Alt U.S. Department of Labor
@alt-dol.altgov.info
The resistance team for the U.S. Department of Labor. Not an official government account. #resist #AltGov #NoKings ❌👑
WHOA. Promising green cards and welfare benefits to Chinese investors? This revelation could derail Keith Sonderling's confirmation as Labor Secretary. @juddlegum.bsky.social @popular.info
Trump Labor Secretary nominee pitched access to “America’s comprehensive welfare” to Chinese nationals
Keith Sonderling traveled to China to encourage investment in a Florida real estate development. Prospects were promised a green card and access government benefits.
open.substack.com
A very small preliminary benchmark revision meaning the payroll survey did a pretty amazing job estimating job growth last year. Since the pattern for QCEW revisions is that they are revised up this may convert to a small positive revision in Feb.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics@usbls.bsky.social · 3d agoPreliminary benchmark revision for March payroll employment is -79,000 (-0.1%) www.bls.gov/news.release... #BLSdata
This year's annual "benchmark" revisions will reduce estimated employment by just 79,000 jobs, per preliminary data from @BLS_gov. That's an encouraging sign after two years of unusually large downward revisions. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/b... #EconSky
Smaller Revision Points to More Accurate Jobs Numbers (Gift Article)
The 2026 revisions by the Bureau of Labor Statistics represent a downward adjustment of just 0.1 percent of the total work force.
nytimes.com
Employees who sought disability accommodations at the Labor Department are being told their sensitive information was sent to a personal email account. The department says it’s still assessing the scope of what happened. Jory Heckman has the details: buff.ly/LwPj8Jn
Data from Labor employees seeking disability accommodations impacted by 'internal incident'
The Labor Department is telling employees about an “internal incident report” in which an individual sent employees' sensitive health information to their personal email address.
govexec.com
More reasons to join a union.
Washington Center for Equitable Growth@equitablegrowth.bsky.social · 3d agoThis #FridayFellows 🔍, check out work from @awhf.bsky.social! His research shows that unions are negotiating major protections workers have against automated management and surveillance, from notice requirements to limits on how employers use monitoring tools. ➡️ equitablegrowth.org/research-pap...
Extremely my jam:
Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2w agoWage stagnation is a defining dynamic of the K-shaped economy, but millions of Americans work beneath the wage. How has culture in the age of service work, including reality tv and literature, crafted the myth that precarious labor is freedom? interccect.com/2026/08/11/f...
Time to spam the gears!!!! The appointment of Dorothy Fink as Deputy Director and acting institute director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development installs a MAHA mom to our children’s health institute. Send your thoughts to: NICHDethics@mail.nih.gov
This is a massive win for thousands of young people across the country who want the opportunity to get a good job. Thank you @splcenter.org @publiccitizen.bsky.social & all the others who stood up to this administration's cruelty toward the working class and fought to keep Job Corps centers open.
Southern Poverty Law Center@splcenter.org · 3w agoIn a settlement agreement filed Monday, the Trump administration agreed to rescind its efforts to shutter 99 Job Corps centers nationwide. 🌟 This is a victory for the Job Corps students represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and the SPLC, plus thousands more. https://bit.ly/3TXtH9C
Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick bullshitted their way through this event, taking credit for bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. Toyota officials made it clear afterward the plant expansion had *absolutely nothing* to do with Trump's tariffs.
San Antonio Current@sacurrent.bsky.social · 3w agoCommerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the plant expansion was a result of Trump’s tariffs. In comments to a local media outlet, company officials politely disagreed.
So much for the World Cup hiring bump people were expecting. The leisure and hospitality sector wound up *cutting* more than 80,000 jobs in June and July combined.
Hourly earnings were basically flat in July. Wage growth continues to slow on a year-over-year and three-month basis. Not good news for workers at a time when inflation is proving stubborn.
Employers cut jobs in July, and job growth was revised down for May and June. Net result is that the pop in hiring that we saw earlier this year now seems to have largely evaporated. We've now averaged just +20,000 jobs/month over the past three months. #NumbersDay
Ben Casselman@bencasselman.bsky.social · 3w agoU.S. employers CUT 23,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1 percent. Data: www.bls.gov/news.release... Full coverage: www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08... #NumbersDay
Apple got a $2.2 billion tariff refund. Amazon got $600 million. Trump is sending the "refunds" to the companies, not working people. Every single cent of these refunds should go back to American consumers.
Good thread on how the government’s H2A program turned migrant farmworkers into little more than trafficked slaves, the 2024 reforms that mitigated the abuse, and last year’s Trump directive(see below) that stripped away those reforms. cdmigrante.org/trump-dol-ro...
Trump administration strips worker protections for farmworkers recruited to work in the U.S. on H-2A visas
Last Friday, the Department of Labor (DOL) quietly suspended enforcement of its 2024 rule which strengthened protections for farmworkers recruited to work in the United States through the H-2A agricul...
cdmigrante.org
Sarah Taber@sarahtaber.bsky.social · last mo.Yeah I did food safety audits for a farm down there (southern GA) that DID NOT hire local H2A contract crews. They jumped through all the hoops to hire their own crew, direct from the consulate in Mexico, & charter a bus from the consulate drive the crew up themselves. For protection, basically.
The Labor Department is poised to issue regulations stripping minimum wage and overtime protections for more than one million home care workers, disproportionately immigrant women who provide vital care to seniors and people with disabilities. Care work is real work. Care workers deserve fair pay.
Opinion | The Immigration Crackdown and the Plight of the Caregivers (Gift Article)
Readers describe a crisis for caregivers and families. Also: Canceling grants based on politics; no politics in uniform; rediscovering resilience.
nytimes.com
What are Republicans thinking as they try to kill a federal OSHA heat protection standard that would protect workers from excessive heat? Nothing good and nothing honest. jordanbarab.com/confinedspac...
Republicans Try to Smother OSHA Heat Standard Under General Duty Clause - Confined Space
Republicans try to kill an OSHA heat standard in favor of misguided reliance on the General Duty Clause.
jordanbarab.com
literally impeach him just for this
Murshed Zaheed@murshedz.bsky.social · last mo.“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
Billions of dollars and political pressure are corrupting our food supply. Wired has the receipts for the Taylor Farms cyclosporisis outbreak.
WIRED@wired.com · last mo.The company donated more than $3.6 million to conservative groups between 2020 and 2025, including $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC.
Universal healthcare would help increase job mobility (and therefore satisfaction), and put pressure on businesses to pay decent wages and make more of an effort to retain their workers. We're never getting it.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · last mo.Nearly a quarter of U.S. workers are staying in their current job for fear of losing health insurance, an eight-percentage-point increase from 2021, according to a new report from Gallup. Read more here: https://wapo.st/4yyGjnz
Under Trump: -Household electricity costs are up 18% -Ground beef prices are up 22% -Gas prices are up 40% -ACA out-of-pocket premiums are up 58% -Inflation is at a three-year high Tired of "winning" yet?
ICYMI: This is a stunning article about what happened when Trump dismantled Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs - the office that held contractors accountable for treating employees fairly: archive.ph/w5EZG Yet another example of the predator class "protecting women."
They are trying to take our health data. HIPAA be damned www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-p...
Trump's personnel agency says it will remove some identifying info as it sweeps up medical records
The Office of Personnel Management said it will "pseudonymize" medical records it collects on more than 8 million people — federal workers and retirees, and their family members.
cbsnews.com
I know folks are shitting (pun intended) on RFK and DOGE for this outbreak, and that's fair, but I also want to give credit to the nameless bureaucrats who are hanging in there and solved the kind of complex public health puzzle that would have been unsolvable for much of human history. Thank you
Carl Zimmer@carlzimmer.com · 2mo agoCyclospora Linked to Taylor Farms Lettuce Sent to Taco Bell. Gift link: nyti.ms/4vGiNCl
When asked about the impact of staff cuts on OSHA enforcement at his confirmation hearing, Keith Sonderling openly acknowledged DOL is hiring and building our workforce back up again. The amount of waste that comes from firing thousands, only to have to hire again, is staggering.*
Giving credit where it's due: when asked by Sen. Jim Nazi-lite Banks how DOL can work better with ICE on preventing illegal workers, Keith Sonderling emphasized the need to hold *employers* accountable for following the law -- including enforcing wage laws, so law-abiding employers aren't undercut.
During his confirmation hearing today, Keith Sonderling lied there have been NO attacks on public-sector unions by the administration. And if there are issues, he whined, that's what the FLRA is for. The lie is extra gross bc the FLRA is *also* under attack--but feds are fighting back. The latest:
Victory in AFGE-led Lawsuit as Federal Court Blocks FLRA Power Grab
A federal court last week blocked the politically appointed Federal Labor Relations Authority from taking over labor relations work currently performed by nonpartisan career professionals in a major w...
afge.org
Any Education Dept employees wanna chime in on this?
Nick Beadle@jobsthat.work · 2mo ago"It's important to think of us as a firm that's consulting" on Ed spending. Says the money is still being run by "career experts." This is a weird tact that doesn't line up with any of the messaging at all. Sonderling says they "all have their own computers, they have parking."
A Cabinet member being acting head of the OGE is SUPER WEIRD... but the lack of permanent leadership for the OGE since Feb '25 is totally unsurprising. (There is now a nominee awaiting confirmation.) Seven senators called out this BS earlier this year: www.washingtonpost.com/documents/4a...
Nick Beadle@jobsthat.work · 2mo agoKeith is head of the Office of Government Ethics (sorry, I was moving)? Yeah, I get why she pivoted, but you can hit him hard here and do both.
@jobsthat.work breakdown of Keith Sonderling's confirmation hearing is on point ⬇️
Nick Beadle@jobsthat.work · 2mo agoIf you’re expecting Keith Sonderling to have trouble becoming Labor Secretary, Cassidy’s opener at the confirmation hearing suggests “Nah.”
