Federal Workers: Rise Up, Fight Back!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:57 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1165. I'm Thomas Smith and got a couple of things for you today. Really interesting interview with Anna Chu, the executive director of We The Action. But to give some context to that, first, we've got an interview with Lydia Smith. How are you doing, Lydia?

0:01:14 Lydia: Oh, I'm here. I'm doing well. How are you?

0:01:16 Thomas: Doing well. Big news over on the gavel front that I can't wait for us to cover in the year 2026, whenever we get to it.

0:01:19 Lydia: Oh, you've been busy. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much.

0:01:25 Thomas: Big News over there. But But setting that aside, we're going to be talking about federal workers today, and I'm excited to speak to Anna Chu, but I miss, although we just could not physically do it anymore, I do miss you coming on Wednesdays and giving us some updates. It's been a while.

0:01:40 Thomas: Yeah, but the last one that I think was the most relevant was when, was the same one where we talked about the musicals and the way everything Trump is doing?

0:01:46 Lydia: It has. Oh, oh, that was the most recent one. Yeah the Kennedy Center. Yeah yeah

0:01:48 Thomas: Right. So we're gonna be talking to you about federal work. My impression from the news cycle that's ongoing to 14 different things a day is that a lot lot of federal workers got absolutely screwed, fired unceremoniously, and it's awful. And there's lawsuits and there's all that. But there also seems to be decisions, staying firings, and there seem to be some wins here and there. And so I asked Lydia to catch us up to kind of what's happened since the last time we've talked about this before we talked to Anna Chu, who's doing some real work that can't wait to highlight helping these folks. So I guess that's sort of my question before we go into the first segment. And what I'm thinking about is like, what's the status of these things? How many people were fired? What are the lawsuits about that? Doge has legally run into a lot of barriers, so I don't know how much of this has been paused, undone, or not.

0:02:37 Thomas: So I'm hoping Lydia can answer those questions for us in the first segment before we get to the interview. What do you think?

0:02:37 Lydia: I'm gonna do my best.

0:02:44 Thomas: All right. Well, can't wait to get to all that. First, we've got to get to our usual break, which you can avoid at patreon .com slash law. Avoid the ads, get the goodies, get the interaction behind the scenes. It's really fun. We love hearing hearing from people, from patrons on patreon .com slash law, and most importantly, support the show, support this work. All right, after this break, we'll get to it.

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0:03:06 Thomas: Okay, so please answer that 14 point question I posed in the pre -break segment.

0:03:13 Lydia: In approximately 15 minutes. Go.

0:03:15 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, and you don't have much time.

0:03:17 Lydia: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's complicated. There are a number of lawsuits involving the various means that the Trump administration has taken against federal workers. There have been so many, in fact, that the American Federation of Government Employees posted a page on their website today titled Summary of AFGE Lawsuits Against Trump and how litigation works. So we're going to be diving into some of those lawsuits, where they currently stand, and what the future might look like. So I think what would be helpful is if I just kind of talk about the broad categories of employment actions that have been happening.

0:03:51 Thomas: I think you should read off every name of every worker then.

0:03:55 Lydia: Yeah, here we go. You're going be sorry. So the first one I want to talk about is the actions that were taken against probationary employees. This is something that we talked about quite a bit. In total, we We were looking about 25 ,000 were let go. I remember noting at the time, these aren't just employees that had started with the federal government. These are people who just got a promotion and they're considered on probation.

0:04:19 Thomas: Now, will they go back to their previous level or are they just fired?

0:04:22 Lydia: They were just fired.

0:04:23 Thomas: Oh, wow. That's brutal.

0:04:24 Lydia: They were just let go and the approach that the administration seemed to take with this was that they said for poor performance and everyone, yeah, and they were all very confused because they were like, what are you talking about? I've always had really good marks on my performance reviews.

0:04:32 Thomas: All of them. Yeah. Especially the ones who just got a promotion.

0:04:40 Lydia: Just got promoted. Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:40 Thomas: That seems wrong. Wow.

0:04:42 Lydia: And so naturally, we saw lawsuits surrounding this. One of these lawsuits went through Northern California, Northern District of California, and Judge Alsup on March 13th granted a preliminary injunction. So we're going back a bit. And he said that the termination was illegal because the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to order it and that their stated cause of firings, poor performance of these employees, was untrue.

0:05:07 Lydia: And He went further and he ordered reinstatement of all these terminated employees. The administration was not pleased with that, obviously. And so they appealed immediately to the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth circuit denied their request. And then the administration ran to the Supreme Court, as they do, for emergency relief via the shadow docket. On April 8th, and I think you guys might have covered this, on April 8, the Supreme court stayed to the injunction from Judge Alsup and said that because the plaintiffs for this lawsuit were not part of the union, they were non -profit organizations that were going to be impacted by the loss of employees that were providing, you know, like services for their federal contracting and grants and different things for their communities, they said, you lack standing to bring the case. And they tried to fix this. So now it goes all the way back, you know. To Judge Alsup. And on April 18th, so just 10 days later, he granted another preliminary injunction to additional plaintiffs that had joined. Because there were union -related related plaintiffs. And he said, I don't think I can issue a decision related to the union. I don't Think that's in my jurisdiction. However, I can't issue a Decision related to these non union plaintiffs, the nonprofit organizations, and the Supreme Court disagreed with that. And they said those people didn't have standing to bring this in the first place. And so then Judge Alsup said, Okay, then I'm going to give it a go with the union plaintiffs

0:06:27 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:06:27 Lydia: Yeah, and on June 5. So pretty recently, the American Federation of Government Employees that we're going to be talking about out a lot today AFGE I'll probably just abbreviate it from now on they requested that he would convert the preliminary injunction to a permanent injunction and that's kind of where we're at right now yeah

0:06:42 Thomas: I guess my question is when you're talking about injunctions, et cetera, were they actually fired or not? But then what would the injunction do then? Like if it's already that they're fired, he can undo it.

0:06:49 Lydia: Lift their firing so they would be back at work yeah mm -hmm yeah

0:06:57 Thomas: Oh, okay. OK, but so in that time period where that decision stood for a while, you know, they had to go through the Ninth Circuit, as you outlined. Did they go back to work? Like, that's what I haven't really understood about this.

0:07:06 Lydia: You know I can't find really great information on this either and I've been spending a lot of time honestly like beyond preparation for this discussion I've been spending a lot of time on like the Fed News news subreddit and various other like federal worker subreddits because I've been wanting to know what's been going on and like hearing from real people who are willing to put themselves out there on Reddit anyway. And I'm not 100 % clear because there are so many pieces here that are moving simultaneously. One thing we don't have time to get into today, but is notable, they ended up firing too many people for a bunch of departments. And so they've been requesting people And so how many of those people were related to the probationary employee impact or were related to the next thing I'm going to talk about, reduction in force impact. And it's really hard for me, like, unless I'm gonna go employee by employee to piece it all apart. Exactly.

0:07:55 Thomas: It's so chaotic. Yeah! It's so disorganized. I guess fair enough. I mean, they don't even know who they fired half the time. I've been wondering that because I also imagine it's not that easy to unfire somebody. And especially if they're not wanting to unfIRE them, like even though a judge told them, I wasn't sure, like, does that mean they went back to work. And I'm still wondering about that, but yeah, sure. Fair enough.

0:08:00 Lydia: No, they don't. They don't, yeah. Yeah.

0:08:15 Thomas: It's, it's hard to track down what's going on there.

0:08:15 Lydia: So then I'm actually going to talk about one brief little thing before we get into reduction in force, which is one of the big, big cases. There was a collective bargaining case regarding the the Transportation Security Administration, TSA, because Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, basically said, you're no longer unionized. Yeah.

0:08:35 Thomas: What? Didn't know you could do that.

0:08:37 Lydia: Yeah, they were moving to cancel a collective bargaining agreement. So all of these, you know, it's 47 ,000 officers that were being represented by this union effort. And if the collective bargaining went away, you know, that's pretty bad. And so the AFGE, who we keep talking about, they collaborated with other unions and sued DHS to prevent it from doing that. And the judge on that case said that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits because Kristi Noem and DHS seem to have violated both the First and Fifth Amendment rights, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act, and that the determination on canceling the collective bargaining agreement, this is from the judge, appears to have been undertaken to punish AFGE and its members because AFGE has chosen to push back against the Trump administration's attacks to federal employment in the courts.

0:09:29 Lydia: So we're talking retaliation, you know, administration wide.

0:09:28 Thomas: So I wasn't sure what the pronouns, when you said they were trying to terminate, you're saying Kristi Noem was trying to terminate the bargaining agreement. Okay. So she was trying to terminate that previous agreement. And in order to do so, it was just like, well, what if poof, you are not a union anymore? Well, how? Okay.

0:09:46 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. It is pretty remarkable. She just basically rescinded the CBA, the collective bargaining agreement, and the judge was not pleased. So the collective bargaining agreement from the judge's perspective, he essentially directed that it remains applicable in binding as of immediately. So that's a good win, for example. Now we're going to talk about reduction in force. There are a number of lawsuits tackling this. But the premise generally across all of these lawsuits is that reductions in workforce is a congressional duty. It needs to be approved by Congress because Congress holds the power and they create the agencies and the departments. They are the ones who sunset the agencies and departments. The reorganization is something that needs to go through Congress as well. And instead, the administration has taken the position that it can be unilaterally instituted by the executive office.

0:10:20 Thomas: Yeah. They created the budget in the first place.

0:10:39 Lydia: Because, of course, yes.

0:10:38 Thomas: Right. Cause they can do do whatever they want. Cause yeah, it was a unitary executive, blah, blah. But it strikes me as it's sort of like, if you were a manager at a business of some kind or whatever, you might be in charge of hiring and firing an individual person, you know, making those kinds of small scale decisions. But if one day you were just like, you now as this middle management that I am, I'm going to get rid of my team, just get rid. That wouldn't work. You'd be like, no, I mean, you might have individual kind of hiring, firing here and there, you as needed, but you're not, you don't get to get of your entire team. That doesn't make any sense.

0:11:06 Lydia: Well, I mean, if you think about any sort of massive reorganizations that happened for the state when we were working for the state of California, those are significant. And when you start getting into the technical pieces of it, too, it requires moving your budget around. You can't do that by yourself. You can't be presented as part of the budget and then be approved upon. No.

0:11:26 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. And you can't even really do that as like a, you know, a director. Usually it's like it has to be from the statutory authority usually when it gets to a certain level.

0:11:34 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. So specifically looking at this one particular case, and I'll explain why in a minute. This is through the Northern District of California, and Judge Susan Elston is overseeing this case. And she started this off with a two -week restraining order when the reduction in force moves were being made. The administration didn't like that either, and they appealed. And then we had the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reject that as well, and that was on May 30th. So now, as we saw in the probationary employees category of lawsuits. In this one, yeah, the

0:12:06 Thomas: So, OK, I mean, yeah, shadow docket and the Supreme Court is blah, blah, yeah.

0:12:10 Lydia: Trump team took this to the Supreme Court and requested that they look at it. That was June 2nd. Justice Kagan basically asking for them to position, you know, like why they should look at It. And we're expecting, you know, responses today hitting that docket. We've had some amicus briefs that have been filed as a result today as well, June 9th. We will see when there's a decision if they're going to hear it or not it is yeah I I would consider I mean we'd probably have to phone a friend steve vladek

0:12:34 Thomas: Does that mean it's on the shadow? I guess technically it's On the Shadow Docket. Yeah. OK. Yeah.

0:12:41 Thomas: It's shadowy. Yeah. You know, I've always wondered about this. I feel like I never get a good answer in terms of can one justice just grant or deny cert on the Shadow docket things? And the reason is because it's not very transparent as the shadow docket. But what I'm seeing is absent anyone making a fuss, then yes, one justice can essentially grant order or by the way, they can decide to pose it to the full court. Like maybe if it is a really important thing anyway, they can decide to pose it to the full court. But I'm seeing that what can happen is if one justice, and we don't always know, we often just see like the end result of this.

0:13:16 Thomas: And so it's kind of by inference that like, well, since the justice who was in charge of this circuit ended up dissenting on the decision to grant cert, that means this probably happened. Like that justice might've denied it maybe. And then any other justice can like call the question to the entire court apparently.

0:13:34 Thomas: And And so it's, I guess it's like a workflow thing and maybe, maybe you can sneak one by if no one notices, but I think if it's a big enough, important enough thing, then the other justices can kind of refer it to the full court to overrule what that justice might have done.

0:13:32 Lydia: But yeah right right

0:13:47 Thomas: But I think we don't see that. I think that's the key is that it's not like we see, you know, Sotomayor said no, and then, well, hold on, it's under review. We don't See any that we just see the end result. I think where we just See like this stay was granted, this injunction was granted. And then we see like which we sometimes see which justices might dissent. And we can't always tell who did what if there's no specific information. So that's why it's a shadow docket, I guess. So point is, when we're talking about this case that seems to be in Kagan's hands right now, I guess we won't know for sure if that would be like overruled or what.

0:13:47 Lydia: Right yeah

0:14:18 Thomas: But you would think that she would make the right decision there. We'll see.

0:14:20 Lydia: Yeah I would hope so and like when you're talking about the potential for harm too right like if they agree to review this case and if they come out on the side of the trump administration like they did for the probationary employees group that would lift the current injunction that we have in place and we would see a huge layoff of federal workers at over 25 agencies, this could be 250 ,000 people who work for the federal government are looking at being riffed.

0:14:54 Lydia: If they stay the injunction, layoffs are going to happen probably immediately, and then all of these people will be laid off while the actual case is being worked through the courts. It's not a done decision yet. All these people would just be unemployed.

0:15:04 Thomas: And it seems so obvious that in a situation like this, where there's a genuine legal question and that's working its way through the merits. Don't fire all the people in the meantime. But like what we've seen with this court is that they're like, no, the greater danger is that the president is not allowed to do whatever the F he wants. And that's the harm. He needs to be able to do anything he wants because he's an interior executive. So we've seeing that. But all I can say is that being riffed should be way better than that. That sounds way cooler.

0:15:34 Lydia: Oh, I know. I know Yeah.

0:15:34 Thomas: You know, it should be like, you know, like someone's like, hey, can I riff you? I'd be like yeah, sounds great.

0:15:38 Lydia: Yeah name the day I want to do like a little sidetrack because I think this is really interesting and it's kind of playing out basically this week Again, there is a court order saying you cannot lay off your employees right now Looks like the state department has been doing it anyway And they have plans to let people go as soon as june 13th The administration is trying to say, you know, that's separate from the Trump mandate that's at issue, that was ordered by the court, that we can't move forward. This is Marco Rubio doing his own thing, and it's separate. So it's okay.

0:16:15 Lydia: But plaintiffs, the AFGE, say that the state issued a fact sheet back in April about this reorg and key points were consistent with the Trump Workforce Optimization Initiative. Obviously, this is someone who works for the Trump administration. They're all working overtime to try and make all of these things happen as quickly and as chaotically as possible. So we are going to have a hearing on whether or not the administration is violating this court order. And that'll be this week, sounds like. Yeah.

0:16:44 Thomas: So in addition to all this, they're also just not listening to the court at times. Awesome. Super cool.

0:16:48 Lydia: Yeah. And trying to find ways where they can get away with not listening.

0:16:52 Lydia: So obviously, this is really terrible. But we had some amicus briefs that were posted as part of this, which I think are really interesting. And they were filed basically immediately. One is from former government officials and advisers. And specifically in the language within the amicus brief itself, it says conservatives and include former public officials who were elected as Republicans, appointed by Republicans or served in Republican administrations. So we're talking about people like Reagan appointees, Bush appointees. We have Philip LoCovara, who was the deputy solicitor general for Nixon. We have Judge Michael Ludeg, which I know he's been more of like a centrist sort of voice in the Trump years anyway. Way. And also Ty Cobb, Trump's former special counsel, signed on to this. And from their brief, this is quoted directly from there. The Constitution requires that the president take care that the laws be faithfully executed. If the president disagrees with the legislative choices made by Congress, if he believes, for example, that the government is bloated, spending is out of control, or that programs and policies are poorly conceived, under our constitutional scheme, he may recommend to Congress corrective measures that he deems, quote necessary and expedient but the president cannot take unilateral action to implement his desired measures without encroaching on congress's legislative authority

0:18:11 Thomas: Seems right to me.

0:18:12 Lydia: Seems right to me too hopefully there's an understanding of you know like we always talk about if republicans do this and like ruin this precedent then what if democrats do that I would think I would hope that a bunch of republicans would be like yeah I wouldn't be okay with a democrat president coming in and just like firing people though I guess that would never be a democrat

0:18:30 Thomas: Yeah, I know. It's just so hard. I've said that if this is all basically happening, it sounds like they're going to get away with a lot of this. I don't know. Maybe they can piece some of it back together. But, I mean, if they're not listening, the court orders, if their kind of firing people, it's hard to unfire people. You know, like people move on. They try to get another job. Maybe they don't even want to work in there anymore after being treated like that. Like, it's hard to just undo. So if this all happens and the federal government is massively either absent or staffed by MAGA people, like, I'm going to want us to do this the other way. I'm gonna want us to do this the other way somehow. I don't know how.

0:18:31 Lydia: Position yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pin in that. Yeah, Yeah. Hmm.

0:19:06 Thomas: I'm not in charge of that. But like, I think we're past the point of trying to play by the old rules. Like, if they've really damaged something like this and they brought in a bunch of MAGA mega idiots, then I think I would want to do the same thing the other way and fire all those people and bring in real people if we get power again. But I don't know. I'm not in charge. So we'll see.

0:19:22 Lydia: I want to touch on that in a little bit. But an additional issue here is that, you know, we talk a lot about exhausting your administrative remedies before pursuing legal action. Employees are expected to take, you You know, if they've been let go, they're expected to take their appeal to the Merit Systems Protections Board. Now, the Supreme Court in May granted the Trump administration their emergency request to fire the heads of the two independent, you know, National Labor Relations Board and the Merits Systems Protection Board. And so now that an individual is gone from the MSPB, they do not have a quorum. So they cannot hear appeals. So there is no administrative remedy for any of these employees.

0:20:00 Thomas: Right. Is this that thing they kept talking about where they're like, and they were told to see somebody who was already fired? Okay. That's a different thing. Hard to keep track. Can't believe there's more than one of those.

0:20:08 Lydia: No, no, no. know that yeah that was a previous uh yeah I know it is but now now we're getting comments from a three -judge panel on the fourth circuit court basically saying it appears that trump is destroying the civil service reform act they say when the civil surface reform act functions as designed we agree with the district court that the national association this is particular to immigration judges would be required to bring its case through its administrative scheme it is not clear however that the civil services reform act is currently so functioning they want the district court to look at Thunder Basin, a Supreme Court decision that helped courts decide whether or not a party has exhausted their administrative review before going to court. And they say, do we need to update the Thunder Basin test because of political interference with the independent review bodies?

0:20:51 Thomas: Because if there's a wait time of five years, you know, like what good is that? And at what point do they get to say, hey, I tried. I never heard back. Does that mean I, you Know, does. Yeah, like that's wow. That is so sinister. Mr.

0:21:03 Lydia: M -S -P -B. Yeah, now we are seeing some potential for wins. We have seen some like good news a little bit here and there. Obviously, Obviously, AFGE and other entities are fighting really hard through the court system. We'll see how the Supreme Court feels about all this stuff. But even if all of those decisions were to work out OK, all the probationary employees are brought back reinstated. The rifts are, you know, removed and it has to go through Congress, for example. I want to unfortunately say that it's not over.

0:21:36 Lydia: A lot of people stand to be impacted in the future. And the reason why I can say this, obviously Trump, first of all. But second of all, the technical supplement for his budget was just released. And in it, it includes the workforce plans because you indicate, you know, your positions year over year, right? You have your 2024 positions, your current year. So it's prior year, current year, budget year. And through that, there's been some analysis done. The administration would be looking to let go approximately 107 ,000 employees just for next year. Places like the Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration, and NASA, they're all going to lose a bunch. And we see an increase in staffing for things like Customs and Border Protection and ICE. But then simultaneously, DHS will be cutting FEMA workforce by approximately 13 percent and TSA workforce at approximately 6 percent. This number, this 107 ,000 employees, does not include two notable departments, which is the Veteran Affairs Department. And on the side, they've said they're planning on more than 80 ,000 employers to let go. And the Defense Department, and they are anticipating 60 ,000 civilian employees. So there are a lot of people that aren't even part of that 250 ,000 I talked about earlier or the 25 ,000 probationary employees. There are a Lot of people who could be impacted here just in the next year. And if Congress approves the budget, I think that gives them clearance to do that.

0:23:04 Lydia: So it's concerning. And any rehiring that they're going to do, just, you know, because a little pin in that for the MAGA bit, just so you know. The Office of Personal Management has issued a number of proposed rules where they're talking about reinstituting Schedule F, make all the employees at will. That's up right now for comment. And they also issued their new merit hiring plan. And in it, it says, all federal job vacancy announcements graded at GS5, which is an entry level, you have a bachelor's degree, basically, or above, will include four short free response essay questions.

0:23:37 Thomas: Oh, God. Are you proud to be an American?

0:23:41 Lydia: Pretty much. Now, one of them's about work ethic. Fine. You know, I don't think that matters. Another one's about your skills and experience to improve government efficiency and effectiveness. Fine, but there are two that are red flags to me. How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the federal government? Provide a concrete example, etc., etc. And the other one, how would you help advance the president's executive orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you and explain how you would help implement them if hired. This is an entry -level position. Everyone at that entry level and higher. Hire, if they're going to be hired, is now going to say, how loyal are you?

0:24:07 Thomas: My God. I'll fire a couple of people. I don't know. I don't think I could do that. But I guess.

0:24:28 Lydia: Yeah, it's insane. When I was reading through this merit hiring plan, it is legitimately crazy. So we have some major things going on in federal worker land. And any federal workers out there, I send my love to you. You guys are going through a lot. We all support you over here. True.

0:24:43 Thomas: And we can send more than that, though, because we're now going to talk to Anna Chu, who is the executive director of We The Action, and they are partnering on the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network, which is connecting federal workers to resources. We're going to talk more about it. This is very great work. This has, as you heard in the segment, very needed, very necessary, and I can't wait to talk to Anna Chu. So thanks so much, Lydia, for setting that up and for giving us the update on federal workers that have really been shafted by this evil administration. It's really sad. And so I hope in this second segment, we can maybe provide a little bit of of hope and a little bit of resources.

0:25:22 Thomas: So after this break, we'll talk to Anna Chu. Thanks so much, Lydia, for joining.

0:25:21 Lydia: Thank you.

0:25:26 Thomas: We'll see you on Wednesday, I guess.

0:25:27 Lydia: Yeah, I'll be here.

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0:27:08 Thomas: And I'm joined by Anna Chu. How are you doing?

0:27:11 Anna: I am good. Thomas, it's great to be here with you. You know, like many of your listeners, I am taking it one day at a time.

0:27:19 Thomas: Yeah, that's the motto these days. But I mean, I want to get to the basics and the background and everything. But But right off the bat, I feel like Elon Musk leaving has got to be sort of good news when it comes to federal workers, right? Is that anything we can cling to?

0:27:32 Anna: I think we have yet to see.

0:27:35 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair.

0:27:35 Anna: There are rumors and discussions of even more layoffs potentially in the summer. And so Elon Musk is but one person who was clearly a lightning bolt garnering a lot of attention, but the plans are as the plans were. And so I think it's important for us to be ready if they do move ahead with additional layoffs of federal workers. We just don't know at this point anything could happen.

0:28:03 Thomas: Absolutely. Well, that being said, why don't you introduce yourself? And I'd love to get into your background and what you're trying to do.

0:28:10 Anna: Of course, my name is Anna Chu. I'm executive director for We The Action. And We The action is one of the anchor partners for the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. So We The Action is really dedicated to connecting lawyers with nonprofits for pro bono legal help. Because we really believe that lawyers have the power to do good. And we are seeing that, you know, every day as lawyers still retain the ability to go to court, to make their cases and arguments heard, and to offer protection to everyday people in communities. So that's what we do.

0:28:47 Thomas: Absolutely. Yeah ,that's a big thing we've been talking about on the show lately, because we've certainly seen the bad side of lawyers. I myself have seen the bedside of lawyers, but there's so it is really like they say about, you know, anything is a tool. It's what you use it for. And I feel like the law is a tool and it can be used for bad a lot, but we really need good lawyers doing the work that so many are doing. So how did you get involved in all this originally? Like, what's your story?

0:29:11 Anna: I think it really starts with my family and how my family came to this country. So my father came over as a refugee. He didn't have much on his back. I think maybe he had a hundred bucks in his pocket and that was it. He was able to go from a hundred dollars to becoming a small business owner. He was able to see my sister and I go to college, and he was able to see all of that because the country at that point had good welcoming policies for immigrants and refugees at that time. So first, the fact that he was actually able to come, but it was because of good policies that he was able to go to community college, he was able to learn English, he was able to help bring over other family members. And people were able to get healthcare because of Medicaid. Folks were ableto get nutrition assistance through WIC. My cousins were able to eventually go to college because of Pell Grants. And all of that, again, are the product of intentional decisions that we made as a society, that we voted on, policies that we put in place. And so I think my mentality is, well, once we got through the door and we got very lucky to get through the door, I don't want to shut the door on others. That's not the responsibility I have. Instead, I feel incredibly lucky, but I feel incredibly responsible for making sure that we keep making and having and supporting the right policies that supports all of us. And so that's actually why I left big law many, many years ago, why I decided to pursue work with nonprofits to advance social good. And that's how actually I found myself at We The Action because the mission really spoke to me, connecting lawyers with nonprofits because I've been at nonprofits. I know how strapped they are for capacity for people,

0:31:18 Anna: We never had enough time. We never had enough folks to help us with the research with the investigations. And then I also remember being a lawyer at a big firm wanting to do pro bono work, but not really knowing where to start, where to look. And so when I saw the position open up at We The Action, I immediately understood the rationale for the organization, what it was trying to do. And I I am so thrilled, so happy to be here and to be able to continue doing something good in these challenging times.

0:31:51 Thomas: So well said. I really love that. One thing about this era that I thought of based on what you're saying, you talk about how many different ways your family was helped by good good things the government and other people were doing. And I'm firmly on the left. I'm firmly progressive. I think that on the progressive side of things, there's a real constant pressure that yes, there has been progress, but we need to be more focused on the next step because there's so much injustice in the country and there's so much justice in the world. And, and I very much feel that all the time. But one thing that I've felt in Trump 2 .0 was he just dismantled something I forgot we had, or I didn't even know we had. And I really wish we could both appreciate and have a certain amount of pride and maybe, maybe even like patriotism in a weird way. It's something I don't normally care about that much, but like about what we were doing in the past to help people like your father and like your family, all these things that I think a lot of people just either forget or don't know that we had until Elon Musk or Donald Trump guts them. It'S just really been an interesting experience to be like, man, maybe I should have been a little bit more, I don'T know, like like, positive about what people have fought for in the past, you know, in terms of some of these things, these efforts. I don't know. It just really made me think about that. Is that something you think about at all?

0:33:04 Anna: You ask such a deep question, Thomas. It's hard to answer because on one hand, you're right. There's still so much work to be done. So many challenges, so many folks who are still without a lot. So many people in communities who are so struggling to survive. But you're right. When we're deep in the struggle and we're deep in itching for change, itching for progress, we do sometimes forget how far we've come and we do sometime forget that change isn't always instantaneous it's sometimes incremental. We sometimes have to just push one button after the other and get there and the thing though is that being okay with that incrementalism is also at times a product of our privilege, right? The fact is that I myself am not constantly struggling every day to make it through. I'm not counting every penny. And so for me, I can live and deal with incremental change. But for the folks who are counting on every penny, whose lives are constantly running up against the system telling them no, no ,no ,no. For people in that position, that incremental wait my next step, that's incredibly frustrating. And so I completely understand why that was never enough, why

0:34:29 Anna: The change never happened fast enough. But then history also shows us that every 10 steps we make, we take a couple steps back because there are always folks who, I'm going to put this very generously, who are nervous about progress.

0:34:46 Anna: It's a super generous description, but they're scared, they're nervous. You know, they think in the terms of the pie is getting split even more, their slice is getting bigger. They're not thinking about how can I make the overall pie bigger for everybody, but all they see is my slice is gaining smaller and I don't want my slice to get smaller. I am incredibly nervous and there's nothing you can say to make me not nervous. And so we have these, you know, three steps forward, 10 steps forward two steps back situations because you always have those people who are nervous, who are anxious. And so yes, we're experiencing a time when a lot of the folks are exhibiting a lot of that nervousness, a lot of that anxiety. We are where we are, where we are reminded that perhaps we should have been happier about some of the progress we made because we are losing some of the things.

0:34:45 Thomas: To say the least. Yeah. Lot of interesting thoughts there. I totally agree. I think maybe I meant it slightly different than we can move on to something else, but it's just an interesting thought, which is not that we should be content or that it's good enough or any of those things. But like, I think what has happened is that everyone has lost faith everywhere because it's so easy to demagogue government. Everyone has lost faith in the system and the government and everything. And I get it to a certain extent. I think that there are good reasons to not have faith in a lot of things, but I think it's, it's sort of like what happens is it gets demagogued so badly that there's a lot people who think it doesn't do anything or a lot of people. And it's like, it might be that there is a zillion people left to help that need change change 100%. But it's not as though there aren't people whose lives weren't changed by some of these very programs that you're talking about. And some of these programs that are going away, it's been just this weird experience when we've covered it of certain things where it's like, boy, these saintly federal workers were doing this work that was so important, you know, whatever it is. And it's something that just the average person would just not think of in a million years. I don't know, you Know, like some of this weather tracking stuff or this, it's a So it's

0:36:44 Anna: Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Mm.

0:36:44 Thomas: A lot of just really interesting work that is kind of thankless that we need the government to do and that all of a sudden it's gone. And it's not about being content, but it's more about I wish we knew more about the good that can be done by government. You know what I mean? It's not that it's enough that we stop asking for more, but It's almost because we want more change that it'S valuable to know here's what has already been effective. Here's what is effective. Here's how people's lives are made better. And there's almost no focus on that ever. No focus on like, here's what this has done. And here's people whose lives are changed so that we can have a positive feeling about that and then use it to change more people's lives.

0:37:20 Thomas: I guess it's kind of my sense that I meant that.

0:37:22 Anna: I think we have an issue of chasing the negative story for clickbait. There is always an effort to drum up outrage. And so everything you see online, it's just this terrible story. Oh my gosh, look at what's horrible happening here, horrible happening there. And that's what people click on. And so we lose the stories of the everyday worker going and answering calls made to social security. Because, you know, Jane Smith showing up at work and answering that phone call, it's not a clickbait issue, right? It's not something that you turn into a TV show unless hopefully Tina Fey and others turn it into something interesting for us, right. But suddenly, Jane Smith is not there to answer the phone call at Social Security, and everyone goes, oh, my God, I am just qualifying this year for Social Security. I don't know what to do, and nobody will answer my call. And suddenly, everyone's asking, what happened to Jane? Yes. And so I think that's the problem, right? These are great things happening. They were happening so that we got to enjoy our regular lives.

0:38:27 Thomas: Now it's a big story. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

0:38:40 Anna: And we knew that somebody is going to send an alert to our phone if there's a weather event, if there's a tornado coming, if there's a hurricane coming. They will ping the news channels and news channels will cover it. And so we rely on that. We don't think that much about what made it happen. It was federal workers that made a lot of these things happen, that made a lot our lives easy to live. But we're not clicking the story about Bob and Jane showing up to work, tracking the weather, answering the phone calls. I love the stories, but I understand too, right? Are you and I going to watch that TV show?

0:39:18 Anna: Unless maybe if we need to ask Tina Fey to make up better TV shows.

0:39:18 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Right. Yeah. We need to enlist just better, hotter celebrities, just hot, just yeah. Good looking people. They should be these characters. And then we'll be like, wait a minute. Now I want to watch that. But yeah.

0:39:32 Anna: Now I'm all about social security people and the phone who answer the phone calls. I'm all about that show. Yes.

0:39:39 Thomas: Looking at We The Action and I see these numbers, I mean, they're just incredible, like 390 ,000 on the website here, hours of legal services donated, 200 million plus in volunteer services, 80 ,000 volunteers connected to date. And those are amazing numbers. I'm just wondering, are there any, you know, kind of anecdotes or stories you can put on some of those things? They're impressive numbers, but can you talk about that work in real human terms? Any examples or anything that you can think of?

0:40:03 Anna: I love telling the stories of our volunteers. So we actually have more than 54 ,000 volunteers right now. And over 2000 came since January. So I think that is indicative of just the energy out there, you know, to, for folks who want to make a change, who want to exercise their profession, their degree, to do something good. And volunteers have done a wide array of things. We had one volunteer who did election protection up in New Jersey. And he had a slightly slow day, but he noticed the lines were incredibly long. So he took it upon himself, without any questions asked, to go and just buy bottled water to start handing out to voters in line because he just wanted to support them, support their right to have their voice heard. And when he received a question about when the polls actually close, and there was actually some poll workers there who thought that the polls were closing earlier, that they had to not allow people in line. He called up the superiors. He rang the emergency center.

0:41:16 Anna: Like what time can they close? Can the voters in line actually stay in line and get their voices heard? And he got confirmation. Yes, they can stay in line, keep in line, and vote. And so he was able to talk with the folks who were at the polling location and make sure that that polling location stayed open. I think that's beautiful. It was his his first time doing it. And so out of his own volition, he gives the voters the basic supports of water so that they could stay, keep staying in line. He has the conversation with the polling center managers and manages to make sure that they stay open for the voters in line, I think it's beautiful. It's great. That's what people can do. And even now, we have a lot of volunteers who come to me and say, Anna, you're my retirement plan.

0:42:08 Anna: I am only going to keep maybe one or two clients, and then I'm just doing pro bono. And it's beautiful. It's wonderful. And so there's a lot of bad stuff happening. Just a little bit, right? Just a little bit, Thomas. But 2 ,000 people have signed up since January because they wanted to make a difference. That's huge.

0:42:32 Thomas: And are you saying, sorry, is this all lawyers for pro bono? Is there other kinds of volunteers or is it?

0:42:37 Anna: All lawyers for pro bono.

0:42:38 Thomas: Wow. Because that's a lot. That's incredible.

0:42:39 Anna: Yeah, yeah. You know, we have lawyers from everywhere, from the big firms, the small firms. Again, my retired lawyers who think of us as retirement, which I love. We have the folks who are just fresh out of law school.

0:42:51 Thomas: Now, sorry, I think I wasn't 100 % clear on the relationship of We The Action and this Rise Up Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. What's the interaction there?

0:43:00 Anna: So we are partners with this new effort. This really came about early in the year in February when we were all seeing the same problem. Federal workers being laid off, fired without cause. And there were some great lawsuits suits that were covering large swaths of workers, but there was nothing to cover all of the rank and file. And as a lawyer, I really believe, our organization really believes everyone should have access to a lawyer to ask their questions, to get help. It's this basic access to justice. And so we partnered with the AFL -CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, Leadership Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Democracy Forward, and a few others. And that's what together we launched this new federal workers legal defense network.

0:43:50 Thomas: And talk about what has become of that so far. What actions have you taken? What's been the impact?

0:43:55 Anna: It's been really meaningful. Lawyers in the legal defense Network are doing two things. They are providing screening conversations to workers, and they're also providing one hour pro bono consultations for workers as well. And we have had thousands of workers come through to us. Over a thousand lawyers also sign up to provide pro bono help and to provide screenings. And we're seeing the magic happen, that workers are getting access to legal resources. They're getting accessto lawyers. And that's what we need. And that said, Thomas, we always need more help. And so if any of your listeners are interested in volunteering, yes, we will take them. We have resource libraries. We have trainings. And so your listeners do not need a background in federal labor or employment law. We will give them training. We will gives them mentors. They will have access to office hours. We're trying to make it as easy as possible so we can get them to help as many people as possible.

0:44:35 Thomas: Contact. Yeah. Well, that's great because we have the perfect audience for you because not only do we have a ton of lawyers listening, we also have a lot of federal workers we've heard from. Some that are still in their positions, some who aren't.

0:45:10 Anna: It's really sad. I think a lot of workers have expressed feeling really alone. They've expressed feeling abandoned because can you imagine working for decades again showing up answering that hotline answering that phone line tracking the weather you're doing your scientific research and suddenly the next day you're just told you're no longer working you're given the slip what we've heard is just so much gratitude that finally there's someone to listen to them. Finally, there's someone to answer some of the questions they have because these workers, when they're laid off, they don't have access to their HR. So they can't even ask, what's happening? Do I have four days? Do I have five days? What happens to my benefits? What is the next step? But suddenly it's just you're cut off. And so we've heard a lot of these really terrible stories, but we've We've heard people, again, feeling just very grateful that someone is finally picking up the line. Someone is finally helping answer their questions and giving them some next steps and guiding them through. And that's what I'm hoping, you know, to your federal workers who are listening, who are feeling that anger and frustration, please, you know, check us out. Give us a call. Check out our website, workerslegaldefense.org. You know, for the lawyers, you can do so much in this time and we still need you.

0:46:34 Thomas: Yeah, I mean there's been those stories of like workers have to go and line up around the block and see if their card still works to get in the building and that's how they know they've been fired. I mean it's just absolutely heartless stuff and it's so great what you're doing and trying to help people because it's anything legal, look, you're a lawyer for non-lawyers like me and so many of us, anything with the legal system and any time you're interacting with anything like that, it can be so scary. It can be so terrifying, that loss of control and that feeling that like, oh, I don't really fully understand what's happening here and what my rights are and what I can do, if anything. And so I just think it's so great that you're giving folks those resources. And you said they get like a free hour consult and a free, what else could, if we have any federal workers listening, and they want to utilize some of these resources at workerslegaldefense .org, what help can they expect? What can they look for?

0:46:50 Anna: So they will get access to a lawyer for initial screening. They will have access to resources. Depending on the situation of the federal workers, they will have a litany of actual written resources that could be sent to them, but they would also be able to connect with a lawyer or promote a discussion for up to an hour. So even after the initial screening phone call, even after initially getting a lot more guidance documents, a lot more like FAQs, they can also have the lawyers to ask the questions one-on-one. We are also, you know, doing larger group office hours and town halls for workers as well. And so you should definitely sign up. But I want to go back to something that you said, Thomas, is feeling that loss of control. All of this is to try to give back some semblance of control and power. And I say this also to the lawyers. We still have that power, that power to make a difference, thatpower to take some of the control back or that powerto help someone in a meaningful way. And there's not a lot of people, circles, communities that still havethat type of power

0:48:39 Anna: Right now. And so I just urge everyone one, exercise the power that we have in our hands.

0:48:44 Thomas: That's such a good message. Because again, that's right on theme of what we've been talking about. And you know, it is a privilege. Not everybody has the power or time or resources to really help as much as they want. And it's really cool. I think for all the lawyers listening, we have so many. And we have some of the lawyers that have become lawyers because of the show, which I have mixed feelings about. But no, No, but in this instance, if that's you, you have worked hard to get where you are and you have the power to help. And I think it's just so cool to talk to folks who are actually using that rather than to try to make big law bucks, you know, are really helping people. So if any of those lawyers listening want to volunteer, what can they, first off, how exactly should they do it? And what can they expect? Like kind of what, what will be that process?

0:49:25 Anna: I would say two things. If you want to help federal workers, go to workerslegaldefense.org. You can sign up to be a volunteer. You will have access to all of the training library and training educational materials, but you will have access to actual live trainings and recorded trainings too. So there's paper, there's videos, there're live trainings. There are also office hours that we are offering to volunteers too. So for lawyers who want to volunteer, but maybe you're interested in helping organizations find cures for rare diseases, for example, or maybe you are interested in doing immigration work, then I invite you to check out We The Action because we have almost every cause you can think about. If you want to to help immigrants. If you want to help on a gender equity issue, you want to find a domestic violence hotline, for example, check us out. So that's wetheaction.org. And hey, if you're at a big firm, that's okay too. Everybody has had to pay the bills at some point. Law school is not cheap.

0:50:35 Thomas: Sure. The debt you probably Probably acquired. Yeah, exactly. To even be there to begin with. Yeah.

0:50:39 Anna: Yeah, yeah. But make use of your pro bono hours.

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0:52:20 Thomas: You referenced so many different efforts and so many different nonprofits and there are a ton and they all sound amazing. What's the process of selecting and partnering with them and the criteria? How does that work?

0:52:30 Anna: Nonprofits come to us in all sorts of ways, Thomas. Some just hear about that from each other. Some Google us. In general, we welcome almost every nonprofit, but with the big caveat, they have to be mission aligned. Similar to yourself, we are also progressive. So we are pro -abortion. If an organization is actively trying to curtail reproductive rights, we actually may not be the space for them. We are pro pro -democracy. If an organization is trying to somehow reduce access to the voting box, we are probably not the right organization for them.

0:53:14 Thomas: You're put so nicely and diplomatically.

0:53:18 Anna: I'm very diplomatic. We are very pro -LGBTQ. If someone is trying to eliminate rights for the LGBTQ community, again, we are probably not the right organization for them. Yes.

0:53:31 Thomas: I kind of like that you said pro-abortion. Was that a conscious choice? Can you talk about that? Because I find that so interesting.

0:53:36 Anna: I think it's taking back the word abortion, not shying away from it, not adopting that stigma. Abortion is healthcare. I'm pro -healthcare. Therefore, I should be pro -abortion. It is a healthcare decision that a person makes with their family and with their doctor. And I am pro people being able to make their own healthcare care decisions. And so I'm pro -abortion. I think when you state it simply in that manner, it's just common sense. And I don't say pro -life, I say anti -abortions.

0:54:08 Thomas: I couldn't agree more. I just feel like also, I really feel like the left and progressives and Democrats need to do less trying to manage how to react to like the reactionary opinions and more shaping opinions and more fearless leadership. You know, like it just feels like we're getting, we're being led astray by being afraid of public opinion when the other side seems to just shape it and seems to just do what they can to change it. And we saw that with, and this might be some overlap with, I'm sure some of the work that the nonprofits you work with are doing, but when it comes to immigration, that was a lot of Democrats were saying, you know, we should be quiet about that one because like, it's an 80 -20 issue for them. We shouldn't talk about it. We should be really, really still. And then Abrego Garcia happens and people get very outraged and people make a scene. And again, I mean this in a good way. People protest, people make it an issue. And then all of a sudden, that's not their issue anymore. So I love that language that you're using. And I hope people will do that more. It's such a great example.

0:55:06 Anna: Appreciate that, Thomas. I feel like I'm a little bit too much of a person to say that. I think sometimes we speak in too highfalutin terms and we do not just simply state what our values are. But I think if we simply state where our values are, treating each other with dignity, with respect, all of us with dignity and respect. Nobody should disagree with that. And if you start there with that common point, respecting people's decisions, decisions over their own bodies, decisions, over their own healthcare, who should disagree? With that. So I think start with the values, you know, on immigration, we're a land of immigrants.

0:55:44 Anna: That's how our country was formed. And granted, I will say throughout history, we've all, throughout history, we've always, everybody who came earlier was always nervous about the next person coming. But if you look back, it all smoothed out fine. It all, we learned to live together. We learned to work together. I think what we're seeing now is just folks being, again, going back to that pie, being very worried about their slice of pie. And so I think we have to go back to what our values are. We want to build something bigger together. It's hard ass work to do that, but we can do it. We can create more. Embrace the nervousness, but embrace the potential to build bigger and do better together.

0:56:30 Thomas: I think it is a very natural reaction. I think reactionary people have existed every place in time. But I also think it's so obviously done for the benefit of the rich people actually have all of the pie and we're fighting over one of the crumbs that fell off. And it's like pointing out that that's that's more the reality rather than any actual shrinking pie that any immigrant is taking from you. It's some billionaire who has all of it, who owns the bakery, you know, and we're just arguing over morsels. But yeah, so this is a legal show. And I wanted to check in general, is there anything you can talk about, about the legal standing and the legal fights that these federal workers are facing? Is there any trend? Is there any insight you can, you know, people who've been not only are federal workers, but people like me are very worried and been very saddened by what's happened to federal workers?

0:57:24 Anna: I don't think I have particular special insight given that, you know, we are not the ones bringing the cases ourselves. But I think what you're seeing across the board is that the courts are upholding the rule of law, that they are so far are still pointing out and still challenging the administration in areas in which they really overreached. And so I would encourage folks, they need to still have faith, I think, in the law that of what we can do of going to the courts, we still need to bring these challenges. We should not back down from them. That's what we have to do. We have to exercise the power we have while we still have it.

0:58:02 Thomas: Is Yeah. And normally that can be cold comfort to someone who can't afford a lawyer or can't go through that process. But that's why I'm so glad for how you guys are helping folks. Now, in kind of the waning time, is there anything you want to talk about that I didn't know to ask you? Anything that's on your mind, anything that you think would be really good for our audience to hear? Hmm.

0:58:23 Anna: I come back to this one point, Thomas, it is so easy to get started. The hardest part is actually making the decision and say, and giving yourself permission to start. But once you've made, you've overcome that hurdle of just you thinking to yourself about, oh, do I have time? I don't know. Like, can I do this? The answer is yes, you can. And it's super easy. Just go on to either workerslegaldefense .org, go on wetheaction .org or go to your favorite nonprofit that you've been donating to or that you have heard about or read about. We have power still in our hands and we just have to exercise it together.

0:59:08 Thomas: That first step really does, especially, you know, and I can relate. I'm somebody who I tend to, I'm not as extroverted, you know? And so like, I totally empathize with that, that first step being hard to take, but it sounds like, you know, if you take that first Step, you're saying it's pretty, pretty smooth from there, you think?

0:59:23 Anna: It's not without some curve balls but that's what makes life exciting. It's smooth, it's easy, but it also helps you grow because it means that you could be exposed to new things. Maybe you check out a new area of law that you were not familiar with before, and maybe that makes you a little bit nervous, but it's also fun.

0:59:45 Anna: It's also good to do, and it feels so great.

0:59:45 Thomas: Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Once again, I will put everything, all these links in the show notes and all that, but But it's workerslegaldefense .org and, of course, wetheaction .org. So nice of you to take the time, and I love the work you're doing, and thank you so much for doing it.

1:00:03 Anna: Thank you so much, Thomas, for having me on.

1:00:23 Thomas: Well, what if, poof, you're not a union anymore? Are you proud to be an American?