Following an executive order from President Donald Trump, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) laid off about 95% of its staff March 19. FMCS is a little-known independent agency, established in 1947, that provides mediators to help unions and employers prevent and settle labor disputes.
The move was signaled with a March 14 executive order directing the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and six other tiny federal agencies to scale back what they’ve been doing. The order says the agencies shall “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law,” and eliminate “non-statutory components and functions.”
The executive order didn’t specify what FMCS would need to do to comply, or what non-statutory components and functions would be eliminated.
But it didn’t take long to find out. Five days later nearly every FMCS mediator was told it was their last day on the job. FMCS had about 220 staff as of last year. All that remains is a skeleton crew of about a dozen employees in Washington, D.C.
An email from the Labor Press to the agency’s sole media contact got an automated response that he was no longer with FMCS due to the layoffs. Greg Raelson, a retired Naval officer, had been the agency’s congressional and public affairs director since 2018.
“I am deeply saddened to witness such drastic and short-sighted measures taken against a Congressionally-established agency that has played such a critical role in serving our nation and taxpayers since 1947,” Raelson said in his automated farewell. “FMCS saves our economy more than $500 million annually on a modest $55 million budget (less than 0.0014% of the federal budget).”
