Donald Trump promised his presidency would usher in a “golden age” for American workers, but his administration has gutted union protections for tens of thousands of federal workers in what labor activists and historians have called the largest acts of union busting in American history.
Nearly half a million federal workers lost their union protections last month in the wake of the president’s executive orders demanding federal agencies abandon collective bargaining agreements and appeals court orders upholding those decisions.
In March, the president issued an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for federal workers at more than a dozen agencies, effectively cancelling legally binding union contracts that cover a vast swath of agencies that are now on track to no longer recognize union representation.
Last week, days before Labor Day, Trump issued another executive order similarly stripping union rights from thousands more employees at six other federal agencies.
“This is how President Trump is commemorating Labor Day: continuing his administration’s all-out attack on workers and unions,” according to A.F.L.-C.I.O. president Liz Shuler.
“When those workers can’t speak up on the job and make sure their offices are serving the American people, we are all at risk,” she said in a statement last week.
Unions sued the administration earlier this year, arguing the president’s actions amount to retaliatory threats to workers’ First Amendment rights, but appeals courts have kept the orders in place while legal challenges continue.
Federal workers have had the right to collectively bargain over working conditions since the 1960s. Unlike private sector workers, they cannot legally strike, but they can help shape parental leave, overtime and other workplace issues and conditions.
Trump’s executive orders have characterized those union protections as a “war” against his agenda, while government attorneys argue that his administration can cancel contracts involving departments and agencies that deal with national security.
Even if Trump’s actions “reflect a degree of retaliatory animus” towards unions, they reflect “the president’s focus on national security,” according to an August ruling from a three-judge appellate court panel.
But the executive orders have gutted union protections for workers far beyond the government’s national security apparatus, including the doctors, nurses and social workers who care for veterans, as well as park rangers, emergency responders, scientists at NASA and the National Weather Service, and thousands of other rank-and-file federal workers who keep government services running.
“This is literally the largest act of union busting in American history,” said former A.F.L.-C.I.O. political director Mike Podhorzer, echoing Georgetown University labor historian Joseph A. McCartin, who earlier this year decried Trump’s “largest single action of union busting in American history.”
Trump’s orders also target scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, workers at the nation’s patents agency and hydroelectric power plant operators, and even food safety inspectors.
The union representing grocery and meatpacking workers denounced the Department of Agriculture’s decision to rip up union contracts covering food safety inspectors.
“Unilaterally breaking union contracts that have already been signed and ratified demonstrates a disturbing, illegal pattern of union busting across federal agencies,” according to Milton Jones, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents more than 1 million workers.
“This decision doesn’t just erode labor rights – it damages the public’s trust in the safety of our food supply,” Jones said.
In the months leading up to Trump’s election, now-White House budget director Russell Vought said he planned to have them “viewed as villains” and “traumatically affected” once Trump returned to power. After taking office, Trump labeled federal workers “crooked and dishonest.”
Trump has also paralyzed the National Labor Relations Board by firing its general counsel and one of its members, marking the first time in American history that the president has done so, triggering another legal battle over alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act.
According to progressive research group Center for American Progress, Trump’s orders threatened collective bargaining rights for nearly 82 percent of the civilian federal workforce.
“This administration’s bullying tactics represent 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,” warned American Federation of Government Employees president Everett Kelley, the nation’s largest union representing federal workers.
So far, nine agencies have terminated union contracts covering more than 445,000 federal workers, including staff at the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency and the General Services Administration, as well as Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture and Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as parts of Homeland Security.
Trump’s orders have effectively ripped up certain union contracts that guaranteed paid parental leave, meal allowances, rest periods for employees who work longer periods, and protections for workers who raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation.
A recent court filing from a coalition of former government attorneys and national security officials warns that Trump’s executive orders amount to unlawful retaliation for views the president considers “hostile” to his agenda, “without demonstrating any connection between the purported ‘hostility’ and any hindrance on the administration’s ability to promote national security.”
The administration's attempt to “silence” federal workers and the unions that represent them “is a dangerous abuse of power that undermines both the rule of law and America’s safety,” according to Elena Goldstein, legal director at Democracy Forward, which represents the coalition.
Labor groups fear Trump’s accelerating anti-union efforts are likely to come crashing into the private sector, derailing union progress and popularity under Joe Biden’s administration.
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