We can put to rest those questions about whether Trump is more supportive of labor unions this time
All about what one labor leader is calling the “biggest assault on collective bargaining rights we have ever seen in this country.”
Remember those questions, about whether Trump was going to be any friendlier to organized labor in his second term?
The answer is coming into focus now. Trump’s move to strip collective bargaining rights from some one million federal workers feels like a veil-slip moment. Put simply, it is being viewed by some as one of the most anti-union moves ever from the White House, up there with Ronald Reagan’s infamous firing of 11,500 striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
Everett Kelley, president of the largest federal worker union, the American Federation of Government Employees, called it “a disgraceful and retaliatory attack on the rights of hundreds of thousands of patriotic American civil servants — nearly one-third of whom are veterans — simply because they are members of a union that stands up to his harmful policies.” Randy Erwin, president of another main federal union, the National Federation of Federal Employees, called it “the biggest assault on collective bargaining rights we have ever seen in this country.”
The AFL-CIO’s Liz Shuler said it was a “blatant attempt to silence” unions. The move is so sizable — the attempted decertification of some 75 percent of the federal government’s 1.2 million unionized workers — that it could potentially make a dent on unionization rates for the entire country, which are already at historic lows, by 5 to 7 percent.
Public support for unions has been at its highest level in more than 50 years, at around 70 percent. Trump has long made vague overtures to unions and working people that grew louder, and may have translated into actual votes this election cycle. The elevation of Teamster’s President Sean O’Brien at the Republican National Convention last summer underscored these questions about whether the new administration would prove to be friendlier to labor than the last time around.
There are some complicating factors, of course. Trump’s tariff announcement on Thursday, which has been widely criticized across the political spectrum, has earned loud support from unions like the United Auto Workers, who hope to gain clout and members if jobs are re-shored.
On the other hand, the federal decertification move is being challenged in court, of course, by the National Treasury Employees Union, who argue that it is motivated by political retribution. It appears to be yet another executive order that is testing the legal limits of executive power. Law professor Samuel R. Bagenstos told the New York Times that that it was “a dramatic overreach of the president’s authority.” David Super, an expert on administrative law at Georgetown, told Axios that the move clearly “exceeds his powers."
The White House has cited a 1978 law that allows the president to exempt certain employees from unions if national security is at stake. Traditionally, this applied to agencies like the CIA and the FBI. But the latest executive order targets workers at agencies such as the Departments of State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Justice and Commerce.
One example of what this decertification actually looks like, from The American Prospect:
On Friday, Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, told the roughly 45,000 airport security screeners (of both passengers and their luggage) who work for the Transportation Security Administration that it would no longer honor its contract with their union, which the government signed last year and was to be in effect until 2031. That contract gave the nation’s airport screeners the right to parental, sick, and bereavement leave, and also raised their wages to levels comparable to the wages of other federal employees with similar jobs.
Interestingly, the move is already drawing pushback from a group of eight pro-labor House Republicans lead by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, of Pennsylvania. Fitzpatrick and Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, have also introduced legislation to nullify the edict.
Elsewhere, while we check up on how labor issues are playing out in the federal government: Trump has fired the acting chair and general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, the crucial agency in charge of upholding organizing rights. As veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse notes, that means that the NLRB no longer has the quorum it needs to be able to penalize employers that break the law when fighting against unionization. The White House is trying to replace the pro-union former GC, Jennifer Abruzzo, with a business-side lawyer who has represented companies like Tesla and SpaceX, who have not been friendly to labor. Even Trump’s Secretary of Labor, former congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who was pushed heavily for the position by Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters, walked away from her support for the potentially historic pro-union legislation, the PRO Act, she had co-sponsored as a lawmaker.
Here’s what else we’re reading right now:
TESLA SALES have tumbled 13 percent the last three months. Relatedly:
“I want to state this as clearly as I can: Nearly choking up on national TV as you lament your falling stock price is weak shit. And it gets to the core of how Musk operates.” (Mother Jones)
The distinction NOBODY WANTS: ‘Worse than George W. Bush.’ Trump’s Second Term Brings Worst Stock Market Start Since 2001
The US stock market is down almost 10% since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, marking the worst 10-week start under a new president since George W. Bush in 2001 … More than $3 trillion has been erased from the index’s value over that stretch. That’s worse than the start to the prior five administrations, only exceeded by the roughly 18% drop in Bush’s first term. (Blooomberg News)
One SILVER LINING to the tariffs? Lol.
Video Game Workers Vote to Authorize Strike at Microsoft
From the newsletter Migrant Insider:
An Idaho Republican state representative has accused her own party of weaponizing federal immigration authorities against her after she publicly criticized former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, according to ace reporting from Investigate West.
State Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, a seventh-generation Idahoan and farmer, said her family’s farm was raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just three days after a local Republican official falsely reported her to the agency. The incident, which unfolded in late January 2025, has sparked outrage among some residents and raised concerns about political intimidation in the state.
I enjoyed this piece, The Norwegian Route Out of Tradwife Hell, from Jacobin, that looks how the country achieved something close to gender parity in issues of child-rearing through smart and bold government policy.
Google Is Helping the Trump Administration Deploy AI Along the Mexican Border (The Intercept)
How AI-powered tenant screening hurts renters in GA and NC
For those looking for a no-nonsense political podcast for the left that does not pull its punches, I’ve been enjoying The Majority Report. It’s available on all the usual platforms. Give it a listen, if you’re sick of the viewpoint from mainstream news.
See you next week.
Thank you, Eli. One more disastrous piece of news that is barely getting press.