The nation’s largest federation of unions has put together a pro bono legal network that aims to help federal employees whose jobs have been lost or threatened under the Trump administration.
More than 1,000 lawyers in 42 states have completed training in order to offer their services, organizers said. The new pro bono group — Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network, which was formally introduced on Wednesday — was formed by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. along with several other unions and civil rights groups, including We The Action, a network that connects lawyers with nonprofits, Democracy Forward, which has been leading legal action against the Trump administration, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Unions that represent federal workers — such as the American Federation of Government Employees, which is also involved in the legal network — have been at the forefront of efforts to push back against President Trump’s efforts to significantly downsize the civil service. But lawsuits challenging mass firings and other moves by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, have had mixed success. And litigation takes time.
With dismissals expected to accelerate in the coming months, the unions decided to add a new dimension to their legal efforts. The new group aims to provide guidance and legal support to individual workers — regardless of whether they are union members — to challenge their employment status through the agencies that they work for, as well as various administrative boards.
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“We knew there would be a lot of quick and valiant legal work in the federal courts, but we knew there was a chance you’d have to go to the employee agencies to protect the workers’ rights,” Deborah Greenfield, the network’s executive director, said in an interview.
One challenge for the network and their potential clients is that some of these bodies, like the National Labor Relations Board, are themselves in a state of limbo as courts weigh whether Mr. Trump has the power to fire appointed board members.
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