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Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’
The Daily Wire ^ | 19 Mar 2025 | Luke Rosiak

Posted on 03/20/2025 5:51:24 AM PDT by Rummyfan

One of the seven small federal agencies that President Donald Trump ordered downsized or eliminated on Friday was rife with corruption, with its employees hiring friends and relatives, commissioning paintings of themselves, and using government credit cards to indulge in constant luxuries.

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.

FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.

This reporter spent a year investigating the agency a decade ago, and I found egregious and self-serving violations of hiring, pay, contracting, and purchase card rules. One thing I could not discover is why the agency actually existed, other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees. Endless junkets to resort destinations, which employees openly used to facilitate personal vacations, were justified as building awareness of the agency in the hopes that someone would actually want to use its voluntary services.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailywire.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: conciliation; corruption; federal; fmcs; mediation; parasites; unions
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These f***ers. I can think of no other word to describe them.
1 posted on 03/20/2025 5:51:24 AM PDT by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

But the poor gubment employees, without them how will we all survive 😂

Soon to be on cnn crying about children and mortgages

President Trump should buy that building and make his presidential library right on K Street🤔


2 posted on 03/20/2025 5:58:33 AM PDT by blitz128
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To: Rummyfan

Ain’t Communism wonderful.


3 posted on 03/20/2025 6:02:06 AM PDT by bray (It's not racist to be racist against races the DNC hates.)
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To: Rummyfan

Human scum, parasites feasting off the backs of taxpayers. Thieves. Deserving of our contempt and hatred. All that is horrible about humanity. They should be branded on their foreheads so they are easily identifiable. Make them uncomfortable wherever they go- make it known that they are not wanted.


4 posted on 03/20/2025 6:02:47 AM PDT by Cowgirl of Justice
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To: Rummyfan
According to their Wikipedia page, they did little to nothing between the 1940's and the 1970's.

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

5 posted on 03/20/2025 6:08:28 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
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To: yesthatjallen

Shuttered? Find me a judge, quick. Maybe they/zir can order Elon to send Trump to Mars.


6 posted on 03/20/2025 6:15:00 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Rummyfan

Bttt


7 posted on 03/20/2025 6:15:45 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there)
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To: Rummyfan

When are some fraudsters like these people going to be arrested and prosecuted? A years long “business trip” to DC to get a tax free per diem is tax fraud, pure and simple.


8 posted on 03/20/2025 6:23:41 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: Rummyfan

When are we going to have Senate and House hearings on this agency?


9 posted on 03/20/2025 6:29:07 AM PDT by Degaston
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To: yesthatjallen
2020s
In August 2020, representatives from Bath Iron Works and International Association of Machinists Local S6 signed an agreement with FMCS' assistance to end the shipyard worker strike in Bath, Maine.[47][48] The 63-day strike drew national attention against the backdrop of a global pandemic and in an election year. President Trump said he was "glad to have helped"; the assistant to the president for trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, credited contributors including the deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services.[49]

In April 2022, the National Labor Relations Board reminded its field offices about FMCS services and encouraged them to partner with FMCS mediators.[50]

In 2022, FMCS announced that it would provide assistance with card check at no cost.[51] It stopped supporting card check in March 2025.[51]

That's it! Scum

10 posted on 03/20/2025 6:30:38 AM PDT by FatherofFive (we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor)
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To: Rummyfan

It is amazing the amount of information journalists can cover up by simply not being curious.

By simply not reporting.

By simply not exposing.

By omitting.

Coverup : achieved.


11 posted on 03/20/2025 6:42:03 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot vote our way out of these problems. The only way out is to activist our way out.)
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To: Rummyfan

“… its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office”

I was legitimately on the road 90% of my first five years of my career working in power plants. We had a $25/day limit for food. Woe to you if you tried to claim $26. Nothing got past the eagle eyes at HQ.

And these people could get away with exorbitant charges for YEARS?

You know this is the tip of the iceberg, too. The whole stinking government is like this. Those bastards burning Tesla cars want to PRESERVE this travesty and keep it going if not grow it.

Stories like this should be hammered endlessly in the news until every single American is as outraged as we are.


12 posted on 03/20/2025 6:46:18 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (Democrats who say ‘no one is above the law’ won’t mind going to prison for the money they stole)
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To: All

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all.
<><>It occupied a nine-story office tower on K St for only 60 employees,
<><> many employees actually “worked from home,” prior to the pandemic.
<><>managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms;
<><>one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed,
<><>another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge
<><>its director was said to be on a “years-long business trip to DC”
<><>scheme meant his meals and living expenses got covered by taxpayers, simply by showing up.
<><>FMCS became a real-life caricature of all the govt excesses DoGE went after.
<><>there were egregious, self-serving violations of hiring, pay, contracting, and purchase card rules.
<><>NOT found is why the agency actually existed,
<><>other than to provide luxurious lifestyles for its employees.
<><>Endless junkets to resorts which facilitated personal vacations,
<><>justified as building awareness of the agency
<><>hoping that someone would actually use its voluntary services.


13 posted on 03/20/2025 6:50:14 AM PDT by Liz (This then is how we should pray...."Our Father, who art in heaven......";s )
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To: Rummyfan

This reporter spent a year investigating the agency a decade ago.

But it wasn’t until Trump and Musk came along to solve the problem.

Keep up the great work guys if a liberal whines tell them how Clinton got rid of 40,000 jobs.


14 posted on 03/20/2025 6:51:54 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Vaduz

In the wake of mass layoffs under President Donald Trump’s new administration, some have compared the government-shrinking initiative to a 1990s effort under President Bill Clinton, when about 400,000 jobs were cut from the federal workforce.
************************************************


15 posted on 03/20/2025 6:55:33 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Rummyfan
Bfl
16 posted on 03/20/2025 6:55:57 AM PDT by liberalh8ter ( This tagline has taken the month off to attend the inauguration.)
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To: Vaduz

I have flown out of DC Reagan for decades; the first class section is always full of government employees.


17 posted on 03/20/2025 7:02:28 AM PDT by laconic ( )
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To: Vaduz

And the Democrats are mad that their scams and theft is being uncovered and stopped.


“Top FMCS official George Cohen used a “recreation and reception fund” to order champagne and $200 coasters for his office, and to purchase artwork painted by his wife. The tiny agency commissioned paintings of its top employees — as one employee told me, “like they were reigning kings or something…I’ve never seen anything like it before.” It spent $2,402 retouching the portrait of someone who briefly held the top job in an acting capacity.

FMCS employees “unblocked” their government credit cards to turn off typical abuse protections, then used them to apparently fund personal expenses and simply bill anything they’d like to the government. One employee leased a BMW; another (IT director James Donnen) billed the government for his wife’s cell phone, cable TV at both his home and his vacation home, and even his subscription to USA Today.”


18 posted on 03/20/2025 7:33:07 AM PDT by CFW
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To: Rummyfan

People must go to prison for this.


19 posted on 03/20/2025 7:39:21 AM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: CFW

Some sayings ring true know where the pennies go and you don’t have to worry about the dollars


20 posted on 03/20/2025 7:47:27 AM PDT by Vaduz
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