an injury to one,
is an injury to all!
The current escalation against federal workers and the services they provide is not new. While Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is the latest and most extreme effort, this is actually the result of a decades-long coordinated assault by a wealthy and powerful few. Attacks on federal workers are rooted in a simple, and sometimes bipartisan, playbook: defund agencies, destroy essential services, and demonize workers.
These attacks on millions of dedicated federal workers should be taken as a warning to all workers and the first sample of Trump’s many plans to squash worker power by any means necessary.The current regime seeks to destroy the people-powered systems that allow workers and their communities to exercise collective action.
An Attack on Democracy in Action
Democracy is more than a political practice that happens in the privacy of a voting booth. Our workplaces have long been a vital site for practicing democracy through actions like collective bargaining. Democratizing our work—from local Social Security offices to the shop floor—is critical to shifting power away from corporate stakeholders and back into the hands of working people.
On Thursday, March 27, 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order to strip collective bargaining rights from federal employees. Collective bargaining, at its best, is a system by which working people and their communities can exercise collective action in a way that directly confronts corporate greed and reclaims their power. This attack on decades-honored workers’ rights is yet another attempt to fully dismantle our democracy, attack worker leaders and their unions, and install an oligarchy led by Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Unions are standing with their members and fighting the order in the courts with some success.
Zoom in
There are roughly 3 million federal workers across the country.
Trump’s federal workforce cuts will negatively impact over 900,000 veterans and military spouses.
Black workers account for 1 in 5 of the state’s federal workforce in 15 states and Washington, D.C.
Pathway to the Middle Class
For generations, federal jobs have been a pathway to economic stability for Black Americans. Make no mistake, while decimating the federal workforce impacts hundreds of thousands of workers–Black, brown, and white alike–it has a disproportionate impact on workers of color and their communities. And that’s the point.
As federal and corporate anti-DEI policies sweep the nation, a once dependable sector known for prohibiting discriminatory practices for nearly a century has been put in jeopardy.
people over profits
The Trump regime’s vicious campaign against federal workers targets our neighbors who take care of veterans, protect drinking water, create life-saving medical research, develop public education standards, and so much more. These workers are nurses, conservationists, educators, scientists, mail carriers, and uniquely trained specialists from our communities. Many of them have performed their essential, non-partisan duties for decades. Regardless of which president sits in the Oval Office, their mission has always been rooted in democratic values and public service.
Political leaders and their billionaire sidekicks are intentionally weakening or completely dismantling the government agencies employing these workers to achieve one goal: privatize critical services our communities depend on so they can generate massive profits for themselves and shareholders.
Imagine depending on Jeff Bezos to deliver disaster relief to a city that rejected a proposal to open a new Amazon warehouse.
Or, expecting Elon Musk to choose clean, affordable water instead of building a massive data center.
Or, assuming Mark Zuckerberg cares if your granny gets her Social Security benefits this month.
This is what Trump envisions for us as he replaces dedicated workers with loyalists to his agenda. Dismantling entire agencies and massive layoffs to the federal workforce gets him closer to this corporatized, bleak future where profiteers come first.
For these reasons and many more, we must join federal workers in their resistance to the Trump regime. It’s worth noting that public sector jobs were not always the “good” jobs that they are today. Workers organized, joined unions, and demanded equitable hiring practices and the family-sustaining wages now expected with federal positions. It’s that same spirit—of defiantly demanding democracy for all, not just the billionaire class—that they’re fighting back with now. We must show up alongside them as they work to restore their livelihoods and protect the critical services that they provide to communities across the country.
