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Participants hold signs during a news conference with Federal Workers Against DOGE outside the Department of Labor, April 14, 2025.
When the boss declares open season on the workers, it’s deeply concerning. When that boss is the president of the United States, it’s unconscionable.
For the last few months, the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, has carried out orders from President Trump to be “aggressive” toward federal employees. Federal workers have endured bullying, name-calling, and sweeping, often illegal, actions to strip them of their rights and even their jobs. The damage has been significant, and it’s far from over.
Trump and Musk’s chain saw approach to getting rid of federal employees initially failed. The first big wave of firings targeted probationary employees in the first years of their jobs—nearly 25,000 of them. That is being challenged in court. In an embarrassing example of how Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is causing waste and abuse rather than stopping it, many of those employees were brought back to work when the administration realized that many federal employees, even those in their first and second years on the job, were really needed. Federal agencies have been spending time and money putting the things Musk broke back together again.
In addition to firings, Musk’s initial strategy was to get federal employees to give up their jobs, throwing money at them to nudge them out. This “Fork in the Road” approach also failed to cut federal employees in the numbers Musk wanted. Musk’s belief that federal employees would walk out if offered sufficient payment turned out to be wrong because, as it turns out, federal workers are deeply committed to the public service they’ve chosen and to the oaths they took. Federal employees already made the decision to forgo higher salaries in the private sector in favor of serving others—something the “we need to run government as a business” people cannot comprehend.
So that leaves the administration’s current strategy: make it unbearably miserable for people to stay in their jobs. Treat them so poorly, give them asinine assignments, take away the tools they need, and create a climate of fear so the job becomes untenable.
In the latest example, staff at the Department of Labor, which I used to oversee, received an email this week copied and pasted from the authoritarian playbook. Somewhere between “spread lies to undermine the public’s belief in truth,” “dismantle legitimate institutions,” and “suppress free speech and the free press” they came up with this: an email that prohibits DOL employees from having any communication, including “informal conversations, emails, texts, and social media,” about the devastating actions inside the agency.
These are employees who are supposed to look out for the labor rights of others, now seeing their own rights at work diminished.
The email from the DOL chief of staff threatens employees who communicate in this manner with “potential criminal penalties, depending on the nature of the information and the applicable laws” as well as “immediate disciplinary actions, up to and including termination from the DOL.” Staff are also prohibited from speaking to the media, “whether on the record, off the record, or anonymous.” This will also “be treated as a serious offense.”
Sure, an organization is permitted to designate who speaks to reporters officially on its behalf. And disclosure of confidential or classified information can be subject to penalty and discipline. DOL employees are already well aware of these protocols. (It’s too bad the current administration doesn’t adhere to those rules themselves, since the personal and confidential data of countless Americans has been given to who knows how many unauthorized individuals since January.)
But this email to Department of Labor staff goes way beyond that. It threatens employees for exercising fundamental rights, particularly when such rights collide with the administration’s desire to pursue its anti-worker policies under cover of darkness. And these are employees who are supposed to look out for the labor rights of others, now seeing their own rights at work diminished.
After subjecting staff to an endless stream of insults, chaotic communications about cutting critical functions, and “reduction in force” memos that put employees in the impossible position of choosing between staying in a job that has been made unbearable and “voluntarily” leaving, maybe this memo should not have been surprising.
There is a reason that reporters are keen to speak with federal employees, including those at the DOL. And they’re not the only ones with questions. Employers want to know if the visas they need for temporary workers will come through. Workers want to know if investigations of wage theft in their workplaces will continue. Organizations running workforce training programs want to know if they can tell participants that the program they’re in today will still be in operation tomorrow.
And reporters are asking questions to learn what it feels like for people who’ve spent 15 or 25 years doing a job they love to show up for work one day and be denied access to the building, without explanation or recourse.
The fact that DOL staff are now being told, under threat of criminal and disciplinary action, that they cannot talk about these things, even in “informal conversations,” is outrageous. Many staff are exercising fundamental rights by joining in marches and rallies to speak out about this administration’s unlawful and abusive behavior, but also to join in solidarity with others. Enacting prohibitions on speaking about what is happening at the DOL violates the First Amendment rights of federal employees. It also ramps up the oppressive conditions that no worker should have to endure.
While Elon Musk is reportedly stepping back from his role with DOGE to stanch the bleeding at Tesla—bleeding caused by a wave of public resentment toward these very behaviors that federal employees are rightly exposing—this administration’s remaining political appointees will continue what he’s started. And the reason we know what’s happening on the inside is because brave public servants are telling their stories and fighting back, despite daily threats to their livelihoods and their careers.
The email sent this week to DOL staff shows that this administration is scared of workers, including their own, exercising real power—and that speaking up and pushing back matters. All of us should be standing with federal employees who never thought their jobs would require the kind of courage they are showing now. But authoritarians and bullies always go after the thing they fear the most, and the latest email at DOL shows that workers are more powerful than abusive bosses.
To those bosses: If you’re so afraid your employees are going to reveal the horrible things you’re doing, stop doing them.
Editor’s Note: The Prospect was able to authenticate that the email referenced in this story was sent. We reached out to the Department of Labor to ask questions about the email and its possible infringement on workers’ First Amendment rights. There has yet to be a response.
