tomder55
Mar 30, 2025, 02:30 AM
The headlines read
The Trump administration is cutting almost the entire workforce at a small, independent agency that handles collective bargaining disputes in the private sector and across the federal workforce.
The Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service is terminating most of its employees and services by the end of the day Wednesday, according to four employees who spoke to Federal News Network.
The report goes on to say The agency saves half a billion dollars a year by preventing, minimizing and resolving work stoppages and labor disputes in the private sector and across the federal workforce.
Federal labor mediation agency cuts staff down to ‘skeleton crew’ (https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/03/federal-labor-mediation-agency-cuts-staff-down-to-skeleton-crew/)
$55 million budget to save $500 million ? Who could argue with that ?
The FMCS had a 2024 budget that represented less than 0.0014% of the federal budget, according to the US Economic Policy Institute, which added that “eliminating the agency’s work and its staff entirely would not ‘save’ the federal government money.”
Trump has ordered the closure of a key mediation body (https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/trump-orders-closure-of-us-mediation-body-in-industrial-disputes/)
Apparently they pocket a lot of that savings for themselves . I could've been wealthy person if I took a big cut of the savings I made for the company I worked for .
The Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak did an investigative report about the agency a year ago. This is what he found .
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.
FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.........One thing I could not discover is why the agency actually existed, other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees. Endless junkets to resort destinations, which employees openly used to facilitate personal vacations, were justified as building awareness of the agency in the hopes that someone would actually want to use its voluntary services.
Top FMCS official George Cohen used a “recreation and reception fund” to order champagne and $200 coasters for his office, and to purchase artwork painted by his wife. ......
FMCS employees “unblocked” their government credit cards to turn off typical abuse protections, then used them to apparently fund personal expenses and simply bill anything they’d like to the government. One employee leased a BMW; another (IT director James Donnen) billed the government for his wife’s cell phone, cable TV at both his home and his vacation home, and even his subscription to USA Today.
The report goes on to document many such criminal abuses .
What surprised me most about my FMCS investigation was what happened afterward: nothing. An inspector general made a referral to the FBI, but there were no prosecutions. Instead, President Barack Obama nominated a chief subject of the investigation to the top job.
Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’ (https://www.dailywire.com/news/fmcs-slush-fund-abolished-by-trump)
It is worth asking how FMCS was able to persist in such blatant inefficiency and self-dealing for so long. The answer lies in its status as an independent agency—nominally accountable to the executive branch but, in practice, answerable to no one. Unlike cabinet-level departments subject to frequent political oversight, FMCS operated in the shadows, its budget rubber-stamped by congressional inertia. When internal auditors and whistleblowers attempted to expose its abuses, they were met not with reform but with retaliation. This is the predictable outcome of bureaucratic isolation: an agency more concerned with its own survival than with serving the public interest
.(1) @amuse on X: "Draining the Swamp: How the FMCS Shutdown Exposed Bureaucratic Rot" / X (https://x.com/amuse/status/1902482542210752847)
The Trump administration is cutting almost the entire workforce at a small, independent agency that handles collective bargaining disputes in the private sector and across the federal workforce.
The Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service is terminating most of its employees and services by the end of the day Wednesday, according to four employees who spoke to Federal News Network.
The report goes on to say The agency saves half a billion dollars a year by preventing, minimizing and resolving work stoppages and labor disputes in the private sector and across the federal workforce.
Federal labor mediation agency cuts staff down to ‘skeleton crew’ (https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/03/federal-labor-mediation-agency-cuts-staff-down-to-skeleton-crew/)
$55 million budget to save $500 million ? Who could argue with that ?
The FMCS had a 2024 budget that represented less than 0.0014% of the federal budget, according to the US Economic Policy Institute, which added that “eliminating the agency’s work and its staff entirely would not ‘save’ the federal government money.”
Trump has ordered the closure of a key mediation body (https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/trump-orders-closure-of-us-mediation-body-in-industrial-disputes/)
Apparently they pocket a lot of that savings for themselves . I could've been wealthy person if I took a big cut of the savings I made for the company I worked for .
The Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak did an investigative report about the agency a year ago. This is what he found .
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.
FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.........One thing I could not discover is why the agency actually existed, other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees. Endless junkets to resort destinations, which employees openly used to facilitate personal vacations, were justified as building awareness of the agency in the hopes that someone would actually want to use its voluntary services.
Top FMCS official George Cohen used a “recreation and reception fund” to order champagne and $200 coasters for his office, and to purchase artwork painted by his wife. ......
FMCS employees “unblocked” their government credit cards to turn off typical abuse protections, then used them to apparently fund personal expenses and simply bill anything they’d like to the government. One employee leased a BMW; another (IT director James Donnen) billed the government for his wife’s cell phone, cable TV at both his home and his vacation home, and even his subscription to USA Today.
The report goes on to document many such criminal abuses .
What surprised me most about my FMCS investigation was what happened afterward: nothing. An inspector general made a referral to the FBI, but there were no prosecutions. Instead, President Barack Obama nominated a chief subject of the investigation to the top job.
Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’ (https://www.dailywire.com/news/fmcs-slush-fund-abolished-by-trump)
It is worth asking how FMCS was able to persist in such blatant inefficiency and self-dealing for so long. The answer lies in its status as an independent agency—nominally accountable to the executive branch but, in practice, answerable to no one. Unlike cabinet-level departments subject to frequent political oversight, FMCS operated in the shadows, its budget rubber-stamped by congressional inertia. When internal auditors and whistleblowers attempted to expose its abuses, they were met not with reform but with retaliation. This is the predictable outcome of bureaucratic isolation: an agency more concerned with its own survival than with serving the public interest
.(1) @amuse on X: "Draining the Swamp: How the FMCS Shutdown Exposed Bureaucratic Rot" / X (https://x.com/amuse/status/1902482542210752847)