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Federal Workers

EPA Workers Investigated For Defending Its Mission

July 11, 2025 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
After signing a critical letter to their boss, 139 EPA workers were put under investigation and on a 2-week paid administrative leave July 3. The workers wrote to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin that the mission of their agency is being undermined by the Trump administration’s actions and asked Zeldin to back away from “harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise” and re-commit “to his oath to protect the health of the American people and our environment.” Under Zeldin, the EPA is reconsidering bans on asbestos, weakening rules on mercury, and extending deadlines to remove cancer-causing chemicals from drinking water.

Elon Musk Steps Down From DOGE

June 1, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
The world’s richest man has just stepped down from his position leading a federal government task-force responsible for gutting large portions of the federal government. In a send-off press conference held in the Oval Office on Friday, May 30, Elon Musk received glowing praise from Trump himself. Trump handed Musk an ostentatious golden key to the president’s office after praising the billionaire as “one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced,” who has “worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations.”

How Federal Workers Without A Union Can Still Act Like A Union

May 10, 2025 Colin Smalley, Labor Notes. , , , ,
The reality for over 1.3 million federal government workers leading up to the second Trump Administration has been collective bargaining through unions recognized by the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA). This recognition comes with the right to bargain over working conditions and conditions of employment. It also includes an individual right to representation when the boss is asking questions that could lead to discipline. However, for a majority of these workers, Trump’s Executive Order 14251 strips those rights in the name of “national security.” These workers, myself and my union included, are now faced with a scenario that’s been all too common.

Unpacking Trump’s Attack On Federal Sector Unions

April 30, 2025 Nicholas Handler, Portside. , , ,
On March 28, President Trump issued an executive order purporting to bar federal workers at dozens of federal agencies and subdivisions from joining labor unions or entering into collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the federal government. Initial reporting suggests that the order could strip two-thirds of unionized federal workforce, or nearly 700,000 civil servants, of their collective bargaining rights. Following the issuance of the order, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memorandum directing the named agencies to implement the president’s directive, which presumably will include the termination of any collective bargaining agreements and a refusal to recognize existing unions.

PATCO’s Lessons For This Crisis

April 10, 2025 Joseph A. McCartin, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order revoking the collective bargaining rights of more than 700,000 federal workers is the largest act of union-busting in U.S. history. The closest historical parallel is Ronald Reagan’s busting and decertification of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. When 12,000 air traffic controllers initiated an illegal strike on August 3, 1981, and stayed out in defiance of Reagan’s ultimatum, the federal government came down on them with all its might. Many PATCO leaders were arrested, the union was bankrupted and decertified, and the strikers were permanently replaced and banned for life from returning to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Federal Unionists Say It’s Not Game Over, It’s Game On

April 5, 2025 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
A scrappy network of federal unionists is leading the response to the Trump administration’s attacks on their workplaces, including Trump’s March 27 order purporting to end union contracts covering most federal workers. Where the Federal Unionists Network has led, union leaders have followed. In a Zoom event that drew 65,000 viewers, FUN got official support from all the significant federal unions for their bottom-up organizing approach to the Trump onslaught. Federal worker unions are in the crosshairs because they are defending the jobs and agencies that Trump and Elon Musk have been trying to eliminate by illegally bypassing Congress and violating laws governing federal employment.

AFGE Rallies In Defense Of Collective Bargaining At The CDC

April 4, 2025 Alex Carson, Fight Back! News. , , , , , ,
Atlanta, GA – Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) hit the streets on April 1 to defend their jobs, collective bargaining agreements and union’s very existence. Over 70 community members joined the rally, showing their strong support for AFGE members who work at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta. Attendees held signs with slogans such as “CDC saves lives!” and “Fire DOGE, not CDC heroes!” The rally comes in the wake of Trump’s March 27 executive order that seeks to strip over a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, immediately terminating their contracts and grievance procedures.

HHS Employees Learn Of Layoffs When Their ID Badges Stop Working

April 3, 2025 Jory Heckman, Federal News Network, , , , ,
The Department of Health and Human Services is laying off thousands of employees, in some cases eliminating entire offices and programs. HHS began sending reduction-in-force (RIF) notices around 5 a.m. EDT Tuesday morning, according to more than half a dozen employees who spoke to Federal News Network. Several HHS employees shared photos of staff waiting in long lines to get into their buildings. Employees targeted by the RIF learned their Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards were deactivated. “The way people are finding out whether they are RIF’d this morning is to go through this very long process to get to the building and to go through security, and then badge-in at the main atrium.

Will Federal Workers Rediscover Their Militancy?

April 2, 2025 Joseph A. McCartin, Dissent Magazine. , , , ,
On March 27, President Donald Trump summarily overturned decades of federal labor relations policy and stripped more than 700,000 government workers of their union rights with a stroke of his sharpie. His executive order Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs, which effectively voided union contracts at dozens of departments and agencies, constitutes by far the largest and most aggressive single act of union-busting in U.S. history. The stated rationale for Trump’s order—that the targeted workers are in agencies that affect national security and they therefore are ineligible for union representation—is flimsily transparent.

Trump Moves To Rescind Union Rights Of Over One Million Federal Workers

March 31, 2025 Max Nesterak, Minnesota Reformer. , , , ,
Citing his national security authority, President Trump signed an executive order Thursday rescinding the collective bargaining rights of a massive swath of the federal workforce in a historic attack on public unions. The order strips workers from the right to union representation across the federal enterprise, including at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management.

New Orleans Marches To Defend Federal And Public Sector Workers

March 25, 2025 Fight Back! News. , , , ,
New Orleans, LA – On Saturday, March 22, over 100 New Orleanians gathered at Congo Square downtown for a march to fight against Trump’s attacks on federal workers. The demonstration brought together at least ten different unions across the city in coalition with community organizations, building a broad united front against Trump’s attacks on labor. “I’ve been a labor activist in this city for a few years and this is the fastest I’ve seen unions endorse anything. People are riled up and ready to fight,” said Abbey Lodwig, one of the march organizers and member of the Association of Flight Attendants union.

How To Avert The Imminent Collapse Of Social Security

March 24, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
The Social Security Administration (SSA), which has been understaffed for a long time, is now facing collapse within months if changes made by the Trump administration are not reversed. 73 million people in the United States rely on Social Security for part or all of their income. Clearing the FOG speaks with Alex Lawson of Social Security Works about the cuts to the SSA workforce, the closure of regional and local offices and other changes that are going to lead to beneficiaries not receiving their checks and possibly the end of this 89 year old institution. Lawson describes how people can join the struggle to save Social Security. Visit SocialSecurityWorks.org.

Attacks On Public Workers Are An Attack On The Entire Working Class

March 23, 2025 Samuel Karlin and Julia Wallace, Left Voice. , , ,
Despite contradictions in the U.S. regime and emerging opposition, Elon Musk and Donald Trump are moving forward with their goal of gutting the federal workforce and attacking public sector unions. Both their method of carrying out the attacks and the impact so far have been an absolute shitshow, with many attacks quickly being halted by interventions from the courts, leading to changes by the day. It is clear though that the Trump administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are hellbent on gutting services that working communities rely on, destroying tens of thousands of jobs in the process.

AFGE Wins! Judge Orders Trump To Rehire Fired Probationary Employees

March 22, 2025 AFGE. , , , ,
In a major victory for AFGE, allies, and federal workers, a judge in California ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary employees fired at six agencies, saying the firing “is based on a lie” and that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) didn’t have the authority to order it. The administration's request for an emergency administrative stay has also been denied by the 9th Circuit. This lawsuit was brought by AFGE and our allies. Another judge in Maryland also ordered the administration to temporarily halt its planned reductions in force (RIFs) at 18 agencies, including the Department of Education that announced it would fire half of its staff.

Failing To Read The Room, Trump Treats Whites Like N-Words And Loses Ground

March 20, 2025 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
On a recent episode of her podcast, Hysteria, the host, Alyssa Mastromonaco, a former White House deputy chief of staff, read a tweet from a woman who identified herself as Marylin, complaining about the newly formed Department of Governmental Efficiency and its hatchet man, the billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk: “My daughter is losing her job thanks to DOGE. I voted for President Trump three times. My daughter is a hardworking, excellent worker for the. . .National Forest (Service). She doesn’t work for DEI; she runs the office. I am pissed at POTUS and Elon Musk. It’s not right.”
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