In late February, the Management and Budget Office issued instructions for all federal entities to compatible with the “first foreign policy of America”. It has been required from private agencies and institutions that receive government grants to conduct a type of self -player, to get rid of foreign programs that do not enhance “American prosperity through the progress of capitalism, markets that prefer Americans, compete for the American partnership, and reliance on economic self.” There will be no “global luxury mentality”. As part of the audit, any beneficiary who receives money for “external assistance” will have to answer the question, “Does this project create measurable benefits for local industries, workforce or economic sectors?”
The American Agency for International Development, the basic channel for development and disaster assistance abroad, was already present filtering. The United States withdrew from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council; The Ministry of Foreign Affairs seemed more preoccupied with deportation than diplomacy. However, some international works remained in the agencies with a local agenda in the first place. In the Ministry of Labor, for example, grants were still funding non -profit organizations that taught immigrant agricultural workers about their rights to fair employment, and groups that dealt with human trafficking in countries that make products to the United States, from Congolese cobalt to Colombian flowers. )) Ilab-Which was established immediately after the Second World War-He was still sending investigators to factories and training judges abroad to impose work rulings in various commercial agreements, including the United States of America, Mexico and Cananga Agreement (USMCA), the update of the Free Trade Agreement in North America (Nava) Who – which Donald Trump He negotiated in his first term. “This work is important for management,” one Ilab The employee told me. “This is the thing that I thought would save us.”
Lori Chavez-Dumr, the new Minister of Labor, was sworn in March 11. She quickly moved to comply with OMB’s request – and with the comprehensive management goal of reducing the federal government. Large stickers for her, comment “Let’s go to work“I went up in the elevators at the DOL headquarters, in Washington. Within a few days, I canceled a number of Ilab grant. she to publish The news to X, which is proud to save thirty million dollars “by eliminating” recent America “programs in foreign countries such as Indonesia, Colombia, Guatemala, Chile and Brazil. Government efficiency management in Elon Musk (Dodge) Account Recycled It is, writing, “great work”. according to Business Insiderthree Dodge DOL employees, including Miles Collins, who is said to be participating in the Pacific Fertility Center, is the Los Angeles clinic that is being prosecuted to distinguish employment, among other things, denies pregnancy -related medical leave. (The fertility center in the Pacific Ocean did not respond to the request for comment.)
In late March, Dodge to praise Chavez-Terid and the Ministry of Labor to cancel all the granting of “recent America” for $ 237 million of savings. “Instead, this money will go to the” American Manpower “, DOL books On X, although Congress specifically devoted them to “programs to combat exploitative child labor at the international level” and “programs dealing with workers’ rights” in the countries where the United States is trading. “We learned this morning that the administration made a decision to end all of them immediately Ilab“Existing Grants”, Mark Metilhauser, the Deputy Assistant Ministry of Assets who ran IlabHe wrote to a hundred and fifty employees in the office. Responsible for the management and evaluation of programs in dozens of countries were deceived. There was an immediate interruption of projects that support collective negotiation in Mexico, address workers’ violations in fish fisheries in Southeast Asia, and reduce child work and sexual exploitation in the mica mines in Madagascar. On x, dol to publish Mim cartoon relaxation Ilab For “Financing the cotton industry in Uzbekistan” In reality, Ilab For years, donors have called for children to target children and forced work in that country, one of the best cotton producers in the world, so that American companies have not undermined artificially cheap. The American Fashion Industry Association and the American & Footwear Association wrote to Chavez-OEMER, and sponsors it not to terminate the program. The developed by the International Labor Organization, the Solidarity Center, and the American Research Institutes, plans to put employees worldwide. second Ilab The employee told me, “We mainly say to the rest of the world,” continued. “It is profitable for companies to have a not moral supply chains, and to employ children, forcing people to work.”
Mittelhauser was suddenly placed on an administrative leave in early April and walked from the DOL headquarters. Chavez-Derimer temporarily replaced him with her chief of staff, Jion Han, who worked for Chavez-Dimer when she was a member of Congress. (It was elected in 2022 and served one term Ilab Three other sub-tools-the women’s office, the public affairs office, and the office of compliance with federal contracts-which leads to thinking about early retirement or “deferred resignation”, where employees are placed on vacation for months before their official separation. You will receive the collective soon. Later this show expanded to both DOL
On the fifth floor of the headquarters, Ilab Employees cried in the halls. “Everyone was constantly afraid for their work,” which is the third, for a long time Ilab The employee told me. “They will one day appear, and their cards will be turned off to enter – the mental curse of everything.” At the same time, DOL to publish Chavez-Terider head gauze shot, “Happy Birthday, Madam Secretary”, on X, and gave a party. Wine and flowers are placed on the dark blue table bedspreads. The Chavez-Tarmid image was displayed on large screens. The “United States Labor” account on Bluesky to publish“Do you get any” let them eat the cake “from golf tournaments and birthday distributors?” (Trump has just returned from a weekend in Golf in Palm Beach. In the other, he smiles and points with approval to “use taxpayer dollars to throw yourself a birthday party.” (Courtney Barla, DOL spokesman, denied that he was a birthday party and said that any cake there had been purchased by the Chavez-Dimer family.)
Yesterday, an hour and a half New Yorker Send an email to a list of inquiries and requests to examine facts to comment on DOL, Han, the Chief of Staff, sent a note to all administration employees, and warned them not to talk to the media. He said that this may lead to serious legal consequences, including “possible criminal penalties.” At least one employee submitted a complaint to the Special Advisers Office, an agency that protects federal informants, claiming an inappropriate “gap”.
Last week, the vast majority of employees in the DOL contract contract and the Office of Compliance for Federal Contracts (OffCP) resigned, or was placed on unlimited leave. “We received one hour of notice before we told us that we are forced to leave the office, and we are closing from all DOL systems,” California said to me: In the past fiscal year, the section regained $ 22.5 million for more than twelve thousand workers who were discriminated against the contractors. The employee added: “Some of this recovery of white males was.” The employee believes that the administration and Dodge It targeted the OffCCP because of the “compliance review” of fair employment practices at the Tesla’s Musk Factory in Freemont, California. This review was largely abandoned in early February. (Tesla recently settled a lawsuit by a black worker in the factory who said that racist insults were written throughout the walls and that the manager received the employees over and over repeatedly by saying, “Welcome to the slave house,” said Barla, a DOL spokesperson, that the changes in OffCP “have nothing to do with Eileon Musk and everything related to restoring the opportunities based on merit.”
Ilab The employees took an unofficial census for those who would leave through the deferred resignation and early retirement, and the calculation of forty percent of the office. Many employees told me that they felt pressure; They had no real choice. The difference inside Ilab He hosts the meetings personally and on the Internet, to wish goodbye to their colleagues. It was not clear who would perform the tasks required under the statute: investigation and publication of annual reports on children’s work and forced work; Cooördines with customs and border protection to exclude imports produced by those means; The implementation of the provisions of work in USMCA in cooperation with the American Trade Representative. fourth Ilab The employee told me that she was concerned about her projects in Africa, as the office funded training for inspectors at the workplace. She said: “We think about the lives of people elsewhere in the world.” “But the goal is to benefit from the United States as well as soft agreements and trade.”
Trump is irregular Customs tariff policies They were undermining trade agreements such as USMCA on the same day Dodge Chavez-Termal canceled everyone IlabA grant, Trump announced the twenty -five percent fees on car imports. Car workers praised his decision, but he was criticized by commercial economists for slow production and prices. When Trump signed a USMCA in law, in 2020, it was called “the largest and largest trade agreement more balanced and modern ever,” and declared an end. ” Nava Nightmare. ”Many unions and work experts agreed NavaUSMCA requires forty to forty -five percent of the contents of each vehicle imported by workers who are paying sixteen or more per hour. It was also the first commercial agreement to include a “quick response mechanism” (very fast compared to the process of complaints in the World Trade Organization) through which workers, unions or companies can complain of unfair work practices in Mexico. “It is a way to punish or respond to companies that do not follow the Mexican Labor Law, when their goods come to the United States,” Fifth Ilab The employee told me. The results have benefited from mining and manufacturing workers in more than thirty cases so far. In 2022, the Teksid Hierro Auto-Parts factory, in Coahuila, was asked a few hours drive from Texas borders, rehabilitation and compensation for thirteen employees who were expelled for the organization; Workers have continued to negotiate an increase in wages nine percent and improve safety. In 2023, the Goodyear Rubber factory was assigned to San Luis Potosí in the center of Mexico in the middle of independent union elections and their workers paid $ 4.2 million in wages and rear benefits.
