Labour groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s abrupt termination of international labour rights programmes aimed at ending child labour and other abuses.
The Solidarity Center, Global March Against Child Labour and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) filed the lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to stop the cuts, enacted by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), and arguing the programmes were authorised by Congress and that the secretary of labor has no authority to cancel the funds.
Several groups supporting workers and corporations have criticised the Trump administration’s decision to abruptly cancel all ongoing grants and contracts for programmes with the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) at the Department of Labor which works to improve labour conditions outside the US.
In March Doge announced it had canceled about $577 million in grants for programmes it labelled “America last.” Doge cited programmes including “worker empowerment in South America,” “improving respect for Worker’s rights in agricultural supply chains” in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and “assisting foreign migrant workers” in Malaysia.
The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labour unions in the US, and the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), whose members include corporations such as Adidas and Ralph Lauren, criticised the cuts and argued the decision “puts American workers and American businesses last” by enabling the degradation of labour and business standards abroad.
“It’s just so frustrating to read the shallow and useless justifications that are being put out on Twitter by the secretary of labor and the Doge crowd,” said Thea Lee, who served as deputy undersecretary for international labour affairs at the US Department of Labor from 2021 to 2025. “The abrupt termination of all of ILAB grants is a destruction of decades of consensus that is bipartisan, that is business and labour agreeing together that these are important things. It’s ignorant. It’s self-defeating, and it’s wasteful and inefficient.”
Lee explained the cuts demonstrate ignorance of how the global economy works, of the long-term sourcing and investment decisions made by corporations, and the negative impacts on American workers, businesses and consumers in competing and relying on supply chains where forced labour, child labour and other human rights abuses are ignored.
“This was a completely indiscriminate meat ax that was taken to these projects and workers will suffer, businesses will suffer and American workers will suffer,” said Lee.
Lee cited programmes and research required to enforce trade agreements between the US and other nations, such as the National Child Labor survey, and around enforcing the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was co-sponsored by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, when he was a senator as examples of programmes where the work already completed is likely to be wasted due to the cuts.
Shawna Bader-Blau, the executive director of the Solidarity Center, a non-profit working in more than 90 countries to improve worker standards and conditions, said the cuts reduced the organisation’s budget by 20 percent, in addition to 30 percent cuts through USAID cuts.
“It’s a devastating, huge impact. The Solidarity Center is very often in countries where they are the only external support for trade union organising and the advancement of worker rights. If we have to leave, we’re not replaced,” said Bader-Blau. “It’s critical to the American economy that American workers not be forced to compete with extremely exploited workers in other countries, up to and including forced and child labour in supply chains.”
She cited programmes involved in enforcing labour aspects of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), signed under Trump’s first term, to improve labour conditions in Mexico. The programmes directly affect US workers whose jobs have often been outsourced to Mexico by corporations to exploit cheaper labour.
The cuts, noted Bader-Blau, made it more likely that workers will be affected by offshoring and consumers will be purchasing goods where labour abuses are rampant in the supply chain.
The cuts follow cancellations of previous grants, including a programme that began in 2022 and was slated to continue until 2026 to provide support for Uzbekistan, the sixth largest producer of cotton in the world, after the country banned forced labour and child labour in its cotton production industry.
The programme was created to affirm and support the ban on forced labour and child labour so American corporations that had boycotted cotton from the region could begin sourcing from the country.
The programme’s cancellation was touted by the US labour secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, last month.
“State-imposed forced labour was used in the cotton harvest for decades,” said Raluca Dumitrescu, coordinator for the Cotton Campaign.
Umida Niyazova, director of the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, explained Uzbekistan had moved in recent years from producing cotton and exporting the entire crop, to developing a textile industry to process it. Though the country has eliminated forced labour and child labour in harvesting, problems and abuses are still rampant throughout the industry.
“Since 2021, under enormous pressure, the state has changed the coercive practice of mass mobilisation for cotton harvesting; however, the risks of forced labour remain high since structural reforms have not been implemented,” said Niyazova.
Niyazova said the country still needed programmes to establish decent labour standards and enforce them, such as the cancelled ILAB programme.
“As Uzbek textile products are aimed at the foreign market, this concerns other countries and people of goodwill who would not want to become potential participants in a production chain based on worker exploitation,” she added.
A spokesperson for the US Department of Labor did not provide information on how the funds will be reallocated, and did not comment on criticisms of the cuts.
“The American people resoundingly elected President Trump with a clear mandate to reduce federal government bloat and root out waste. Americans don’t want their hard-earned tax dollars bankrolling foreign handouts that put America last,” said Courtney Parella, US Department of Labor spokesperson, in an email. “That’s why we’re focussed on improving oversight and accountability within this programme — and across the entire department — while prioritising investments in the American workforce.”
By Michael Sainato
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The Labour Department is cancelling more than $500 million of funding for programmes that combat child labour, forced labour and human trafficking abroad, further reducing funding for international human rights efforts.