Senate Democrats Say DOGE’s Labor Cuts Will ‘Hurt Children’

After Elon Musk’s DOGE team terminated half a billion dollars in grants to combat child and slave labor, Sen. Brian Schatz is sounding the alarm.

In late March, according to The Washington Post, DOGE axed more than $500 million in allocated funding for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs to combat child labor around the globe. That cut is expected to end 69 programs addressing forced labor and child labor in over 40 countries.

On Tuesday, Schatz sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer calling out cuts that, Schatz and 11 other Democratic senators who signed the letter said, will “hurt children.”

“These cuts are inconsistent with bipartisan laws passed by Congress providing federal funds to combat child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, and enforce labor standards in over 40 countries,” the letter reads. “We note that the Trump Administration identifies labor practices, including failures by foreign governments to protect internationally recognized worker rights, as a foreign trade barrier in the recently issued National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers. Cancelling all existing cooperative agreements will only harm American workers, lower international labor standards, and hurt children.”

The letter also addresses how ILAB has played a “key role” in combating “China’s use of slave labor as a member of the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force to enforce the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.”

After the cuts were made, the official DOGE account on X touted the termination as a cancellation of “$577M in ‘America Last’ grants for $237M in savings.” In response, the Department of Labor’s official X account also mocked the programs that were cut with a meme.

In a statement, Department of Labor spokesperson Courtney Parella didn’t address the letter specifically but discussed the cuts the department is making.

“The American people resoundingly elected President Trump with a clear mandate to reduce federal government bloat and root out waste,” Parella said. “Americans don’t want their hard-earned tax dollars bankrolling foreign handouts that put America last. We’re focused on improving oversight and accountability within this program — and across the entire department — while prioritizing investments in the American workforce and bolstering protections for children here at home.”

Over the past two decades, the ILAB has helped reduce the number of children in child labor across the globe by 78 million, according to the Associated Press. Part of that was through issuing grants — which have now been terminated — to international groups and organizations.

The grants often went to nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations to ensure adequate working conditions, ensure compliance with labor standards and promote better working conditions.

“Unfortunately, your actions will prevent this work from continuing,” the letter reads.

“The only winners here will be the multinational corporations who want cheap labor, and our adversaries that benefit from these practices,” the letter continues.

During her confirmation hearing in February, Chavez-DeRemer testified to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions that “we must protect children from labor exploitation,” which the letter references.

“We ask that you live up to your comments and urge you to take immediate steps to protect children, American workers, and other vulnerable populations by using funds Congress appropriated for ILAB for that purpose,” the letter concludes.

Among the 11 other Democrats on the letter are some who voted for Chavez-DeRemer’s confirmation — like Sens. Ruben Gallego and Tim Kaine — and some who didn’t, like Sens. Bernie Sanders, Patty Murray, Cory Booker, Alex Padilla, Tammy Baldwin, Chris Van Hollen, Richard Blumenthal, Jeff Merkley and Tammy Duckworth.

Here is the full letter:

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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.