Federal Unions Prepare For Existential Battle With Trump Administration

Gutting collective-bargaining rights would help the incoming president fulfill his goal of mass government firings: "It's a really dangerous moment."

As the incoming boss of the federal workforce, President-elect Donald Trump has made clear his disdain for civil servants. He’s called them “crooked” and “dishonest” people who are “destroying” the country. He’s equated them with the conspiracy theorists’ “deep state.” And he’s promised to fire a lot of them after he assumes office next month.

Some of Trump’s tools for attacking the bureaucracy are well-known. One is the creation of a new Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that will recommend government cuts. Another is the pursuit of Schedule F, a proposal to reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees so the Trump administration can more easily purge them.

But those headline-grabbing plans tend to overshadow another likely aim of the incoming administration: to weaken and, in some cases, perhaps even dismantle the federal-sector unions that have protected government workers for decades.

Unlike unions in the private sector or local government, federal unions cannot bargain directly over workers’ pay. But they can still provide job security and challenge discipline meted out by supervisors. This has made them a longtime target of Trump’s policy advisers and Republicans in general.

Although Trump was overtly hostile to unions of all stripes during his first presidency, his choice of a pro-union Republican for labor secretary has bolstered hopes that his second go-round might be a little different. But unions operating in the federal space have no illusions about what to expect, especially as Trump vows to shrink the federal government and gauges the loyalty of those who would serve under him.