Healthcare workers must organize and fight back against Trump’s deadly attacks.
By building solidarity in our workplaces and communities collectively from below.
We are a little over a week into the second Trump presidency, and it is clear: his administration’s policies are a direct assault on health and well-being. From freezing critical research funding and blocking access to Medicaid, to expanding ICE’s reach into hospitals and rolling back environmental protections, these attacks will cost lives.
As we have discussed, trans and nonbinary people will face increased barriers to care, immigrants will be deterred from seeking medical attention, and entire communities will be left at risk of untreated illnesses and potentially preventable outbreaks. These policies are not just ideological — they are deadly. For any healthcare worker who claims to care about health and well-being, the choice is clear: we must organize and fight back from below.
We cannot rely on politicians or administrators to protect us. The capitalist class, whether Republican or Democrat, has shown time and again that they prioritize power and profit over people. It is up to us — healthcare workers, patients, and community members — to build solidarity and resist these attacks. Our strength lies in our collective power, and the time to organize is now.
Call For Working-Class Solidarity And Resistance
While some Democratic leaders have criticized Trump’s policies, many have supported or enabled them. For example, even liberal darling Bernie Sanders voted to approve Marco Rubio’s nomination as secretary of state, despite Rubio’s role in advancing anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Similarly, the Laken Riley Act, which further criminalizes immigrants, received bipartisan support. At a recent signing Trump threatened to send up to 30,000 to Guantánamo Bay — groundwork for which was laid by the Biden administration. These actions reveal the truth: the ruling class, regardless of party affiliation, is united in its commitment to maintaining the status quo and protecting its own interests.
Instead of relying on the Democratic Party or liberal politicians to protect us, we must look to the examples set by workers in other industries who have shown the power of collective action. Teachers in Chicago, for example, are organizing sanctuary teams to protect students in the case of ICE raids. Examples like this, showing workers’ power, are ones that healthcare workers can learn from and take to our workplaces. They demonstrate that our strength lies in our ability to organize and resist as a united working class.
In healthcare, this means building solidarity across staff lines and with our patients. Because, in reality, our clinic and hospital leaders will not protect us — they are so often complicit in the systemic violence of capitalism. Even in so-called sanctuary cities, hospitals are advising employees to not resist ICE entering patient care areas, instead referring them to designated hospital representatives and underscoring that it is illegal to intentionally protect a person who is in the U.S. “unlawfully” from detention. We cannot wait for politicians or administrators to save us. It is up to us, as workers and community members, to organize and fight back.
Building A Movement
On a personal note, even before Trump’s election, some at my workplace raised concerns that if Trump were elected, our center would be shut down, putting the lives of our patients at risk. But, ultimately, our organization’s ability to stay open has never depended on a Democratic or Republican administration. It will be our own power of organization that determines whether we stay open. Hell, it was not long ago that Manhattan’s top prosecutor, under a Democratic mayor, a Democratic governor, and a Democratic president, signaled that he could try to shut our organization down. Whether we’re under a Democratic or Republican leadership, it will be up to us — workers, patients, and community members — to organize and resist.
This is the same for various lifesaving services around the country. I have close friends who work providing healthcare services as employees of the government. Since Trump’s inauguration, some have spent much of their time providing care for folks traumatized by the administration’s crackdown on immigration, causing them to further question traditional leadership structures. Others sit while the Trump administration tries to “buy” them and their coworkers out. But as reported by the New Republic, this is also causing workers to further their resolve to resist. I personally know several people who are now looking to unionize in order to resist the administration’s policies. It will be up to workers themselves in those spaces to organize across staff lines to fight back.
The path forward is clear: we must develop bodies of self-organization in our workplaces and communities. There are already autonomous sectors of healthcare workers developing response committees around the country to mobilize and respond if ICE is spotted in clinical spaces. And while these committees are a great method of response, we also need to organize where we are strongest: our workplaces. This means organizing through our unions, but it also means going beyond traditional union structures to build grassroots movements that prioritize the needs of the most marginalized.
We must create spaces where workers and patients can come together to defend our rights and our health. These could look like assemblies held across staff lines in clinics or hospitals to discuss and vote on how to protect our facilities from ICE raids. But they should also spread outside our workplaces into the communities where our patients reside. We have to coordinate within our neighborhoods, discussing what to do if not just our healthcare institutions, but our schools, community, or religious sites are attacked. Through this process we could link our struggles with other workers and community members holding neighborhood or community assemblies where democratic discussions could be had and with voting on next steps.
Organize, Resist, Fight Back
Trump’s attacks on healthcare, immigrants, and marginalized communities are not just policy decisions — they are part of a broader strategy to divide and weaken the working class. We must recognize these attacks for what they are and respond with unwavering solidarity and resistance. Our working-class siblings across the world are setting examples for how to fight the Far Right — like the hundreds of thousands in Argentina and in Germany who are taking to the streets.
We cannot rely on the ruling class or its political representatives to protect us. Our strength lies in our ability to organize, resist, and fight back. We must build networks of solidarity in our workplaces and communities. The ruling class will not give us this future — we must seize it for ourselves.
Do you have a story of organizing or resisting in your workplace? We want to hear about it! Write to us at contact@leftvoice.org