SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
american federation of government employees
'Blatant Attempt to Bust Our Unions': Trump Admin Moves to Gut Labor Protections at VA
"This administration wants to break the spirit of working people in this country, but we will not be broken," said National Nurses United.
Aug 07, 2025
Days after the Trump administration said in federal court that it would not move ahead with its plan to end collective bargaining agreements for more than 400,000 government employees until litigation on the issue concluded, the largest federal employees union on Wednesday pledged to fight back against the secretary of veterans affairs' decision to move forward with slashing labor protections.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins notified the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and several other unions that he was implementing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which required the termination of collective bargaining agreements for agencies whose missions are related to national security.
Labor protections, including those that ensure work disputes can be resolved by a neutral party and that union leaders can take part in contract negotiations, would be eliminated for more than 400,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) under the executive order.
Collins said in a letter to AFGE leaders that police officers, firefighters, and security guards would be exempt from the order ending collective bargaining rights, but that the VA "no longer recognizes AFGE as the exclusive representative of any other VA bargaining unit employee," including doctors, nurses, benefits specialists, lawyers, dentists, mental health specialists, and other employees.
A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last Friday ruled that the administration could move forward with the executive order directing federal agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions including the AFGE, but the three judges on the panel said they came to that conclusion in part because the White House had said it wouldn't end the labor agreements until the court case was resolved.
Trump has claimed the order is essential to protect national security, suggesting union protections have gotten in the way of maintaining "a responsive and accountable civil service."
"Protecting America's national security is a core constitutional duty, and President Trump refuses to let union obstruction interfere with his efforts to protect Americans and our national interests," reads the executive order signed in March, which quickly became the subject of a lawsuit filed by unions including the AFGE, National Nurses United (NNU), and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
The plaintiffs have argued that the order will impact agencies whose missions are not directly related to national security, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The AFGE also noted Wednesday that Collins' move is inconsistent with guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, which instructs agencies "not to terminate any [collective bargaining agreements] until the conclusion of litigation."
Everett Kelley, national president of the AFGE, said the "decision to rip up the negotiated union contract for majority of [the VA's] workforce is another clear example of retaliation against AFGE members for speaking out against the illegal, anti-worker, and anti-veteran policies of this administration."
VA employees, said Kelley, spoke out against Trump's plan to cut 83,000 jobs at the agency "and consistently educated the American people about how private, for-profit veteran healthcare is more expensive and results in worse outcomes for veterans."
Congressional Republicans have pushed for the privatization of veterans' healthcare, advocating for the Veterans' ACCESS Act, which has been framed as a bill that would "reduce wait times and empower veterans through online self-scheduling," as Rolling Stone reported recently, but would push veterans toward seeking care in the private sector. Collins has also pledged to bring more "choice" to veterans seeking healthcare.
"We don't apologize for protecting veteran healthcare and will continue to fight for our members and the veterans they care for," said Kelley.
National Nurses United (NNU), which represents about 16,000 nurses who work at 23 facilities operated by the VA and whose contracts were also terminated by Collins, said the effort "to erase our collective bargaining agreements is a blatant attempt to bust our unions and to silence the nurses and workers who are standing on the frontlines to protect our country's fundamental institutions."
"We know this administration is hellbent on silencing nurses and other VA workers to steamroll the destruction of the VA. This administration is marching toward the privatization of veteran care so they can move billions of taxpayer money out of the VA system, which is proven to provide excellent veteran-centric care, and into the coffers of private health care corporations run by billionaires," said NNU in a statement.
The union said it would continue to challenge Trump's executive order in court, calling it an "unconstitutional retaliation against the unions for engaging in activity protected by the First Amendment."
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said that "every American who cares about the fundamental freedoms of working people should be outraged by this attack on workers' ability to speak out and stand up at the VA."
"It's clear this is explicit retaliation against VA workers whose unions are standing up to the administration's illegal actions in court and in the streets," said Shuler. "The Trump administration may think they can rip up our contracts and silence anyone who pushes back against their unlawful and anti-worker actions, but we aren't going anywhere. The labor movement will continue to fight this all-out assault on workers with everything we have—and we're calling on Americans across this country to join us."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Deep Hole of Their Own Creation': Trump Social Security Administration Cuts Come Back to Bite
"It really is a manufactured crisis as a result of past changes that just continue to just make everything worse, sadly," said Jessica LaPointe, who works at a Social Security field office in Madison, Wisconsin.
Jul 22, 2025
The staffing cuts made by the Trump administration at the Social Security Administration are reportedly coming back to bite them as the agency continues to struggle with serving beneficiaries in a timely manner.
A new report from NPR finds that the administration has been shifting more SSA workers to man the agency's national 800 phone number after staffing reductions from earlier this year led to significantly increased wait times for callers. In all, the agency estimates that 4% of frontline SSA workers have been at least temporarily moved to help handle 800 number calls.
While the SSA claims that this has reduced wait times for callers, experts and current SSA employees who spoke with NPR warned that they will only create problems in other areas over the long haul.
"They are in a deep hole of their own creation on staffing and so you just don't have enough people to go around to serve the public," Kathleen Romig, a former SSA official and current director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told NPR. "And so all you can really do at this point is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Nicole Morio, a field office worker in Staten Island, told NPR that the staff cuts have led to a workforce that is burned out and overwhelmed.
"The stress level is probably at a maximum for everyone," she said. "At one point I think we were doing the work of 1.8 people. Now it seems as though we're doing the work of 10 to 15."
Jessica LaPointe, who works at a Social Security field office in Madison, Wisconsin, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with NPR.
"If [SSA employees] decided not to take the buyout incentives that were offered in March, then now they're just leaving to save their mental health as their work keeps piling up," said LaPointe, who also serves as president of a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union that represents 25,000 workers. "It really is a manufactured crisis as a result of past changes that just continue to just make everything worse, sadly."
LaPointe also dismissed the administration's spin on the situation and said "there's no indication that this is getting better," and that "we have an agency not listening to the workers."
Even if the administration's claims about improving call wait times are accurate, critics note that it's become much more difficult to see how such improvements are impacting the rest of the agency given that it recently removed assorted real-time metrics that had once been tracked on its website.
So far, an estimated 4,600 SSA employees have left the agency since March, and the Trump administration has pushed plans to reduce the staff by a total of 7,000 employees all together, which would represent a 12% cut in its workforce since the start of the year.
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, argued in an op-ed for Common Dreams last week that "total collapse" of the Social Security system is the end-goal of President Donald Trump and his Republican allies.
"Republican politicians hate effective government programs, because they don't make any money for their paymasters on Wall Street," Lawson wrote. "Since Social Security is the most popular and effective government program, they hate it most of all—and are doing everything they can to destroy it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
In 'Serious Blow to Our Democracy,' Supreme Court Allows Trump Mass Firing Order
The high court's decision to "release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation," said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, "is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless."
Jul 08, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a block on U.S. President Donald Trump's February executive order directing federal agency leaders to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" and a related memorandum.
In response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits, Judge Susan Illston—appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by former President Bill Clinton—had issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction, which was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in May.
That legal battle led to the Supreme Court's shadow docket, where emergency decisions don't have to be signed. The Tuesday opinion from the high court's unidentified majority states that Illston's injunction was based on a view that Trump's order implementing his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "Workforce Optimization Initiative" and a joint memo from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management "are unlawful."
"Because the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application," the Supreme Court continued, emphasizing that the justices did not weigh in on the legality of any related agency reduction in force (RIF) and reorganization plans.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to resume agency mass-firing plans over the dissent of Justice Jackson, who criticized "this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture." More to come at Law Dork:
[image or embed]
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented on Tuesday. Another liberal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote in a short concurrence that "the plans themselves are not before this court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the court's stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance."
Meanwhile, Jackson argued that "given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the president to dramatically reconfigure the federal government, it was eminently reasonable for the district court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the president's executive action."
She continued:
At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress' policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this court sees fit to step in now and release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.
In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless. Lower court judges have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening on the ground and are indisputably best positioned to determine the relevant facts—including those that underlie fair assessments of the merits, harms, and equities. I see no basis to conclude that the district court erred—let alone clearly so—in finding that the president is attempting to fundamentally restructure the federal government.
Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts for Slate, said on social media that "Justice Jackson's criticism is spot-on, of course. But as Justice Sotomayor's concurrence suggests, SCOTUS' order looks like a negotiated compromise that leaves the district court room to block future RIFs and agency 'restructuring.' So the damage is limited."
"The real test will be what happens once agencies start to develop and implement plans for mass firings—which will, by and large, be illegal," he warned. "District courts still have discretion, for now, to stop them. Will SCOTUS freeze their orders and let unlawful RIFs and restructurings proceed? I fear it will."
Trump’s firings at federal agencies have upended the lives of thousands of workers.These are the people who oversee air safety, food and drug safety, disaster response, public health, and much more.Replacing civil servants with Trump loyalists is right out of Project 2025.
[image or embed]
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The coalition that challenged the order and memo includes the American Federation of Government Employees and four AFGE locals; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Service Employees International Union and three SEIU Locals; Alliance for Retired Americans; American Geophysical Union; American Public Health Association; Center for Taxpayer Rights; Coalition to Protect America's National Parks; Common Defense; Main Street Alliance; Natural Resources Defense Council; Northeast Organic Farming Association Inc.; VoteVets; and Western Watersheds Project.
It also includes the governments of Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Harris County, Texas; King County, Washington; and both San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California.
"Today's decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy," the coalition said Tuesday. "This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution."
"While we are disappointed in this decision," the coalition added, "we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy."
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was similarly critical but determined on Tuesday.
"The Trump-appointed Supreme Court just surrendered to a dangerous vision for America, letting the administration gut federal agencies by firing expert civil servants," he said. " The damage from these mass firings will last for decades, and weaken the government’s ability to respond to disasters and provide essential benefits and services. Oversight Democrats will not sit back as Trump turns the court into a political weapon. We will keep fighting to protect the American people and prevent the destruction of our federal agencies."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular