WASHINGTON—The battle over the future of the nation’s 2.4 million federal workers is escalating, with their main union, the Government Employees (AFGE), declaring the latest move by their Trumpite boss is illegal, while also turning to outside groups and the country at large for backing.
Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management—the government’s human resources agency—led the latest escalation with two insolent and, AFGE says, illegal demands.
The first, on February 23, declared every worker must send to OPM by 11:59 pm on February 24, “five bullet points” on “What did you do last week?” That interferes with vital services.
“A VA surgeon’s attention belongs in the operating room and an air traffic controller’s attention on keeping the skies safe, not on dealing with this unclear and unlawful distraction,” AFGE President Everett Kelley wrote.
And when federal worker unions advised their members not to reply to Ezell’s illegal demands, Ezell’s—and President Donald Trump’s—boss, multibillionaire Elon Musk, tweeted that anyone who didn’t would be judged to have resigned their jobs.
“Once again, Elon Musk and the Trump administration have shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people,” Kelley said after that tweet.
“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life.
“AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country.”
The government workers and their unions are far from the only set of workers Musk, Trump and their minions are threatening. Trump now demands the U.S. Postal Service be dismembered and privatized. A large majority of its 640,000 workers are unionized. At least a third are veterans. The Letter Carriers staged an anti-privatization rally on Capitol Hill on February 24 (see separate story).
Ezell’s email and his list demand came from an unsigned, unsecured and shared mailbox, heightening both security risks and the risk that someone without any clearance to read confidential communications could read the replies and act accordingly.
“The (first) email fails to identify any legal authority permitting OPM to demand the requested information,” Kelley wrote after the e-mail and before Musk’s tweet. “OPM’s actions conflict with laws delegating the authority for the management of federal employees to their respective agencies and do not comport with OPM’s own regulations and guidance.
Report to established chains, not OPM
“Federal employees report to their respective agencies through their established chains of command; they do not report to OPM,” said Kelley, a veteran who is familiar with chains of command.
Ezell also required workers, when arranging the bullet points “to ensure sensitive data, information and records” remain private except for legally authorized purposes. Kelley pointed out Ezell didn’t define those terms.
“The email was nothing more than an irresponsible and sophomoric attempt to create confusion and bully the hard-working federal employees that serve our country,” Kelley concluded.
So far, the battle between the Trumpites, especially Ezell, plus Elon Musk on one side versus the federal workers and their union allies on the other has only started to engage the public.
So Kelley and his top staffers took it to a wider audience at a February 22 session of the Progressive Democrats of America. Kelley made it clear there he’d reach far beyond, to the rest of the U.S.
Kevin Cooper, the union’s organizing director, who’s been by default put in charge of the outreach effort, reported groups are already reaching out to the unions.
“When labor organizations, faith organizations, civil rights groups and civic groups can stand with us, the stakes are very high,” Kelley told PDA. “The promise of our democracy relies on the strength of its working people.” That includes federal workers, “every single one of whom took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution.
“But now they’re facing relentless tactics” and pressure “from Elon Musk, Donald Trump and their allies.” Left unsaid: Multibillionaire Musk, who controls Trump, took no such oath.
Critics note Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency 22-year-old computer nerds gather confidential personal data—Social Security numbers, bank accounts and balances, income tax returns, addresses, etc.—on millions of people and that Musk will use it to enrich his swollen fortune.
“Proposals crop up to justify completely illegal firings and privatizing public services,” Kelley elaborated about the “justify” memo and the resignation tweet. The impact is also being felt beyond the federal workforce.
Jen Psaki of MSNBC aired video of angry constituents at Republican lawmakers’ town halls in Georgia, Oregon and Wisconsin demanding why vital services are being cut and workers being fired. Several Georgians used the word “chainsaw” to describe Musk’s actions after he gleefully brandished one—to rabid applause—at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside D.C.
The angriest crowd was at the town hall in Roswell, Ga., which Rep. Richard McCormick, R-Ga., hosted last week. McCormick’s district is close to the headquarters of the federal Centers for Disease Control, where Musk fired hundreds of workers. Trump’s CDC also took down website pages on HIV and AIDS, the health—and suicide risk—of LGBTQ youth, a page identifying communities “vulnerable to the effects of disasters and public health emergencies” and another entitled “Safer Food Choices for Pregnant People.”
McCormick tried to evade constituents’ questions through rhetoric about “cutting wasteful spending.” He was practically booed off the stage.
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