Media contact: Dorie Turner Nolt, dorie.turner@gmail.com, 404-861-1127
Washington, D.C. — The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252, the union for workers at the U.S. Department of Education, today denounced the wasteful and inefficient relocation of hundreds of federal workers to other buildings or agencies as part of the Trump Administration’s continued unlawful dismantling of the Education Department.
This fall, Education Department employees will be scattered across nine federal buildings in Washington, D.C., after planned relocations of staff starting today, September 8.
“Secretary Linda McMahon is playing politics rather than doing her job. She says she’s making our agency more efficient, but her actions have harmed students, created chaos for families and communities, and wasted tens of millions in taxpayer dollars,” AFGE Local 252 President Rachel Gittleman said. “These moves to new facilities and the interagency agreements only make it harder for federal workers to do their jobs on behalf of the American public. This is an insult to the tens of millions of students and families who rely on Education Department services and the taxpayers who count on federal oversight to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.”
The Education Department is starting the planned transition from its longtime headquarters at the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) building in Washington, D.C., to a smaller facility nearby. The new building does not have enough room for all current Education employees, so Education Secretary Linda McMahon is moving the entire Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), as well as parts of the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (OPEPD), the Office of the Deputy Secretary (ODS), the Office of General Counsel (OGC), and the Office of Finance and Operations (OFO), to a former Internal Revenue Service building.
This comes after a summer where McMahon moved four of the Department’s regional offices to new or recently renovated spaces and buildings, including offices in New York City, Atlanta, Kansas City, and Philadelphia.
As part of 14 unlawful interagency agreements announced previously by McMahon, this week more than 100 staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) will move to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and next week 57 staff in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will move to the U.S. Department of Justice. These come after McMahon transferred nearly 180 workers from multiple Education Department offices this summer to the U.S. Interior Department, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Labor Department, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
McMahon continues to carry out the interagency agreements, despite warnings from Congress and the courts, as well as multiple complaints and grievances filed by AFGE.
“The Secretary is unlawfully moving education programs to six separate federal agencies with no expertise in education or experience serving students and families. This doesn’t streamline government — it breaks it,” Gittleman said.
More offices will move over the next few months either to the new headquarters building or to other federal agencies as part of the interagency agreements. For now, the following offices remain at the LBJ building: the Office of the Secretary, Office of the Under Secretary, the Office of Inspector General, the Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs, as well as parts of ODS, OGC, OFO, OCR, OSERS, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Office of Postsecondary Education and the Office of Communications and Outreach.
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The American Federation of Government Employees Local 252 is the labor union representing more than 2,000 dedicated public servants at the U.S. Department of Education employees—fired, retired, and still fighting.
AFGE Local 252 