Beltway Buzz, March 28, 2025

FMCS Cuts Staff Dramatically. Following through on President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” which we recently examined here at the Buzz, this week, the administration all but shut down the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). FMCS is an independent agency established by the U.S. Congress in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 “to prevent or minimize interruptions of the free flow of commerce growing out of labor disputes, to assist parties to labor disputes in industries affecting commerce to settle such disputes through conciliation and mediation.” FMCS will reportedly retain approximately 15 employees—down from the 220 employees it maintained in 2024.

Personnel News. There were significant developments this week on the agency personnel front as President Trump seeks to install his political appointees at executive branch agencies. For example:

• NLRB. Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2–1 decision, ruled that President Trump was permitted to remove Gwynne Wilcox, a President Biden–appointed member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), whose five-year term expires on August 27, 2028. A lower-court judge had issued a decision preventing the president from removing Wilcox without cause, but today’s appellate court ruling lifts the injunction while the litigation proceeds. The case will likely reach the Supreme Court of the United States.
Also this week, President Trump nominated management-side attorney Crystal Carey to serve as the NLRB’s general counsel (GC). Carey will need to proceed through the U.S. Senate’s confirmation process, which should get underway in the coming weeks. At this time, there is no word on what will happen to current Acting General Counsel William Cowen.


• EEOC. President Trump nominated Andrea Lucas, currently the acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), to another five-year term on the Commission. Lucas has served as a commissioner since 2020, and her current term will expire on July 1, 2025. The Commission currently consists of Lucas and Democratic Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, with three vacancies.
• OFCCP Director. President Trump appointed management-side attorney Catherine Eschbach to serve as the director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). The position does not need Senate confirmation, so Eschbach will immediately replace Acting Director Michael Schloss. With the revocation of Executive Order (EO) 11246, OFCCP now only enforces affirmative action and discrimination laws related to veterans and workers with disabilities. According to some media reports, Eschbach will lead the effort at OFCCP to review already-submitted affirmative action plans for potential discrimination. Lauren B. Hicks and T. Scott Kelly have the details.
• Workplace Safety Commissions. President Trump nominated Jonathan Snare to serve on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Snare was recently appointed deputy solicitor of labor and served in various positions within the DOL from 2003 to 2009. Additionally, the president nominated Marco Rajkovich Jr. to serve on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC). Rajkovich chaired the FMSHRC during President Trump’s first term.
• DOL Office of Disability Employment Policy. Julie Hocker has been nominated to serve as assistant secretary for disability employment policy at the DOL. Hocker previously served as commissioner of the Administration on Disabilities within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Republican Committee Chair Outlines Suggested Policy Priorities for New Secretary of Labor. Late last week, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Representative Tim Walberg (MI), sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, outlining policy issues that the committee believes are ripe for action by the new secretary. The letter specifically recommends the withdrawal or rescission of several regulatory actions issued by the Biden administration, such as:

• The Wage and Hour Division’s (WHD) final rules on overtime, independent contractors, tipped workers, and Davis-Bacon regulation, among others. Also singled out is the WHD’s proposed rule eliminating the subminimum wage for workers with disabilities (Rep. Walberg underscored the importance of withdrawal of this proposal in a separate letter sent this week).
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) final walkaround regulation and electronic injury and illness recordkeeping rule, as well as proposed rules relating to excessive heat in the workplace and emergency response.

Representative Walberg also encouraged “DOL to enforce its laws while providing robust compliance assistance to workers and businesses instead of continuing the enforcement-only approach taken by the Biden-Harris administration.” The administration’s first regulatory agenda will provide a roadmap of agency priorities when it is issued in June or July this summer.

House Committee Examines Opportunities to Amend FLSA. On March 25, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing entitled, “The Future of Wage Laws: Assessing the FLSA’s Effectiveness, Challenges, and Opportunities.” The hearing focused on ambiguous and outdated provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and how they could be updated for the modern economy and workforce. For example, legislators and witnesses discussed legislative options to simplify the calculation of an employee’s “regular rate” for purposes of calculating overtime pay as well as a familiar bill that would allow employees to choose paid time off or “comp time” instead of cash wages as compensation for working overtime hours. Witnesses also advocated for passage of both the Modern Worker Empowerment Act and Modern Worker Security Act, as well as the readoption of the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program, a pilot program the DOL launched during the first Trump administration that allowed employers to self-report federal minimum wage and overtime violations, but terminated in January 2021, soon after former President Joe Biden came into office.

CHNV Parole Programs Terminated. On March 25, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice terminating the parole programs for individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (“CHNV parole programs”), “unless the Secretary [of Homeland Security] makes an individual determination to the contrary.” Individuals whose parole is terminated must leave the United States by April 24, 2025. According to the notice, the DHS estimates that 532,000 people have entered the country through these parole programs. Among other reasons for terminating the parole programs, the DHS concluded that they “exacerbated challenges associated with interior enforcement of the immigration laws.” Individuals from these countries who have Temporary Protected Status, as well as individuals residing in the United States pursuant to parole programs relating to Ukraine and Afghanistan, are not impacted by the notice. Evan B. Gordon, Daniel J. Ruemenapp, and Hera S. Arsen have the details.

One Person, One Vote. On March 26, 1962, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its pivotal decision in Baker v. Carr, which changed the process by which our political representatives are chosen. The issue concerned the drawing of legislative districts in Tennessee. At the time of the initial legal challenge, the population of urban districts had dramatically increased compared to rural districts. Plaintiff Charles Baker argued that by not redrawing or reapportioning the districts, Tennessee violated the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because citizens in rural districts were overrepresented compared to those in the more populated urban districts. The case was initially dismissed as a “political question,” but the Supreme Court reversed, holding that apportionment of state legislatures is a justiciable matter. The decision in Baker v. Carr opened the door for a series of legislative malapportionment cases decided by the Supreme Court in the 1960s and formed the basis for the “one person, one vote” principle. But not everything about the case turned out great. The deliberations among the Supreme Court justices were so intense and exhausting that Justice Charles Evans Whittaker suffered a nervous breakdown and had to recuse himself from the case.