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Unions Condemn Executive Order Allowing Trump to Replace Federal Workers With 'Political Loyalists'
The head of America's largest federal workers union called it "a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons."
Jun 05, 2026
Labor unions are warning that an executive order signed this week by President Donald Trump will allow his administration to replace thousands of career civil servants with "political loyalists."
The order, signed on Wednesday, converts around 8,000 federal workers—most of whom are at senior levels in the civil service with major influence over policy decisions—to Schedule Policy/Career (P/C) status, formerly known as Schedule F, effectively making them "at-will" employees whom the president can fire at his discretion.
While a small number, around 4,000, of the roughly 2 million federal workers are considered political appointees, most federal employees cannot be removed purely for failing to serve the agenda of the president and can usually only be fired for issues like inadequate performance or misconduct, which involves an appeal process.
But as part of the Trump administration's effort to dismantle what it's described as a "deep state" of disloyal bureaucrats, a major objective of the Heritage Foundation's right-wing manifesto Project 2025, those 8,000 employees may now be fired for "subversion of presidential directives."
According to the US Office of Personnel Management, this could be just the beginning—with as many as 50,000 employees potentially in consideration to be rescheduled.
A fact sheet released by the White House said that despite the reclassification, “these remain ‘career’ positions and the non-partisan hiring processes, competitive status, and other aspects of these roles will not change,” while “removal decisions will also be made without respect to political affiliation.”
But Trump-loyal department heads—everywhere from the Department of Justice to the Pentagon—have systematically purged employees across executive departments that are perceived as Trump's political enemies.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said on Thursday that "Schedule P/C is the next phase in Trump’s anti-worker agenda to replace government workers with political loyalists who answer only to him."
"As we’ve seen from his first day in office, the president is determined to tear down the architecture of our federal government and replace it with a system of corruption to benefit powerful CEOs and billionaire union-busters," she said.
It's part of a broader attack on the federal workforce in Trump's second term. Through a combination of firings, layoffs, and forced resignations, he has reduced the number of government employees by nearly 300,000, causing chaos and understaffing at many agencies. He's also stripped more than 1 million unionized federal workers of their right to collective bargaining, though courts have blocked the implementation for some workers.
Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, said Wednesday's order was "a blatant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating employees’ due process rights so they can be fired for political reasons."
"The practical implications of this action are clear. Workers who once felt comfortable reporting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at their place of employment because they were protected from retaliation will now be afraid for their jobs if they speak out," he said. "That is a disservice to them and to the millions of Americans who rely on the federal government every day."
William Shackelford, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, added that the order "threatens expanded political cronyism, increasing the risk that executive actions will be decided by the size of political contributions rather than the faithful execution of the law."
"That increases the risk of politically motivated enforcement of laws, threatening individual liberty; politically determined tariff exceptions and contract and grant awards, threatening greater corruption and waste of taxpayer dollars; and politically selective provision of services, threatening failure of government operations for disfavored groups or localities," he said.
The legal watchdog Democracy Forward has filed a lawsuit against Trump's rebranding of Schedule F as Schedule P/C at the start of his second term, which the group argued allowed several positions in the traditional nonpartisan civil service to be effectively recast as political appointees.
"For generations, our country has relied on a professional, nonpartisan civil service," said Skye Perryman, the group's president and CEO on Wednesday. "The people responsible for protecting our public health, safeguarding our environment, delivering our mail, managing our airports, protecting our public lands, and enforcing our laws should be allowed to do their jobs, not targeted by the same government they serve."
“When government experts can be fired without cause,” she added, “it’s not just federal workers who are harmed—it’s the people across the country who rely on these essential services every day.”
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‘Disgusting’: Trump’s Top Economic Adviser Brags About Killing 300,000 ‘High-Paying’ American Jobs
"Everybody is hurt by what he's celebrating," one public employee union official told Common Dreams. "I guess it's just par for the course from this administration, but it's still a disgusting thing to hear."
Apr 10, 2026
President Donald Trump's top economic adviser boasted on Fox Business Thursday that the government had slashed more than 300,000 "high-paying" jobs from the federal payroll during the president's first year back in office.
Asked by anchor Maria Bartiromo about the administration's efforts to cut government spending, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said it had made "a huge amount of progress."
"I think the biggest thing that we can point to is that we've cut government employment by 300,000 workers," he said. "Those are jobs that are very high-paying that are gone forever."
He claimed the cuts reduced government spending by "an unthinkable amount of money," perhaps $1 trillion over the next ten years.
He also said that the administration "reduced the deficit last year by $600 billion" through a combination of higher-than-expected economic growth, tariff revenues, and "supply side effects" of Trump's massive tax cut, which mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans while gutting the social safety net.
Dean Baker, a longtime collaborator of Hassett’s despite their opposing political beliefs, wrote on social media that Trump’s economic adviser was dramatically exaggerating the deficit reduction that occurred during the administration's first year.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the deficit was about $1.8 trillion for fiscal year 2025, just $41 billion less than the previous year and $56 billion lower than the $1.9 trillion deficit CBO projected in its most recent baseline.
"In the real world, the deficit fell... less than one-tenth of what Kevin claims," Baker said.
Trump has touted the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of government employees from their "boring federal jobs" as one of his crowning achievements.
Among the agencies hit by mass layoffs were the Department of Veterans Affairs, where more than 12,700 employees got the axe; the Department of Health and Human Services, which lost more than 14,400 workers; the Social Security Administration, whose staff shrank by more than 6,600; and the Environmental Protection Agency, which lost more than 4,000 employees.
Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest labor union representing federal workers, told Common Dreams that even if slashing jobs did reduce the deficit as Hassett claimed, the harm far outweighs any such benefit—not only for the fired employees, but for the millions of Americans who depend on services they provide.
"When you say 300,000 jobs, it is a nice round number, and you link it to deficit reduction, which he was lying about," Simon said. "The fact of the matter is, the disappearance of those 300,000 jobs means degraded healthcare for our veterans; slower or nonexistent service at the Social Security Administration for the elderly and disabled who rely on Social Security for their income; and the elimination of huge swaths of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that help ensure we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink."
"You have federal prisons absolutely overwhelmed by too many inmates and too few corrections officers, endangering public safety," she continued. "Consumer product safety has been eviscerated. There are also serious public health concerns involving substance abuse, childhood nutrition, and vaccinations."
She decried Hassett's comments as "ignorant" in light of his false claims about deficit reduction, but also "just demonstrably pretty cruel and disdainful" given the impact these job losses have on individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole.
"It's cruel," Simon said, "not only on the people who held those jobs—about a 100,000 of whom are military veterans—but the impact of the disappearance of those jobs also falls on children, the elderly, anybody who consumes agricultural products, breathes air, or relies on clean water."
"Everybody is hurt by what he's celebrating," she added. "I guess it's just par for the course from this administration, but it's still a disgusting thing to hear."
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‘We Are Not Letting Up’: Advocates Say Much More Work to Do as Bovino Exits Minnesota
The ACLU said it plans to keep up the pressure and won’t stop “until ICE and CBP stop terrorizing our community.”
Jan 27, 2026
Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino has reportedly been pushed out of his role leading President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign amid a torrent of backlash against immigration agents' lawless behavior in Minnesota in recent weeks, particularly the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis this month.
The Atlantic, which was the first to report Bovino's departure, describes it as one of the first times that a White House prone to quadrupling down on even its most outrageous excesses has buckled in the face of public outrage, with Trump reportedly mulling "a tactical shift in the administration’s mass deportation campaign."
This has not only led to Bovino—who baselessly claimed Pretti intended to "massacre law enforcement"—being demoted and sent to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire. Some of the administration's other, more aggressive anti-immigrant zealots, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her de facto chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski, are also reportedly on the hot seat.
"To be clear, this is a victory, which was won by ordinary people putting their lives on the line in the streets of Minneapolis while almost all their elected leaders kept quiet or made only muted criticism," said Jeet Heer, a writer for the Nation.
But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been at the forefront of legal resistance to the Trump administration's attacks on civil rights, warned on Monday evening that while ousting the face of the operation represented "progress," it must not breed complacency.
A spokesperson for the group noted in a video posted to social media that Bovino's demotion came shortly after the announcement that some Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents were being withdrawn from Minneapolis "as a result of public pushback," in response to its and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) tactics.
"These are clear signals that the Trump administration is feeling our pressure," they said. "This is progress, but we are not letting up until ICE and CBP stop terrorizing our community."
"Part of how we achieve this is by telling our senators to vote no this week on a bill that would continue funding ICE without doing anything to keep our community safe," they continued.
Ezra Levin, the co-director of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, said that the exit of Bovino shows that "the people of Minnesota won and the regime is losing."
However, he said that while "we are all happy to say good riddance to Greg Bovino... our work is still not over."
"This was never about one individual," Levin said. "It is about a system of terror driven by Donald Trump and his regime. The people on the streets are doing their part, but it is up to Democrats to hold the line and follow through. The DHS funding bill cannot pass in its current form, and there must be real constraints and accountability for DHS moving forward."
After Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was gunned down this past weekend by a band of federal agents—whose identities the Trump administration has still refused to release to the public and has allowed to remain on duty—Democratic lawmakers have largely stated their intention to block a bill that would fund the government after a January 30 deadline.
That bill—which narrowly passed the House last week with seven Democrats in support after party leadership refused to whip votes against the measure—provides another $64.4 billion to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including another $10 billion for ICE. This is on top of the $170 billion in new DHS funding approved last summer when Congress passed Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Zeteo reports that as of Monday, 44 Democrats have stated their intention to vote against the bill. With seven Democrats needed to vote for the legislation in addition to all 53 Republicans, this is enough for it to be blocked. According to the report:
Senate Democrats appear to have coalesced around several demands for cleaning up ICE. While the exact language isn’t final, Democrats are prepared to demand the following, according to the [American] Prospect: an independent, federal-state investigation of the murders by DHS in Minnesota and agents’ tactics; a ban on ICE agents wearing face masks; a requirement that ICE agents wear body cameras; an end to arrest quotas and agents’ roving patrols, where they racially profile people; and a prohibition on agents illegally and unconstitutionally entering people’s homes based on “administrative warrants” that haven’t been signed by an actual judge.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), America's largest federal workers union, of which Pretti was a member, said that other Trump administration officials who smeared his name in order to defend his killing must also face accountability.
“In the immediate aftermath of Alex’s killing, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem betrayed the public trust by slandering the good name of our union brother and calling him a 'domestic terrorist,'" said AFGE national president Everett Kelley. "Alex Pretti was a patriotic ICU nurse at a [Department of Veterans Affairs] hospital who devoted his life to serving America’s veterans. That claim was reckless, defamatory, and unsupported by the facts. Noem was preceded in this false statement by Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff, who is also the architect of the chaotic and failed immigration policy in Minnesota."
"Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately," Kelley continued. "If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them."
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Union Fury After Trump Suggests Not All Furloughed Workers Will Receive Shutdown Pay
"The livelihoods of the patriotic Americans serving their country in the federal government are not bargaining chips in a political game," said the president of the country's largest union of federal employees.
Oct 07, 2025
The American labor movement erupted in outrage Tuesday after President Donald Trump appeared to go back on the government's promises to provide back pay to all of the estimated 750,000 furloughed federal workers when the government shutdown ends.
Last month, as a shutdown loomed, the US Office of Personnel Management, an independent government agency that oversees the country's civil service, published guidance for federal agencies stating definitively that "after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as a result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods."
This follows a federal law, the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act signed by Trump during the last shutdown in 2019, which requires that furloughed employees "shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations.”
But the Trump administration has begun to walk back that promise. A memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) obtained by Axios on Tuesday stated that the administration's position was that employees were not all entitled to back pay, and that the money would have to be specifically appropriated by Congress.
"Does this law cover all these furloughed employees automatically? The conventional wisdom is: Yes, it does. Our view is: No, it doesn't," a senior White House official said, adding that despite what guidance other agencies may have given, "OMB is in charge."
When asked by reporters Tuesday if furloughed employees would all be paid, Trump seemed to confirm the OMB position, saying that "it depends on who we’re talking about.”
“For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people," he said. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way."
When asked why some workers would not get back pay, Trump told reporters to “ask the Democrats that question.”
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union representing over 820,000 federal workers, argued that by denying back pay to furloughed employees, the Trump administration was contradicting both the law and its own assurances to employees.
“The frivolous argument that federal employees are not guaranteed backpay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act is an obvious misinterpretation of the law," said Everett Kelley, the AFGE's national president. "It is also inconsistent with the Trump administration’s own guidance from mere days ago, which clearly and correctly states that furloughed employees will receive retroactive pay for the time they were out of work as quickly as possible once the shutdown is over."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the chamber's Appropriations Committee, said on social media that the White House memo was “another baseless attempt to try and scare and intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards."
“The letter of the law is as plain as can be," Murray said. "Federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their back pay following a shutdown."
The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which represents about 110,000 employees, also chimed in with outrage over the decision by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to send members of Congress home last week as shutdown negotiations stalled. Johnson has maintained that he will not negotiate on Democrats' demands to reverse cuts to a critical health insurance subsidy unless they agree to fund the government first.
"Congressional leaders should come back to Washington to negotiate an end to this shutdown immediately. Federal employees, our men and women in uniform, and the American people are all suffering. Skipping town in the middle of a crisis is unconscionable," said NFFE's national president Randy Erwin. "At this point, House Republicans have refused any meaningful negotiations. It appears to me that Speaker Johnson and his colleagues have no intention of ending this shutdown anytime soon. It seems they would rather sit back and play the blame game than undertake the necessary work to pass bipartisan spending legislation."
Last week, Trump suggested that, alongside OMB Director Russell Vought, he would use the government shutdown to set about "laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected, and they’re Democrats. They’re gonna be Democrats.”
Trump added Tuesday that if the shutdown continues much longer, many government jobs would be on the chopping block “in four or five days" and that "a lot of those jobs will never come back."
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Johnson has described the potential layoffs of thousands of workers as "regrettable," adding that it was "not a job that [Vought] relishes... But he’s being required to do it by [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer (D-NY).”
On Thursday, however, Trump had described the shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to carry out Vought's proposals for cuts to programs and employees across federal agencies.
"The livelihoods of the patriotic Americans serving their country in the federal government are not bargaining chips in a political game," Kelley said. "It’s long past time for these attacks on federal employees to stop and for Congress to come together, resolve their differences, and end this shutdown."
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Trump's Attack on EPA Workers Is an Attack on You
Silencing our union members, working on the front line of environmental protection, is beyond dangerous. It strips away a critical check against political interference in science. And that can only mean more threats on the horizon to the air you breathe and the water you drink.
Sep 01, 2025
Labor Day is a time to honor the workers who keep our country safe, strong and healthy. But this year, while families fire up their grills and celebrate the dignity of work, the Trump administration is continuing its brazen assault against the very workers who protect the air you breathe and the water you drink.
On August 8th, the Trump administration issued an executive order banning AFGE Council 238, our union representing more than 8,000 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) workers nationwide. The executive order categorized the EPA as a “national security” agency, an absurd and illegal misrepresentation of EPA’s historic mission to protect human health and the environment.
We are under no illusions: this move has nothing to do with national security. This action was about silencing the scientists and staff at the EPA and clearing the way for corporate polluters to have free rein.
This Labor Day, don’t just thank workers. Stand with EPA workers and make your voice heard too. Because protecting our rights is protecting your right to clean air and safe drinking water.
Here’s why banning our union matters. First, it means that science is on the chopping block. Practicing sound science is critical to protecting human health, and EPA scientists are your first line of defense against toxic chemicals, smog and hazardous waste.
For years, our union fought to secure ‘scientific integrity’ protections into our union contract so scientists wouldn’t be punished for telling the truth. Last summer, this became a reality in our most recent contract, which prohibited retaliation against EPA scientists who follow sound scientific principles.
The fight solidified the importance of sound science to EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment, and it underscored our union’s role as one of the public’s strongest safeguards against political infringement on EPA’s work to protect clean water and air.
Now, with Trump illegally terminating our contract, that safeguard protecting EPA’s scientific integrity is gone. Trump’s political appointees and corporate lobbyists will have a freer hand to rewrite science and weaken safeguards against environmental hazards like air pollution, toxic chemicals, and hazardous waste.
Second, it means transparency at the agency is out the window. Our union no longer has the protections to hold the agency accountable to its mission to protect your air, your land and your water.
In 2019, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency tried to hide flaws in a very controversial water permit proposal submitted by PolyMet Mining by asking that they not be documented and instead have EPA merely read the critical information over the phone. Our union blew the whistle and released communications showing that the two agencies colluded to keep the critical comments away from the public. After our union’s disclosure, MPCA’s permit action was overturned, thereby protecting the St. Louis River and Lake Superior.
Without our union, that cover-up might never have seen the light of day.
That is why silencing our union is so dangerous. It strips away a critical check against political interference in science. And that can only mean more threats on the horizon to the air you breathe and the water you drink.
That’s why federal unions, including ours, are actively working to push Congress to pass H.R. 2550, the Protect America's Workforce Act. This bill would restore collective bargaining rights and stop Trump’s illegal executive order in its tracks. As Congress returns from recess on September 2, we need your voice too: call or email your representatives, demand they support the bill and that they sign a discharge petition to bring the bill to the House floor.
This Labor Day, don’t just thank workers. Stand with EPA workers and make your voice heard too. Because protecting our rights is protecting your right to clean air and safe drinking water.
AFGE Council 238 will continue to fight the Trump administration’s illegal executive order. We will not be silenced, and we won’t stop defending the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the planet we all call home.
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'Fall in Line or Else': Latest Trump Order Seen as Message to Workers
Executive order issued under cover of darkness, said one labor leader, is "a clear threat not just to federal employees and their unions, but to every American who values democracy and the freedoms of speech and association."
Mar 28, 2025
President Donald Trump's latest attack on the working class was delivered in the form of an executive order late Thursday that seeks to strip the collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal government workers, a move that labor rights advocates said is not only unlawful but once again exposes Trump's deep antagonism toward working people and their families.
The executive order by Trump says its purpose is to "enhance the national security of the United States," but critics say it's clear the president is hiding behind such a claim as a way to justify a broadside against collective bargaining by the public workforce and to intimidate workers more broadly.
"President Trump's latest executive order is a disgraceful and retaliatory attack on the rights of hundreds of thousands of patriotic American civil servants—nearly one-third of whom are veterans—simply because they are members of a union that stands up to his harmful policies," said Everett Kelley, president of the 820,000-member American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the nation's largest union of federal workers.
"The labor movement is not about to let Trump and an un-elected billionaire destroy what we’ve fought for generations to build. We will fight this outrageous attack on our members with every fiber of our collective being." —Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO
The far-reaching order, which cites the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act as the source of his presidential authority, goes way beyond restricting collective bargaining and union representation at agencies with a national security mandate but instead tries to ensnare dozens of federal agencies and classifications of federal workers who work beyond that scope.
According to the Associated Press, the intent of the order "appears to touch most of the federal government."
AFL-CIO president, Liz Shuler, responded with disgust to the order, pointing out that the move comes directly out of the pre-election blueprint of the Heritage Foundation, which has been planning this kind of attack against the federal workforce and collective bargaining for years, if not decades.
"Straight out of Project 2025, this executive order is the very definition of union-busting," said Schuler in a Thursday night statement. "It strips the fundamental right to unionize and collectively bargain from workers across the federal government at more than 30 agencies. The workers who make sure our food is safe to eat, care for our veterans, protect us from public health emergencies and much more will no longer have a voice on the job or the ability to organize with their coworkers for better conditions at work so they can efficiently provide the services the public relies upon."
Shuler said the order is clearly designed as "punishment for unions who are leading the fight against the administration's illegal actions in court—and a blatant attempt to silence us."
The White House practically admitted as much, saying in a statement that "Trump supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him; he will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions." In effect, especially with a definition of "national security" that encompasses a vast majority of all government functions and agencies, the president has told an estimated two-thirds of government workers they are no longer allowed to disagree with or obstruct his efforts as they organize to defend their jobs or advocate for better working conditions.
"With this order, Trump is trying to destroy unions and labor rights as we have known them for 100 years," said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a statement on Friday.
"Trump's attempt to end federal labor unions is his most dangerous attack on working America so far," Casar added. "We must all rise up to stop this—in the streets and in the halls of Congress—or else Trump will hand over every last one of our rights to the billionaires."
Describing the move as "bullying tactics" by Trump and his administration, Kelley said the order represents "a clear threat not just to federal employees and their unions, but to every American who values democracy and the freedoms of speech and association. Trump’s threat to unions and working people across America is clear: fall in line or else."
"These threats will not work. Americans will not be intimidated or silenced. AFGE isn't going anywhere. Our members have bravely served this nation, often putting themselves in harm’s way, and they deserve far better than this blatant attempt at political punishment," he added.
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 11: Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union protest against firings during a rally to defend federal workers in Washington, DC on February 11, 2025.
Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
Both AFGE and the AFL-CIO said they would fight the order tooth and nail on behalf of federal workers—and all workers—who have a right to collective bargaining and not to be intimidated for organizing their workplaces, whether in the public or private sector.
"To every single American who cares about the fundamental freedom of all workers, now is the time to be even louder," said Shuler. "The labor movement is not about to let Trump and an un-elected billionaire destroy what we've fought for generations to build. We will fight this outrageous attack on our members with every fiber of our collective being."
Kelley said AFGE was "preparing immediate legal action" in response to Trump's order and vowed to "fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks."
Jeffrey Hauser, executive director of The Revolving Door Project, a progressive watchdog, said, "Contrary to what Trump, Musk, and even neoliberals claim, a strong civil service is critical to the country. Few innovations have served the public interest more than the government permitting public employees to band together and create the protection of a union against politicians carrying water for America's most rapacious and least moral corporations."
With the arrival of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, now on the scene, Hauser said it's more vital than ever that public sector unions have the ability to protect the government workforce that has been targeted by the president and his appointed henchmen at DOGE, including world's richest man Elon Musk.
"It is time for all decent forces to condemn Trump and Musk's unlawful actions," said Hauser, "and decry the assault on the right of public employees to organize."
Update: This story was updated from its original to include comment from Revolving Door Project and Congressman Greg Casar of Texas.
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'People Will Not Forget': Fury as Schumer Caves to Trump-Musk Destruction
"Working people are done with performative solidarity," said Rep. Delia C. Ramirez in response. "Either you stand with us against the Republican CR, or you stand with the Musk-Trump authoritarian agenda."
Mar 13, 2025
Update (7:44 pm ET):
Despite loud opposition from constituents and progressive lawmakers against such a move, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York took to the Senate floor Thursday evening to announce he would vote to advance a Republican spending bill that critics say would "sacrifice the needs of working people at the altar of the ultra-wealthy" and greenlight further chaos and destruction by President Donald Trump and his Oligarch-in-Chief Elon Musk.
"The Republican bill is a terrible option," Schumer said in his remarks. "It is deeply partisan. It doesn't address far too many of this country's needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option."
Before his address on the Senate floor, Schumer had said the Senate Democrats would hold the line against the continuing resolution which Republicans in the House passed earlier this week. A procedural cloture vote for the resolution needs 60 votes for passage, and Schumer's acquiescence will likely open the door for other Democrats to follow. If cloture passes, the Democrats give away any leverage they had as the Republicans will only need a simple majority to pass the bill.
"Chuck Schumer caving and saying he’ll vote for a blank check for Trump and Musk is demonstrative of why Democrats lose," lamented progressive activist and writer Jonathan Cohn. "Voters so often don’t believe what they say because they don’t believe what they say."
Strikingly, progressives in the House—including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer's fellow New Yorker—have been the most vocal in their opposition to the bill.
"Senate Democrats should not allow this chaos to continue," Ocasio-Cortez declared in a social media post following Schumer's U-turn on the resolution. She urged constituents to keep fighting by putting pressure on their senators ahead of a vote that is now expected Friday. "Call your Senator and ask to vote NO on cloture and NO on the Republican spending bill."
"Respectfully Senator Schumer, no," replied Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.). "This Republican bill is bad for workers, bad for our veterans, bad for our seniors. Republicans should pull it and let us get back to work crafting a budget that works for all of our families."
Earlier:
Reports on Thursday that Senate Democrats are considering capitulating to the GOP's disastrous government funding plan in exchange for a certain-to-fail vote on an alternative bill sparked anger among progressives, with one House Democrat warning that "people will not forget" if the minority party caves to Republicans and the Trump administration.
"Those games won't fool anyone," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote amid growing indications that Senate Democrats are preparing to help Republicans clear a key procedural hurdle in the way of their six-month funding legislation in exchange for a vote on a clean 30-day continuing resolution (CR).
"I hope Senate Democrats understand there is nothing clever about setting up a fake failed 30-day CR first to turn around and vote for cloture on the GOP spending bill," Ocasio-Cortez added. "It won't trick voters, it won't trick House members."
Sixty votes are required to invoke cloture and move to a vote on the Republican bill's final passage. The bill proposes $13 billion in cuts to non-military spending and imposes no constraints on the Trump administration or unelected billionaire Elon Musk as they eviscerate federal agencies and unlawfully withhold spending authorized by Congress.
With Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expected to vote no, Republicans will need at least eight Democratic votes to invoke cloture. Final passage of the measure would only require simple-majority support.
"Do not cave. Vote no on cloture. Stand up for the American people like House Democrats did."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared in a floor speech Wednesday that "Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture" on the House-passed bill and said Democrats are "unified on a clean April 11th CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass."
Subsequent reporting and public comments from Senate Democrats soon made clear that they could still be willing to give Republicans the votes they need to pass their funding bill before the government shuts down at midnight on Friday.
CBS News states, "Senate Democrats are considering a plan that would pave the way for a GOP bill to keep the government funded for six months in exchange for a doomed-to-fail vote on their own 30-day alternative."
Politico reported that Senate Democrats and Republicans "have made initial contact about a possible way out of the looming government shutdown." The outlet noted that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) "appeared open to allowing Democrats a chance to vote on an amendment for a 30-day stopgap as part of a larger agreement that would allow the Senate to pass" the GOP bill, which would fund the government through September.
Progressives were quick to warn Senate Democrats against adopting that plan.
"Getting a vote on a four-week clean continuing resolution is not the same as getting a clean continuing resolution," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote Thursday. "Do not cave. Vote no on cloture. Stand up for the American people like House Democrats did."
The progressive advocacy group Indivisible urged Americans to keep calling Democratic senators who are seen as possible yes votes on a Republican cloture motion.
Following Indivisible's social media post, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) announced that he would oppose the GOP measure. Kelly is also reportedly planning to oppose cloture.
🚨 We need you to call your Democratic senator ASAP if their name is on this list. Tell your senator you will have their back if they do the right thing and vote NO on the extreme MAGA spending bill that would give Trump more power to dismantle the federal government: indivisible.org/resource/cal...
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— Indivisible ( @indivisible.org) March 13, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Some Senate Democrats have been vocally agonizing over the possibility of being blamed for allowing a government shutdown, even though Republicans control both chambers of Congress and opted to advance a partisan funding bill rather than working with the minority party on a viable solution.
But in a letter to senators on Wednesday, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)—the nation's largest federal workers' union—stressed that this is not a typical shutdown fight.
"AFGE's position until this year has been that although continuing resolutions are far from ideal, they are better than an
outright government shutdown," wrote Everett Kelley, the union's president. "This year is different... The Trump administration has repeatedly demonstrated over the last seven weeks that it will not spend appropriated funds as the law dictates, including funds provided under the current continuing resolution that was enacted in December with AFGE's support."
Kelley went on to reject the notion that a vote against the GOP bill is a vote in favor of a shutdown, noting that Congress still has time to pass a short-term continuing resolution and that "we only find ourselves in the current predicament because of the Republican leadership's steadfast refusal to engage in sincere bipartisan negotiations on this or any issue since December."
"With thousands of federal workers either fired, placed on administrative leave, or at immediate risk of losing their jobs, AFGE members have concluded that a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no on H.R. 1968," Kelley wrote. "Under the current CR, federal workers are being treated no better than they will be if government funding ceases Friday night."
"Only a return to the negotiating table can prevent the government-wide debacle that we see every day," he added. "A yes vote on H.R. 1968 eliminates one of the last opportunities for Congress to assert any rights under Article I of the Constitution."
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'Dangerous Union-Busting': Trump Rescinds Collective Bargaining for Air Safety Union
"Let's be clear: This is the beginning, not the end, of the fight for Americans' fundamental rights to join a union," said one labor leader.
Mar 08, 2025
Labor advocates condemned Friday's announcement by the Trump administration that it will end collective bargaining for Transportation Safety Administration security officers, a move described by one union leader as an act of "dangerous union-busting ripped from the pages of Project 2025."
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed in a statement Friday that collective bargaining for the TSA's security officers "constrained" the agency's chief mission of protecting transportation systems and keeping travelers safe, and that "eliminating collective bargaining removes bureaucratic hurdles that will strengthen workforce agility, enhance productivity and resiliency, while also jumpstarting innovation."
All the union leaders who supported Trump (like Sean O'Brien) should have to answer some painful questions about Trump rescinding collective bargaining rights for TSA agents.
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— Mike Nellis (@mikenellis.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 10:03 AM
As Huffpost labor reporter Dave Jamieson explained:
Workers at TSA, which Congress created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, do not enjoy the same union rights as employees at most other federal agencies. Bargaining rights can essentially be extended or rescinded at the will of the administrator.
Those rights were introduced at TSA by former President Barack Obama and strengthened under former President Joe Biden. But now they are being tossed aside by Trump.
"Forty-seven thousands transportation security officers show up at over 400 airports across the country every single day to make sure our skies are safe for air travel," Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in response to DHS announcement. "Many of them are veterans who went from serving their country in the armed forces to wearing a second uniform protecting the homeland and ensuring another terrorist attack like September 11 never happens again."
Kelley argued that President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "have violated these patriotic Americans' right to join a union in an unprovoked attack."
"They gave as a justification a completely fabricated claim about union officials—making clear this action has nothing to do with efficiency, safety, or homeland security," he said "This is merely a pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union."
AFGE—which represents TSA security officers—has filed numerous lawsuits in a bid to thwart Trump administration efforts, led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, to terminate thousands of federal workers and unilaterally shut down government agencies under the guise of improving outcomes.
"This is merely a pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union."
"Our union has been out in front challenging this administration's unlawful actions targeting federal workers, both in the legal courts and in the court of public opinion," Kelley noted. "Now our TSA officers are paying the price with this clearly retaliatory action."
"Let's be clear: This is the beginning, not the end, of the fight for Americans' fundamental rights to join a union," Kelley stressed. "AFGE will not rest until the basic dignity and rights of the workers at TSA are acknowledged by the government once again."
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said in a statement: "TSA officers are the front-line defense at America's airports for the millions of families who travel by air each year. Canceling the collective bargaining agreement between TSA and its security officer workforce is dangerous union-busting ripped from the pages of Project 2025 that leaves the 47,000 officers who protect us without a voice."
"Through a union, TSA officers are empowered to improve work conditions and make air travel safer for passengers," Shuler added. "With this sweeping, illegal directive, the Trump administration is retaliating against unions for challenging its unlawful Department of Government Efficiency actions against America's federal workers in court."
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Judge Lets Trump-Musk 'Fork in the Road' Worker Purge Proceed
"Today's ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it's not the end of that fight," said one union leader.
Feb 12, 2025
After temporarily blocking a deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump's deferred resignation program to purge the federal workforce, a judge on Wednesday allowed the initiative to move forward, ruling that the labor unions challenging it lacked the standing to do so and the court didn't have jurisdiction over their claims.
District Judge George O'Toole Jr. initially halted the program's progress last Thursday, just hours before a deadline for federal workers to decide whether to take the "Fork in the Road" offer seemingly inspired by Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. The billionaire is now chairing Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which the president further empowered last Tuesday.
After a Monday hearing, O'Toole, a Boston-based appointee of former President Bill Clinton, issued Wednesday's five-page order declining to grant the unions' request for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction against the program—under which workers who resign supposedly could be put on leave and continue receiving pay through the end of September.
The case was filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE Local 3707, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
"Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program."
"Today's ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it's not the end of that fight," AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a Wednesday statement. "AFGE's lawyers are evaluating the decision and assessing next steps."
"Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program," Kelley stressed. "We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk."
AFSCME president Lee Saunders similarly said that his organization "and our partners remain committed to stopping this illegal attack on the freedoms of public service workers. It is critical that we act swiftly to protect working people against the billionaires who want to take our power and block us from serving our communities. Today may be a step back, but we won't back down."
Government Executive reported Wednesday that the Trump administration "said Monday that 65,000 employees had accepted the deferred resignation offer thus far" and the Office of Personnel Management, the federal human resources agency, "did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding what the new deadline would be."
The outlet also noted that "around the same time that O'Toole issued his decision, a new lawsuit brought in Washington, D.C., by a union for Treasury Department employees asked a judge to declare the deferred resignation program illegal."
Trump and Musk's sweeping attacks on the government since the Republican returned to the White House last month have been partly thwarted by the federal judiciary—leading to concerns that the administration will simply defy court orders.
Even before Wednesday's rare court victory in the "fork" fight, Trump on Tuesday continued his push to overhaul the federal workforce with an executive order directing leaders of nonmilitary federal agencies to develop hiring plans with DOGE.
The unions behind the case before O'Toole also criticized that order. Kelley said that "firing huge numbers of federal employees won't decrease the need for government services... It will just make those services harder or impossible to access for everyday Americans, veterans, and seniors who depend on them."
"Americans just want government to work when they need it," the AFGE leader stressed. "These reckless, unjustified cuts will accomplish only two things: huge tax cuts for Musk and Trump's billionaire buddies and a broken government for the rest of us."
AFSCME's Saunders said: "It is unsurprising that an administration run by billionaires is eliminating oversight and firing dedicated federal workers. They know federal workers protect the public against corporate abuse and won't allow them to use taxpayer dollars as their own personal slush fund."
"So, instead of trying to improve the lives of working people, they are creating a staffing crisis in the public service that hurts children, seniors, people with disabilities, working people, and those most vulnerable," Saunders added. "We won't stand for it, and we will keep fighting back."
This article has been updated with additional comment from AFSCME.
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Unions Sue to Revoke Musk Cronies' Access to Critical Payment System
"It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has allowed unelected billionaires and their lackeys unfettered access to the personal and financial information of Americans."
Feb 04, 2025
A pair of labor unions and an advocacy group representing retirees sued the U.S. Treasury Department on Monday in an effort to halt Elon Musk's team's dangerous access to a critical government payment system—access granted by U.S. President Donald Trump's handpicked Treasury chief.
In a lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said they're seeking to stop the Trump Treasury Department's "unlawful, ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial information" to Musk and members of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
"The scale of the intrusion into individuals' privacy is massive and unprecedented," the complaint states. "Millions of people cannot avoid engaging in financial transactions with the federal government and, therefore, cannot avoid having their sensitive personal and financial information maintained in government records."
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's decision last week to give DOGE "full, continuous, and ongoing access to that information for an unspecified period of time means that retirees, taxpayers, federal employees, companies, and other individuals from all walks of life have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords," the lawsuit adds.
The coalition urged the court to immediately enjoin the Treasury Department from "continuing to permit such access," which has sparked calls for Bessent's impeachment as observers characterize the Musk team's infiltration of key federal agencies as a coup.
"It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has allowed unelected billionaires and their lackeys unfettered access to the personal and financial information of Americans," AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a statement Monday. "Together, we can stop this violation of American citizens' privacy."
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said that "we are outraged and alarmed that the Trump administration has allowed so-called DOGE staff to violate the law and access millions of older Americans' sensitive personal and financial data."
"Seniors are already the most vulnerable Americans to fraud and scams, with FBI data showing losses of $3.4 billion in 2023 alone," Fiesta added. "We urge the court to quickly act to stop this unlawful theft of our data."
"We are living a nightmare created by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and we need to wake up."
The lawsuit was filed as Bessent reportedly assured Republican lawmakers behind closed doors that Musk and his cronies "do not have control over" the Treasury payment system overseen by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
But reporting out Tuesday morning suggests that's not true. According to Wired, "a 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government."
Citing unnamed sources, Wired reported that "Elez's privileges include the ability not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the U.S. government: The Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS)."
Researcher Nathan Tankus wrote in his newsletter early Tuesday that "we are in such a catastrophic situation I do not have the words to describe."
"It is getting worse and very little is being done. Lawsuits have been launched to stop this on privacy grounds, but we need so much more. Strongly worded letters from Congress are not enough," wrote Tankus. "There is a protest at the Treasury today. This is not a newsletter to tell you how to organize or engage in political action. But wherever you are, whatever your context, get involved in resisting the Trump administration's catastrophic lawlessness and destruction. And get the word out about the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025, which is the crisis above all the crises happening concurrently."
At a press conference on Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that "when unelected billionaires start ransacking our government offices, this is not business as usual."
"We are living a nightmare created by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and we need to wake up," Warren added. "We need to use every tool we have to fight back, and in the Senate, we can start by saying no to dangerous Trump nominees like Tulsi Gabbard or Russ Vought."
This story has been updated with new reporting from Wired.
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