AFL-CIO and other major unions are suing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in hopes of preventing the rogue agency from “raiding” the Department of Labor and gaining access to the personal information of potentially millions of American workers.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the coalition of federal employee unions say that DOGE has been going after federal agencies and seizing their data in moves that experts have said are illegal and raise major questions about the integrity of Americans’ data and Musk’s apparent power to gut the government with little to no oversight despite his seeming status as a private citizen without clearance.
The group seeks court intervention to stop DOGE from targeting the Department of Labor in its sweep against federal agencies, through a restraining order or administrative stay. DOGE has already demanded that department employees give them access to “anything they want — or risk termination,” the lawsuit says.
A restraining order has been granted to temporarily block the Labor Department from handing information over to DOGE while the court rules on the lawsuit, The Washington Post’s Lauren Kaori Gurley reported on Thursday.
“At every step, DOGE is violating multiple laws,” the lawsuit says. “DOGE seeks to gain access to sensitive systems before courts can stop them, dismantle agencies before Congress can assert its prerogatives in the federal budget, and intimidate and threaten employees who stand in their way, worrying about the consequences later. The results have already been catastrophic.”
The lawsuit was filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of AFL-CIO and affiliated unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Economic Policy Institute also joined the suit.
“Today, they will come for the Department of Labor. On information and belief, the pattern will be the same: they will demand that DOGE staff be granted access to systems that they are legally barred from; they will fire any employee who protects the integrity of those systems; and they will claim power and authority that Congress has never granted them with respect to agency staff and Department programs,” the suit says.
“Elon Musk has absolutely no business raiding the Department of Labor to obtain the sensitive personal information of workers,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement. “It’s outrageous that Musk thinks he has the authority to access private data on workers from an agency that’s entrusted with protecting the fundamental rights of working people. With this lawsuit, we intend to stop Musk’s power grab cold.”
On the same day the lawsuit was filed, AFL-CIO and affiliates held a rally outside of the Department of Labor to protest Musk’s government pillaging campaign. Thousands attended, according to Zeteo.
Lawmakers like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) attended the rally, condemning the rogue billionaire’s reported plans to raid the department.
“We don’t get the benefits and the support and the protections but for the fact that workers organized, and they pushed back, and they fought. And when we don’t get it, we shut it down,” said Tlaib to the crowd.
DOGE has spent the last weeks sweeping through the federal government, taking a machete to seemingly indiscriminately eviscerate agencies. Its seizure of the Treasury Department’s payment system, including data on Americans’ social security numbers and financial information, has particularly raised concerns about data privacy in the hands of Musk’s group of young tech workers acting as DOGE operatives.
Some have noted that Musk’s sweep, while widespread, appears to be prioritizing agencies that are investigating Musk’s companies for violations.
The lawsuit raises concerns, for instance, that DOGE could access sensitive information within the Department of Labor, including workers’ data as well as information on investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) into SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.
Previous investigations have found that Tesla’s injury rate is far higher than that of the rest of the automobile factory industry, for instance. The Lever has also reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which Musk and his operatives have been trying to shut down entirely, had been investigating Musk’s Starlink as of 2022.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that the administration is allowing Musk to determine and “excuse himself” if certain issues are a conflict of interest for him.
Labor advocates have also long warned that the Trump administration would go after the Department of Labor as a way to attack the resurging labor movement in the U.S. One of Donald Trump’s first moves in office was the dismissal of Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board who has been key in advancing labor rights in recent years, as well as labor board member Gwynne Wilcox, despite Trump not having the statutory power to dismiss labor board members for political reasons.
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