WASHINGTON—In what has become a recurring pattern in Republican President Donald Trump’s war on workers, especially federal workers, the Treasury Employees sued in U.S. District Court in D.C. on March 31 against Trump’s “brazen, illegal attack” on federal workers and unions in 30 agencies.
Marching into court after Trump regime attacks has been a common union response to the Republican regime, and it’s often been successful.
The most-recent win was when a federal judge in San Francisco ordered Trump to rehire 24,000 “probationary” workers, across myriad agencies, whom Trump arbitrarily fired. Many had toiled for the federal government for years and were on probation because they had changed to higher-level jobs.
The unionists also plan to keep hitting the streets. “Federal union leaders and workers are planning and organizing nationally to stop the union-busting and destruction of public services and fight back against the corporate takeover of America’s civil service,” one supportive March 29 statement said.
Trump is also trying to achieve the longtime aim of the radical right and their criminal corporate backers—including plutocrats such as multibillionaire Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and the Walton family of Walmart—is to so weaken government that it would lack both the money and people to curb corporate class exploitation of the rest of the country.
If successful, Trump’s attack, using the excuse of “national security,” would decimate the unionized half or more of the nation’s two-million-strong federal workforce. That doesn’t count the 175,000-plus whom Trump puppeteer Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” computer nerds have already bought out or, more likely, forced out.
It’s also illegal, the National Treasury Employees Union says, because the agencies Trump singled out have little or nothing to do with national security. The union called Trump’s order “absurdly broad, further proving the true goal is to fire as many federal employees as possible, weaken agencies and retaliate against federal unions” for their success against him in other lawsuits and for bringing the firings to public attention.
“Federal workers are defending public services on behalf of millions of Americans from a hostile takeover. Workers know what’s at stake because they see it every day,” said a March 29 statement from a group of supporting unions. “When the Trump administration illegally takes away collective bargaining rights and slashes the federal workforce, veterans wait longer for care and seniors can’t get their Social Security checks on time.”
“The law plainly gives federal employees the right to bargain collectively and the shocking executive order abolishing that right for most of them, under the guise of national security, is an attempt to silence the voices of our nation’s public servants,” NTEU President Doreen Greenwald explained.
“It is also a continuation of the administration’s efforts to deny the American people the vital services these talented civil servants provide by making it easier to fire them without any pushback from their union advocates.”
Could fire two thirds of work force
Greenwald estimated that if Trump’s order stands, he could fire two-thirds of all federal workers.
When Trump put multibillionaire Musk in charge of tearing up the government, Musk’s then co-chair, Ohio industrialist Vivek Ramaswamy, wanted to fire at least 75% of the workers.
Trump himself wants to reclassify 50,000 top civil service positions into “Schedule F” jobs, whose occupants, senior managers or their staffers, could all be fired at a political appointee’s whim and be replaced with partisan hacks. That would return top echelons of government to the spoils system of the Gilded Age, when tycoons ran a government of grafters rife with scandals.
“NTEU intends to protect the ability of frontline federal employees to stand together to improve the conditions under which they serve the people. Federal workers…through their unions, advocate for the tools and resources they need to do their jobs and help their agencies accomplish important public service missions, and we will not allow the administration to distort the truth,” Greenwald said.
To ensure corporate exploitation would remain forever protected, that class also schemes to obliterate the opposition through the far-right’s Save Act (HR22), an anti-voting rights measure depriving tens of millions of people of their right to even register to vote—much less cast ballots (see separate story).
The Save Act, one speaker said at a press conference urging everyone to call their lawmakers to oppose it, is the equivalent of old Jim Crow laws, or worse.
NTEU represents 160,000 workers in 12 federal departments and subdivisions of others. The most-prominent ones are the Treasury Department—including the IRS–the Justice Department and its Civil Rights Division, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department.
The Labor Department, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Wage and Hour Division—which enforces overtime pay and minimum wage laws—aren’t included, yet, in Trump’s order. Nor is the National Labor Relations Board. The Government Employees (AFGE) represents the DOL workers, while NLRB’s shrinking workforce has its own union.
“Congress granted federal employees collective bargaining rights. Congress gave the president narrow authority to exclude some agencies from the collective bargaining statute,” NTEU said. “But the president may use that authority only if the agency primarily does intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work, and only if the statute cannot be applied ‘in a manner consistent with national security requirements and considerations.’
“The president’s sweeping executive order is inconsistent with this narrow authority.’ Trump’s own “issuances show the president’s exclusions are not based on national security concerns, but instead a policy objective of making federal employees easier to fire and political animus against federal sector unions. The executive order is therefore unlawful and must be enjoined.”
Many other unions denounced Trump’s move. Some include smaller groups of federal workers than AFGE’s 325,000-plus members and the 150,000-plus whom NTEU represents. Blasts came from—among others–the Laborers, National Nurses United, the Teachers, the School Administrators, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the Communications Workers, the Utility Workers, the Writers Guild-East, Unite HERE, the Postal Workers, the Theatrical and Stage Employees, the AFL-CIO Metal Trades and Professional Employees Departments, Actors Equity, the Bricklayers, the Professional and Technical Engineers, the National Federation of Federal Employees, AAUP and the Service Employees. The Teamsters, who were neutral in the 2024 presidential race, were silent.
“Registered nurses are appalled by this latest executive order that seeks to strip federal employees, including 15,000 registered nurses with National Nurses United, of their protected union rights,” that union said. “As union nurses, we know this is union-busting. Our nurses have been on the front lines, calling out this administration’s attempts to dismantle and privatize our VA system. This latest attempt is a brazen effort to intimidate and silence us.
“We will never abandon our patients, and we will continue to fight for the funding and safe staffing levels that our patients deserve…Collective bargaining rights are fundamental to carrying out our critical role as patient advocates….Unionized hospitals have better outcomes than non-unionized hospitals, as nurses and other staff are able to speak up about their concerns and hold management accountable. Veterans deserve nurses who are free to advocate for their care without fear of retaliation, discipline, or losing their jobs.
“Stripping bargaining rights for federal workers puts all worker protections in danger throughout the country. As members of National Nurses United, we contend this executive order is a broad overreach of executive power and the union is exploring legal action.”
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