Unions push back against chaotic first month of Trump administration
Blitz of executive orders targeting workers provokes protests, lawsuits
The conservative-leaning federal workers’ unions are leading a pushback
against the chaotic first month of the Trump Administration, which saw scores of executive orders and other actions undermining workers’ rights. These included ordering the mass firing of federal workers, including an estimated 200,000 “probationary workers,” canceling collective bargaining agreements reached with federal workers within 30 days of Trump’s inauguration, and the unilateral impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Trump’s actions have also targeted the rights of trans and non-binary people, rolled back civil rights policies, weakened protections against discrimination, hamstrung the National Labor Relations Board, attempted to invalidate the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and doubled down on divisive racial grievance politics.
Trump’s actions have closely followed Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint to radically reshape the federal government and expand
executive power at the expense of workers. During the election, Trump
claimed to “know nothing’ about Project 2025.
In response, labor unions have organized rallies outside the U.S. Treasury Department and other federal agencies protesting DOGE personnel accessing sensitive government data. A rank-and-file coalition of federal workers also organized protests across the U.S. protesting the gutting of government services by the administration.
The union-led legal challenges to the Trump Administration’s attacks
on the federal workforce include:
• A lawsuit by the National Federation of Federal Employees and
other unions challenging the firing of probationary employees, the deferred resignation policy, and large-scale workforce reductions they say violate federal laws.
• A lawsuit by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and other co- plaintiffs alleging that shutting down the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) without an act of
Congress violates the Constitution’s separation of powers.
• Two lawsuits by the National Treasury Employees Union against Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting Director Russell Vought to block them from gaining access to employee information.
If the Trump administration’s purge of these federal workers withstands legal challenges, it will be the single largest workforce reduction by
an employer in U.S. history. The layoffs will disproportionately impact
veterans and disabled veterans. The Veteran’s Preference Act of 1944
gives veterans who are disabled, who served on active duty in the Armed Forces during certain specified periods, or in military campaigns are entitled to preference over others in hiring for virtually all federal government jobs. Approximately 30 percent of the federal workforce are veterans.
Automating the federal workforce
According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the Trump Administration is trying to determine which jobs can be replaced by Artificial Intelligence or other forms of automation.
“The end goal is replacing the human workforce with machines,”
said an anonymous U.S. official. “Everything that can be machine-automated will be.”
The impact of DOGE
Elon Musk and the misnamed “Department of Government Efficiency” are undertaking efforts to gut the federal workforce and impound funding. DOGE is neither a government department nor concerned with government efficiency.
DOGE staff are not auditors or forensic accountants. The “department” is jokingly named after an internet meme but DOGE’s actions have serious consequences for the public. Musk is reducing or eliminating essential government services without oversight or congressional authorization including funding cuts for veterans, public health, food safety, aviation safety, consumer financial protection, and other
important government functions the public often takes for granted.
At least 50 workers from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, were among those fired. The administration attempted to rescind the layoffs after concerns were raised that their
dismissal could jeopardize national security.
NBC News and other outlets reported that after the layoffs, agency
staff attempted to re-hire some workers but didn’t know how to reach them after disabling their email accounts and deleting their personnel records. It’s unclear how many of the laid-off employees returned to work.
David Pasquino, an 18-year Army veteran was one of the federal workers who spoke out after being fired. He had worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for 11 months and was one month shy of completing his probationary period when he was notified by email of his termination.
“It feels like we don’t matter,” Pasquino said in an interview with his local news station, WPTV, in Florida. “Our lives, our service — I’m a 100 percent disabled combat veteran, and the sacrifices that I made don’t matter, because I’m an arbitrary number. Working at the Department of Veterans Affairs was the perfect opportunity for me to give back to veterans and continue to serve.
Trump’s layoffs are hitting military families hard. For decades, the
federal government has prioritized hiring spouses of active duty service
members. Lawmakers and presidents have recognized it as important to the financial security of military families, a quarter of whom have experienced food insecurity in recent years.
Many of those hired perpetually end up as probationary employees
even though they have spent years in federal service. Military spouses and
their families move involuntarily, on average, every two to three years.
As a result, federal employees frequently change positions or departments, triggering a new probationary period.
Arielle Pines worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs for
15 years, in that time she has had five probationary periods. Her husband
is a senior enlisted airman in the Air Force. When their family moved
from New Mexico to Virginia in November, she transferred between human resources offices at the VA, where she once again became a probationary employee until she was recently fired by Trump.
Arielle, whose father is a disabled veteran, said she believed deeply in
the mission of the VA and is devastated about losing a job that allowed
her to give back to veterans. “[My father] has permanent back pain. It taught me to give back to those who have given their all to us. It’s something I have always wanted to do,” she said in an interview with CNN.
Hassett Wohl, another federal worker, received a termination letter
from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services saying she was
being terminated because her performance was inadequate to justify further
employment, despite having received outstanding performance evaluations
that put her in the top category of employees in the agency.
She worked for almost two years in public affairs for a small division called the Administration for Community Living which helps older adults and people with disabilities live independently instead of in nursing homes.
“I have a teenager who has Down syndrome. I was a caregiver for my parents who both had dementia. And so, the mission of this agency was sort
of a dream come true to work there,” she said in an interview with WBUR
radio. “I’m devastated because I loved working there. I went there specifically because I had such a deep personal connection to the work.”
Unintended consequences
Another consequence of Trump’s attack on the federal workforce is that
there has been a surge of workers joining federal unions. Over 14,000 workers have joined the AFGE in the past five weeks–about as many as have joined in the previous 12 months.