WASHINGTON—March 11 was not a good day for workers and their allies, but it was a great day for Congress’s ruling Republicans, GOP President Donald Trump and his puppeteer, multibillionaire Elon Musk. Their century-old Republican dream of totally destroying anything government does to help workers came closer than ever yesterday to having been achieved. During the week of March 17-23 labor and its allies, led by the AFL-CIO, will conduct a week of action against the cuts.
The day began yesterday with Musk’s chainsaw biting deeply at the federal Education Department, where new Secretary Linda McMahon, obeying Musk and Trump, fired 1,315 of its remaining workers, after hundreds took earlier Musk-pushed “buyouts.” That left 2183. The agency had 3900-4000 employees at the start of Trump’s reign.
Both teachers unions, the AFL-CIO and the Government Employees (AFGE), who represent the department’s workers, hit the ceiling. They said kids would be hurt, not just workers. Trump wants McMahon to close down the department. Musk calls the department a nest of leftists and radicals.
Then AFSCME went after Musk for calling payments to Social Security recipients “waste” and ”fraud” and saying they should be cut. Musk plans to fire thousands of Social Security workers. Before, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) twerps rooted through its confidential files.
Finally, in the evening, the Republican-run House passed a spending bill for the government from now through September 30. It gives Musk a free hand to take an axe to the rest of the government—which he intends to do.
The bill cut $13.5 billion out of domestic programs, including $1 billion from Washington, D.C., alone. The military got a $6 billion increase, including money to fund Trump’s mass deportations of undocumented people—almost all of them people of color.
The “savings” will go for a to-be-written $4.5 trillion eight-to-nine-year tax cut for the ultrarich, including Musk, Trump, and the criminal corporate class which backs the two and the Republicans. The cuts also bite deeply into government’s ability to investigate and prosecute corporate repression and exploitation of workers.
The House then quit for the week. The GOP-run Senate faces a March 14 midnight deadline to cave in or shut down all but “essential” government functions. Those workers would have to toil without pay. “Senate Democrats appear ready to back down in government shutdown fight,” The Hill reported. The money bill, which would keep the lights on and the now-trashed government functioning, needs eight Dem votes there.
One House Democrat, Maine’s Jared Gulden, defected on the 217-212 money bill vote. He said the shutdown was too scary, and voted “yes,” for the money bill, called a continuing resolution. Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie defected from his party’s line and voted “no.” He wanted even more cuts.
Union leaders blasted the events, mostly concentrating on the Education Department firings. Rank-and-file activists called for a mass march in D.C. on March 12 to protest the money bill’s $880 billion 10-year Medicaid cut and Musk’s plans to attack Social Security and Medicare, too.
The AFL-CIO mentioned the money bill’s axe in a tweet, but initially concentrated on the Education Department savagery. AFSCME went after Musk on Social Security. Both big teachers unions, plus the Government Employees (AFGE), which represents Education Department workers, joined the outcry. All promised to fight the cuts. Only the Teachers/AFT said how, mulling a lawsuit.
Torched AFGE contract
Just the day before, Trump torched the AFGE contract covering the nation’s 45,000 Transportation Security Officers—the airport screeners. AFGE plans to sue over that decision, too.
“The mask is off: Elon Musk wants to cut Social Security,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said. “The richest man in the world calls support for seniors and disabled individuals ‘waste.’ He claims retirees receiving the benefits they spent their careers paying into is ‘fraud,’ and fulfilling the promise of Social Security is ‘abuse.’”
“His lies aren’t working. The real fraud…isn’t the 75-year-old retiree using her Social Security check to pay for groceries, but the unelected billionaire in the White House”—Musk—”slashing public services in the name of unproven waste so he can enrich himself and his wealthy friends.
“The charade is over. Musk’s game to take away working peoples’ hard-earned benefits to make room for his tax cuts is clear for all to see. We will continue to mobilize our workplaces and communities to stop these attacks on our livelihoods and retirement security.”
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten, National Education Association President Becky Pringle and AFGE all criticized the firings at the Education Department. Weingarten wants “Congress and the courts to step in and stop the cuts.”
In a prior statement, AFGE President Everett Kelley predicted Musk’s meat-axe approach to firing workers—which the money bill allows–would hurt everyone in the country.
“Laying off potentially hundreds of thousands of federal workers will mean fewer services at higher costs for the American taxpayer,” Kelley said then. It will mean “longer waits at VA hospitals, fewer inspectors ensuring the safety of our meats and produce, less research into cures for debilitating and deadly diseases, more risks for air travelers, longer waits for Social Security enrollment and passports, and the list goes on.
“What it will not do is result in any discernable savings for taxpayers. In fact, taxpayers likely will end up paying more as the essential work our government does is sold off to private, for-profit contractors.
“This administration has targeted every single federal worker and does not seem to care how much turmoil they cause for either the employees or the American public. The chaos is the point.
“We will not stand idly by as President Trump, Elon Musk, and their lackeys run roughshod over the Constitution, federal law, and basic human decency.”
Shuler slammed Musk for firing pregnant workers government-wide and cutting off their health care coverage, too. “Musk and DOGE are firing thousands of federal workers, including pregnant workers. The people who keep the essential programs that working people rely on running shouldn’t have to worry about losing their health coverage just when they need it most,” she tweeted.
Turning to the carnage at the Education Department, Shuler added: “Firing half of the staff so the department cannot function will jeopardize the resources, programs and protections that give millions of students the opportunity to succeed.
Cornerstone of communities
“Public schools are the cornerstones of our communities. They provide the free, universal education working families depend on, feed and care for our kids, and create millions of good union jobs. The department provides critical support to educators and staff, and financial aid and student loans that put college and trade schools within reach for working families.
“Access to quality public education is a top priority for the American people, but billionaires like Elon Musk are pushing a Project 2025/DOGE (Department Of Government Efficiency) agenda that only boosts the rich and powerful.”
“Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it,” said AFT’s Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher. The “massive” cut at the Education Department “is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country.
“Ten million students who rely on financial aid to go to college or pursue a trade will be left in limbo. States and districts will be forced to navigate funding crises without federal support, hurting millions of students with disabilities and students living in poverty.
“This move will directly impact the 90% of students who attend public schools, by denying them the resources they need to thrive. That’s why Americans squarely oppose eliminating the Education Department.”
“We, the NEA, will always fight like hell when people come for our kids, our professions, and our communities,” declared NEA President Pringle, a Philadelphia science teacher who leads the nation’s largest union. AFT is #3.
“Most of us believe every student deserves opportunity, resources, and support to reach their full potential no matter where they live, the color of their skin, or how much their family earns,” Pringle continued.
What neither teachers union head mentioned is that slightly more than half of public school students are students of color, while fewer than a third are in private and charter schools. Musk, in apartheid South Africa, and Trump in the U.S., are white male private school grads.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in communities across America by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires,” Pringle added.
“The real victims will be our most vulnerable students. Gutting the Department of Education will send class sizes soaring, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections.
“Do you want your and your children’s rights enforced in school?” asked Sheria Smith, president of AFGE Local 252, which represents Education Department workers.
“Do you want your children to have the ability to play sports in their school districts? Do you need financial aid for college? Are you a civil servant that relies on federal student loan forgiveness? Does your school district offset property taxes with federal funding? If ‘yes,’ then you rely on the Department of Education–and the services you rely on and the employees who support them are under attack.”
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
MOST POPULAR TODAY
The numbers are in: Economic Blackout dragged down retail traffic
House OK’s budget allowing Musk chainsaw to continue illegal cuts
Cybernetics with Chinese Characteristics: How big data is eliminating poverty and building socialism
Ohio Republicans seek to indoctrinate students with right-wing propaganda, stifle union organizing
New move by Trump administration poses double danger for airline passengers