Unions, allies form coalition to protect federal workers from Trump

The Theodore Roosevelt Building, location of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Feb. 13, 2024, in Washington. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP

WASHINGTON—Faced with the existential threat of Donald Trump’s plans to fire nonpartisan civil servants while politicizing the government by populating it with his non- and anti-union followers, unions and their allies created the Civil Service Strong coalition to protect the nation’s two million civil servants from the planned depredations of the Republican president-elect’s coming regime.

And Civil Service Strong has a big threat to fear. After all, Trump, exposed as a political puppet of multibillionaire Elon Musk, who’s aided by multimillionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, wants to fire at least 50,000 top civil servants and replace them with his political hacks. Ramaswamy and Musk, in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, want to fire 15 times as many.

The coalition includes good government groups and the Government Employees (AFGE), AFSCME, the Teachers (AFT) and the National Federation of Federal Employees, a Machinists sector. It went public on December 24, seeking popular support, too.

Civil Service Strong describes itself as “a new effort and public resource center that houses information to support the American people, including the 2.2 million federal government civil servants across the country who work tirelessly to make our country stronger.”

The resource center “will help to connect those civil servants seeking union representation to their appropriate contact” and will also provide research, a legal response network for workers harmed, harassed or threatened with firing, information on government worker rights and protections, including which agencies to contact and how.

And it will “monitor and publish ongoing attacks on the civil service as well as other changes, including Reductions in Force (RIFs) to specific agencies or departments, which would hinder the government’s ability to protect and deliver for people.”  “RIF” is a fancy way of saying “firing.”

Sponsors of Civil Service Strong call it “an effort by civil society, non-partisan good government and watchdog organizations, lawyers and unions joining together to ensure our nation’s civil service is able to continue to serve the American people and our Constitution, deliver for our nation, and support our communities.

Government Employees President Everett Kelley noted civil servants are “2.2 million patriotic individuals” who all take oaths to uphold the Constitution. A third, including Kelley, are veterans.

All “provide vital services…including ensuring clean air and water, securing our borders and communities, supporting our military, protecting our skies, combating health care crises, caring for our veterans, providing Social Security benefits, inspecting our food, upholding our civil liberties, and so much more,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley, when Civil Service Strong was unveiled.

“Federal employees are the backbone of our society, delivering upon the promises made in the U.S. Constitution. On behalf of the 800,000 civil servants we represent, AFGE is proud to be a part of the Civil Service Strong initiative, standing up against attacks on the federal workforce and the essential services they provide to our nation’s citizens.”

Civil servants, the unions and their allies—The Project on Government Oversight, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Democracy Project and others—note civil servants also protect worker rights and prevent the exploitative corporate class from reducing workers to being beggars or worse.

Though “95% of Americans believe government workers and civil servants should be hired and promoted based on their merit rather than their political beliefs, there are now increasingly alarming threats against the civil service and individual civil servants themselves—-ultimately threatening the ability of the government to work for the people and democracy itself,” the coalition warns.

“In today’s environment, civil servants are already experiencing harassment, and many are considering whether to leave public service or endure firing, reassignment, and retaliation.”

And it’s not just from Musk, Trump and Ramaswamy.

For example, a far-right anti-Hispanic, anti-migrant group, funded by the Trump-linked Heritage Foundation, started naming—-Joe McCarthy-style—Homeland Security Department officials, both political appointees and career officials, whom it claimed are “soft” on migrants. Two of the first seven it fingered, with no proof of course, had Hispanic last names, including one woman, and there were four other women.

Beyond replacing the top civil servants with partisan Trumpites, Trump’s platform, Project 2025, goes much further—challenging the very concept of civil service itself. It also wants to cut workers’ pay and pensions—and kill their unions. And not just federal unions, either.

“Congress should consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place. The bipartisan consensus up until the middle of the 20th century held these unions were not compatible with constitutional government. After more than half a century of experience with public-sector union frustrations of good government management, it is hard to avoid reaching the same conclusion,” declared the right-wing ideologues of Project 2025, led by top former Reagan regime personnel official Donald Devine.

“The modern merit system increasingly made it almost impossible to fire all but the most incompetent civil servants. Complying with arcane rules regarding recruiting, rating, hiring, and firing simply replaced the goal of cultivating competence and expertise,” the project adds in one of its milder lies about federal workers.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.