[[link removed]]

WHAT TRUMP’S DECERTIFICATION OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEE UNIONS MEANS  
[[link removed]]


 

Marc Kagan
August 14, 2025
Jacobin
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The Trump administration moved ahead last week with its plans to
void the collective bargaining agreements covering hundreds of
thousands of federal workers. The labor movement appears largely
quiescent in the face of this historic union busting. _

The Trump administration has has voided contracts covering tens of
thousands at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, and Citizenship and Immigration
Services., Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

 

Last week, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s March 27 executive
order
[[link removed]],
the federal government unilaterally voided the collective bargaining
agreements (CBAs) covering almost 400,000 Veterans Administration (VA)
employees. Since then, it has also voided
[[link removed]] contracts
covering tens of thousands more at the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Citizenship and
Immigration Services. These moves also end all payroll dues collection
by these workers’ unions, throwing them into desperate financial
jeopardy.

 

As Hamilton Nolan has pointed out
[[link removed]],
this is 2.5 percent of all American unionized workers — making this
“by far
[[link removed]] the
largest single action of union-busting in American history.” The
Center for American Progress estimates
[[link removed]] that
Trump’s executive order covers four-fifths of all federal workers
represented by unions. An earlier federal order to strip almost
50,000
[[link removed]] Transportation
Security Administration workers of their contractual bargaining rights
is temporarily on hold
[[link removed]].

Meanwhile, another 154,000
[[link removed]] federal
workers, many fearing layoffs as a result of separate “reduction in
force” orders, have accepted various resignation incentives;
numerous others, so far uncounted, have been laid off or fired.

Trump, of course, wielded the butcher’s knife here, while two
different “liberal” appellate courts accepted at face value what
turned out to be Justice Department lies and struck down lower-court
injunctions halting his actions. But what should we say about the
various federal employee unions that utterly failed to mobilize their
members last spring and pegged all their hopes on legal strategies? Or
the rest of the labor movement, which has done nothing to support
these workers other than to mouth platitudes about “fighting”?

The Fruits of Decertification

What does it mean for federal workers when the contracts they work
under are voided? Those contracts provided standards, among other
things, for vacation allocation, sick leave usage, travel
reimbursement, promotions, and overtime pay. They established
procedures for evaluations, telework implementation, training,
layoffs, and much more. Now perhaps there will be federal or
agency-wide standards for some of these matters, or perhaps many of
them will be subject to the whims of individual managers, now freed to
act as petty dictators.

All these workers are now ‘at will’ employees, subject to firing,
layoff, discipline, and unilateral changes in work and working
conditions at any time, and with no means of appeal.

Those contracts also stipulated consultation and grievance procedures
to address safety and health concerns and disputes about work and
workload. They provided for union representatives to be released from
work to monitor management adherence to the bargaining agreement,
speak up for workers, and represent them at disciplinary hearings.
With the collective bargaining agreements voided, workers’ only
recourse in disciplinary matters is the statutory Merit Systems
Protection Board [[link removed]], itself unable to reverse
[[link removed]] unwarranted
firings or layoffs because it has lacked a quorum since Trump fired
one of its members.

Effectively, then, all these workers are now “at will” employees,
subject to firing, layoff, discipline, and unilateral changes in work
and working conditions at any time, and with no means of appeal.

The Theory Behind Trump’s Scheme

Applying to different agencies, two statutes, 5 US Code § 7103
[[link removed]] and 22 US Code §
4103 [[link removed]], each state
that if an “agency or subdivision has as a primary function
intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security
work,” a president may void CBAs.

 

Trump has interpreted this wording to include all or most employees at
the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of
the Treasury, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of
Justice, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness
and Response, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Administration
for Children and Families, the National Institutes of Health, the
Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, the
Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the United
States Agency for International Development, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, the National Science Foundation, the United States
International Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission,
the General Services Administration, the Social Security
Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Food Safety
and Inspection Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service.

Explaining its theory, the Justice Department claimed
[[link removed]] that
“the VA a primary national security function, making the agency the
backstop medical provider for American troops in times of war or any
national emergency that involves armed conflict. Congress has also
tasked the VA with providing medical services during national
disasters and national emergencies.”

As for the EPA, a primary function “is investigative work, namely
conducting criminal and civil investigations into environmental
violations.” The government interprets the term _investigative
work_ to mean work that involves “search into so as to learn the
facts; inquir into systematically” — a definition so broad it
might cover any federal worker who sits at a computer or asks a
question of a client.

Talk, but No Walk, From Unions

Across the labor movement, some major unions were completely silent
about Trump’s declaration; others issued statements claiming that
they were upset but managed to avoid using the word “Trump,”
presumably to give them the leeway to kiss the ring later. The most
common response was to complain, even to use the word “fight,” but
then suggest either no action whatsoever or the tamest ones imaginable
— like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO) did in suggesting people call Congress.

The two largest federal unions, the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE) and the National Treasury Union, did nothing to
mobilize their members — but they did file lawsuits in Washington
[[link removed]] and California
[[link removed]] challenging
the “national security” designation and claiming Trump’s actions
were retaliation for protected First Amendment speech criticizing
Trump. Those suits were initially successful at the district court
level, with two judges issuing preliminary injunctions prohibiting the
voiding of CBAs, finding that the unions’ lawsuits were likely to
succeed “on the merits” and that, in the meantime, the unions and
their members would suffer “irreparable harm.”

The most common response by unions to Trump’s declaration was to
complain, even to use the word ‘fight,’ but then suggest either no
action whatsoever or the tamest ones imaginable.

But then appellate courts in both regions “stayed” those
injunctions from taking effect. In Washington, the court ruled
[[link removed]] that it was Trump who would
suffer irreparable harm from the injunctions “impeding his
national-security prerogatives,” and argued that “preserving the
President’s autonomy under a statute that expressly recognizes his
national-security expertise is within the public interest.” The
California court added
[[link removed]] that
an injunction “ties the government’s hands . . . in the national
security context.” It declined “to assess whether the
President’s stated reasons for exercising national security
authority . . . were pretextual [a lie].”

Even though the government had removed
[[link removed]] from
its decertification order eight unions and locals that had not joined
the legal action, there was no retaliation, the California court said,
since “the government has shown that the President would have taken
the same action even in the absence” of the unions’ criticism of
Trump.

 

Then both courts applied the coup de grâce. In Washington, the court
was comforted by what it called “the Government’s self-imposed
restrictions.” Government lawyers in both venues cited a “fact
sheet
[[link removed]]”
that directed agencies to “not terminate any CBAs until the
conclusion of litigation _or _further guidance from OPM [Office of
Personnel Management] directing such termination.” Because of “the
direction to agencies to refrain from collective bargaining agreements
until litigation has concluded,” the California court wrote, any
claim of irreparable harm to the unions or their members was purely
“speculative.”

What Now?

As we know, both courts’ reliance on this “fact sheet” assurance
was a complete fantasy. After the California ruling, it took only five
days for that “speculation” to turn into the hard brutal facts of
losing all contractual rights. Gone from the government’s
statements
[[link removed]] were
any “national security” claims. Instead, we have the typical
management mantras of wasteful “union time,” “poor
performers,” and “union bosses.”

What has unfolded since March was obvious; so was the tragically
inadequate response of labor. In an article
[[link removed]] for _Jacobin _this
spring, I compared the federal unions’ legal-only strategy with that
of 1970 postal workers who, facing the potential loss of their civil
service status (and grumbling about low pay), took militant strike
action. Seeing other federal workers demanding similar efforts,
President Richard Nixon’s right-hand man H. R. Haldeman feared
[[link removed]] “radicalization,
a national strike, other walkouts, i.e., Teamsters, Air Traffic
Controllers [who were about to start a sick-out], etc. to cripple
whole country at once.” In a matter of days, Nixon flip-flopped from
making threats against the postal workers to making promises to them.

One factor that helped precipitate that strike is missing today:
postal strikers — particularly in New York, where the strike started
— were part of a widespread upsurge of labor militancy. Yet, as I
wrote then,

many of the conditions that led to postal success have echoes today:
The insults to federal workers’ dignity when Trump says most of
them hardly work
[[link removed]].
The growing likelihood of support
[[link removed]] from
at least significant sections of the American public, as manifested in
the “Hands Off!” demonstrations across the United States earlier
this month. At least the glimmer of possibility of real solidarity
[[link removed]], through work stoppages and
other job actions from other unions that see the target on their
backs, including the 600,000 postal workers who are facing calls
for [United States Postal Service] privatization
[[link removed]]. Above all, the legitimacy
of workers’ demands to maintain their livelihoods and their union
contracts.

Months later, do those conditions still apply? Holding to the strategy
of the courts, the federal unions have squandered their most precious
resources — the feeling of urgency and anger among their members,
and time. And, of course, going forward, they will have far fewer
resources to mobilize their dwindling number of members — even if
they were inclined to change their spots.

Back in March, veteran labor organizer Stephen Lerner declared that
“For Labor, Caution Is Fatal: The riskiest course is to stay the
course.” His article
[[link removed]] is
well worth reading for its demand that labor do something different:
to make an effort to build and exercise power. And it is a must-read
with the terrible retrospective knowledge that here we are, five
months later, still staying the course.

 

Perhaps some spark will still set off the disruptions, both on and off
the job, we so desperately need. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO has pegged its
hopes on getting Congress to pass the Protect America’s Workforce
Act
[[link removed]],
which would overturn Trump’s executive orders voiding federal
workers’ bargaining rights. (Why the labor federation would expect
Trump to sign into law a bill overturning his own executive orders is
anyone’s guess.) As long as this type of delusion and denial
remains, it seems labor’s only direction is from the frying pan
directly into the fire.

_MARC KAGAN is the author of the book manuscript The Fall and Rise
and Fall of NYC’s TWU Local 100, 1975–2009, currently being
prepared for publication._

_JACOBIN is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist
perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. The print magazine
is released quarterly and reaches 75,000 subscribers, in addition to a
web audience of over 3,000,000 a month._

_Subscribe to JACOBIN [[link removed]] today, get four
beautiful editions a year, and help us build a real, socialist
alternative to billionaire media. Donate to JACOBIN
[[link removed]]_

* Politics
[[link removed]]
* unions
[[link removed]]
* Public Sector Unions
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* federal government
[[link removed]]
* Government Workers
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]