HISTORY LESSON: The Trump administration’s abortive plan to sell off hundreds of government properties — including the Labor Department’s headquarters at the Frances Perkins Building — put the spotlight on an idea that has kicked around for years.
The Frances Perkins Building is one of many that is both in a prime location — nestled at the edge of the National Mall and the U.S. Capitol Grounds and kitty-corner to the National Gallery of Art — and far from tip-top shape. Subjectively the DOL building is not much to look at, even if one is grading on the curve of Brutalism, and President Donald Trump is on-record about his aesthetic preferences for federal buildings.
“It is an amazing location,” said former acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris, who noted its proximity to other federal headquarters which facilitates cross-agency work. “The people in DOL have never been enthusiastic about making that move, partly because finding another location is pretty difficult. There’s not an obvious other location.”
More practically, D.C. has often been at the vanguard of American cooling innovation, but the 70s-era DOL building is notorious for wild temperature fluctuations throughout its offices.
It lacks the ability to adjust temperatures within separate zones of the building — a situation that is both uncomfortable to workers and drives up operating costs, the latter of which the General Service Administration’s stated justification for wanting to get rid of such “non-core” properties. DOL’s offices also straddle atop a segment of I-395, a quirk that would complicate redevelopment and a design that would probably not fly nowadays following the bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
“It is an odd shape,” said one former DOL official who served in the first Trump administration. “Still, moving off Pennsylvania Avenue and that real estate is a very difficult situation.”
A decade ago the Obama administration started taking some preliminary steps to explore a new location that would be more hospitable than the Perkins Building and potentially allow DOL to reduce its reliance on other office space to house its many arms — such as a site across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, used by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
While the Transportation Department completed its move to Navy Yard during George W. Bush’s presidency, other relocations have floundered, most notably the FBI’s bid for a new headquarters.
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Driving the day
CONFIRMATION DAY: The Senate this evening is set to hold a floor vote on Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination to lead the Labor Department.
Chavez-DeRemer cleared a cloture vote Thursday 66-30, and while that doesn’t always perfectly line up with the final confirmation tally, in all likelihood it signals there’s plenty of breathing room even in the event of attendance issues from any slow-arriving lawmakers.
She will be the final Cabinet-level secretary (though not the last Cabinet member) to arrive. But her welcome tour may be cut short if Republicans do not succeed in their effort to pass an extension of government funding by the end of the week. (More on that below.)
AROUND THE AGENCIES
TSA TUMULT: The Department of Homeland Security on Friday unilaterally invalidated a collective bargaining agreement with Transportation Security Administration staffers.
DHS said its decision to invalidate a 2024 collective bargaining agreement that covers about 45,000 people — including its baggage screeners — “removes bureaucratic hurdles that will strengthen workforce agility, enhance productivity and resiliency, while also jumpstarting innovation.” The agency claimed that TSA employees are exploiting the current system by abusing sick leave policies, in turn overburdening other screeners who have to pick up extra shifts, among other tasks, your host reported with Oriana Pawlyk.
DHS also cast out these workers’ union representatives at the American Federation of Government Employees. AFGE National President Everett Kelley blasted the administration’s justification as “completely fabricated” and pretextual, opening the door for legal challenges.
It is the latest attack from the Trump administration on public-sector labor rights and if successful, DHS’ maneuver could set the stage for other agencies to cast aside their own union units.
LAWYERS VS. LAWYERS: The White House is enlisting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in its retribution plan against Perkins Coie and other large law firms.
The executive order Trump signed on Thursday calls on the EEOC to probe the legal industry’s hiring practices, down to the summer associate level, and other policies to see if they discriminate on the basis of race. Perkins Coie faced a lawsuit from an anti-affirmative action group in 2023 over its diversity fellowship program, which was later opened up to all first-year law students.
It is unclear how wide a net the administration intends to cast, as the EO does little to spell out how it defines the category of “large, influential, or industry leading law firms” subject to EEOC scrutiny.
Acting Chair Andrea Lucas and an EEOC spokesperson did not return a request for comment Friday.
BACK (FOR NOW): The Labor Department is reinstating workers on probationary status.
A union representing DOL workers, including those in the D.C. area, sent an email Friday stating that “all DOL probationary employees who were previously terminated are being reinstated immediately,” your host reported for Pro subscribers.
But workers who are being brought back still face uncertain prospects if the administration continues forward with its plan for large-scale layoffs known as “reductions in force” or RIFs.
Nevertheless Democratic attorneys general filed suit in Maryland last week in an effort to unwind the probationary firings across the federal government, The Washington Post reports.
On The Hill
TIME’S A-TICKING: House Republicans over the weekend rolled out their funding patch to get the government through the fiscal year that boosts funding for deportations and the military while cutting back on some domestic programs, our Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes report.
Democratic congressional leaders are pushing members to reject the agreement, risking a government shutdown after the GOP offered them little in the way of olive branches.
Among the changes: Trimming money from DOL’s Employment and Training Administration — including rescinding a $75 million allocation for “Training and Employment Services.”
Unions
CARD (CHECK) DECLINED: A semi-obscure federal agency said it would curtail a Biden-era policy offering to assist in card-check unionization campaigns, Bloomberg reports.
The Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service said that effective March 14 it would stop facilitating card checks, in which employers voluntarily recognize a union if it can show that a majority of eligible workers signed representation authorization cards rather than go through a formal election through the NLRB.
“FMCS continually assesses its role in labor-management relations ensuring consistency with our core mission of mediation and dispute resolution,” the agency told Bloomberg. “In alignment with the current Administration’s priorities and guidance, we have made strategic adjustments designed to better focus our resources.”
Of note: FMCS would take on an integral role in the collective bargaining process under the legislation proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) aimed at speeding up the time it takes to reach a first union contract.
In the Workplace
DOGE DEALINGS: It is a considerable understatement to say that federal workers are not putting much stock in Trump telling agency chiefs that they — not Elon Musk — are ultimately in charge of hiring and firing decisions.
Our POLITICO colleagues took the temp of more than a dozen employees who said that nothing materially changed immediately after Trump brushed back Musk.
“It’s total bullshit. I don’t know what else to say,” one DOL employee told POLITICO.
Meanwhile some fired federal employees are dealing with the personal trauma of seeing family and loved ones exuberant about their ouster, The Associated Press reports. Others are reporting difficulty accessing unemployment benefits due to the ad hoc way in which some of them were pushed out of their jobs, among other practical challenges, per The Washington Post. The turmoil is taking a toll on federal workers’ mental health, NBC News reports, and has some Trump supporters reconsidering their choices after DOGE’s bell tolled for them, according to Reuters.
BUCKEYE SHOWDOWN: A lawsuit on behalf of thousands of Ohioans is seeking to force the state government to accept some $900 million in pandemic-era unemployment insurance assistance funding, Cleveland.com reports.
The lawsuit contends that the state is running out of time before it is no longer able to access that money.
“The exact contours of that shot clock are unknown, speculative and perhaps even nonexistent. The $900 million is currently in custody of the U.S. Department of Labor, according to an affidavit filed in court, unless [Gov. Mike] DeWine changes his mind and draws it down or the court system forces his hand,” Cleveland.com reports.
PIQUE TOWARD PRETORIA: Afrikaners are emerging as a rare exception to the White House’s hardline immigration approach, after Trump pledged to swiftly offer a fast-track pathway to citizenship for the white ethnic minority of South Africa.
“In January, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa signed into law a measure that would allow the government to take land in the public interest without providing compensation; shortly after, Mr. Trump began criticizing the South African government,” The New York Times reports.
The Trump administration’s position is perhaps welcome news for certain agriculture operators in the Deep South who in recent years have been penalized for importing white South African farmers on H-2A visas at the expense of the majority-Black local workforces.
