Close to Home: Trump’s war on federal worker’s is ‘labor’s Pearl Harbor'

The Trump administration has launched an unprecedented assault on federal workers, their unions and the entire labor movement. According to Randy Irwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, “This is the biggest attack on collective bargaining rights in the history of our country.” If not halted, the administration’s actions threaten essential federal programs and public services and will undermine fundamental labor rights for all workers.

The war against federal workers and their unions has proceeded on multiple fronts during Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.

First, Trump and tech multibillionaire Elon Musk, who directs the Department of Government Efficiency and refers to federal workers as a “parasitic class,” terminated tens of thousands of probationary government employees. The New York Times reports that nearly 280,000 federal workers have been fired, taken buyouts or seen their jobs slated for elimination.

Federal courts have ordered reinstatement of many federal employees, finding that the mass firings violated civil service protocols and other federal employment protections. Simultaneously, lawsuits filed by state attorney generals and federal worker unions are moving forward in the courts.

Second, in a sweeping March 27 executive order, Trump withdrew recognition from unions representing 1 million federal employees, citing national security concerns. Although the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 granted federal workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, the law allows the president to exempt certain workers from national security agencies, such as the FBI and CIA.

However, workers in agencies unrelated to national security, such as food safety and inspection, environmental protection and health and human services, are now excluded from union representation and collective bargaining.

Third, the administration unilaterally voided a contract negotiated by the American Federation of Government Employees, representing 47,000 Transportation Security Officers at the nation’s airports. Moreover, the administration seeks to rescind collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of thousands of federal employees exempted by his March 27 executive order.

Federal worker unions have filed a lawsuit claiming retaliation for opposing the mass layoffs and attacks on their members. The lawsuit also claims the administration too broadly applied the national security exemption to federal agencies.

Many historians and labor leaders are characterizing the Trump administration’s assault on federal workers as labor’s Pearl Harbor. History provides clues to what will occur next.

The federal government is the nation’s largest employer, and labor relations in the public sector shape those in the private sector. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired and permanently replaced 12,000 striking air traffic controllers, inspiring a sustained anti-union offensive by private sector employers who in the 1980s broke high-profile strikes in meatpacking, mining and newspapers. Subsequently, the number of strikes dropped to a postwar low, and union membership fell dramatically.

By discharging tens of thousands of federal workers, withdrawing union recognition and attempting to revoke legally signed contracts, Trump has gone far beyond Reagan. This is despite the fact that 70% of Americans approve of unions, the highest level recorded by Gallup polling since 1965.

The worst is yet to come.

Ultimately, Trump, many of the nation’s largest corporations and the extremist Republican Party want to overturn the National Labor Relations Act, or labor’s Magna Carta, that ensured First Amendment freedom of association protections for most workers who organize and seek to bargain collectively.

The Trump administration understands that unions are obstacles to even higher profits for billionaires and that unions can potentially mobilize 14 million members to oppose the emerging fascist state.

Much is at stake for the public: food and airline safety; protection for air and water quality; medical research for infectious diseases; access to national parks and to quality health care for veterans; federal emergency relief for storms, floods and fires; and postal services are all threatened by Trump’s assault on federal workers.

Labor, in turn, needs public support. Only by building alliances with faith, civil rights, environmental, veteran and other organizations opposing fascism; aggressively mobilizing union members to demonstrate in the streets nonviolently; and engaging members to take back the House in 2026 can labor survive this historic crisis.