Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Nonprofits combatting forced and child labor allege that DOL did not have authority to cancel funds, (Apr 17, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

One of the plaintiffs—the Global March Against Child Labour—is a network of groups that works toward eliminating and preventing all forms of child labor, slavery, and trafficking.

A group of nonprofit organizations operating programs through cooperative agreements with the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), whose agreements were terminated, effective immediately, by the Labor Department as part of DOGE’s slashing of such programs, have filed suit against the department and the Secretary of Labor. They allege that they had 15 of ILAB’s 69 previously active cooperative agreements, collectively providing them with over $100 million in funding for work they performed world-wide. “These programs protect workers and companies in the United States against unfair competition from companies and governments that violate workers’ rights to free association and collective bargaining, and otherwise use forced labor, child labor, or other labor rights violations,” they allege, “to gain an unfair advantage in the global marketplace.”

Child labor, slavery, and trafficking. The plaintiffs include: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (the Solidarity Center) which is a nonprofit labor organization and partners with labor unions and other organizations abroad; the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a nonprofit that conducts research and provides assistance, working closely with governments, employers, and worker’s organization and unions, and has agreement to support labor justice reforms and enforcement in Mexico; and the Global March Against Child Labour (Global March), a “network of trade unions, teachers’ organizations, and civil society groups that works toward the shared development goals of eliminating and preventing all forms of child labor, slavery, and trafficking and ensuring access by all children to free, meaningful, and good quality public education.”

Executive hostility not sufficient justification. “DOL may not lawfully cancel all of ILAB’s ongoing cooperative agreements based solely on hostility to legislative directives that the executive branch is constitutionally bound to implement,” they allege, “and it may not refuse to spend money that Congress appropriated for such programs. DOL’s actions are therefore ultra vires, contrary to law, and arbitrary and capricious.”

The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in the District of Columbia; the case is No. 1:25-cv-01128.

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