and investigated and investigated addressed.
As of writing, Trump breaks his way. FMCS staff are reportedly reported by the management that the agency is essentially stopped and the mediation is abolished.
What then is an important work of FMCs to support the parties in the process of collective negotiations when reaching agreements and resolving disputes? The Trump administration may plan to translate work to the US Ministry of Labor, which has no experience in the field, and with which Congress has moved the work on mediation in 1947 at the will of employers to create an impartial, independent agency. Or maybe the administration plans to eliminate these services at all and leave companies and trade unions to affect themselves, to the detriment of employers (especially small employers) and trade unions that depend and profitable from FMCs.
In any case, we can add the destruction of this Congress Agency to support collective negotiations, a long and growing list of actions against the president’s workers who told America that he would be workers.
The hard and chaotic second term Donald Trump is just beginning. In the first month, Trump’s office and his Like -Elon Musk (or this is the opposite?) Proved that nothing is safe from sacrifice at the altar without checking strength and wealth.
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Further,
Katrina Vanden Hievel
Editorial director and publisher, A Nation
