Speaking to the top of America’s largest union of federal staff about Trump’s assault on his members and all of labor.
AFGE President Everett Kelley speaks throughout the Fingers Off! day of motion towards the Trump administration and Elon Musk on April 5, 2025, in Washington, DC.
(Paul Morigi / Getty Pictures for Group Change Motion)
Donald Trump isn’t any buddy of organized labor.
Neither is Trump a buddy of federal staff—or the unions that characterize them. In actual fact, on March 27, the president issued an government order demanding that the majority federal companies terminate their union contracts. The president claimed he had the ability to droop collective bargaining for nationwide safety causes—sparking ongoing authorized and legislative battles.
Irrespective of how these battles are resolved, there is no such thing as a query that Trump—together with a wrecking crew that, for a time, included billionaire Elon Musk—is making the lives of tons of of 1000’s of public-sector staff depressing.
That has put Everett Kelley, who heads the nation’s largest federal union, the American Federation of Authorities Staff (AFGE), on the heart of probably the most far-reaching and consequential union battle that’s enjoying out on this contentious Labor Day.
Representing 820,000 staff within the federal authorities and the federal government of the District of Columbia, AFGE is battling to guard not simply the roles of its members, however providers for the nice mass of People whose well being, security and safety are below risk from a privatization-scheming president and his Republican Congress.
As Labor Day approached, The Nation spoke with Kelley—an Military veteran and Baptist preacher who labored for many years at an Anniston, Alabama, Military depot, earlier than turning into the president of his union and a nationwide vice chairman of the AFL-CIO—about how staff are struggling to outlive Trump’s warfare on the working class. The transcript has been frivolously edited for readability and size.
Present Difficulty
The Nation: On this Labor Day, is it honest to say that working People and their unions are dealing with one of the crucial brutal assaults within the historical past of American labor.
Everett Kelley: I completely agree that that’s what’s occurring! I’ve been a member of the AFGE since 1981. I’ve by no means seen an assault like this. Staff have to come back to work day by day and face uncertainty, as a result of this administration has instructed them they need them to go—they don’t need them to be authorities workers. They’re sitting at residence with a [reduction-in-force] letter, they usually’ve received a stack of payments to be paid. They’ve been stripped of their skill to prepare by saying, “We gained’t permit them to be within the union, we gained’t permit them to pay union dues out of their paychecks.” Staff are being demoralized by each stretch of the creativeness.
The Nation: The folks you characterize took federal employment as a result of they wished to serve their fellow People. A lot of them are veterans who selected federal employment as a result of they wished to proceed to do one thing for his or her nation, appropriate?
Kelley: You’re precisely proper. I’m a veteran myself. Thirty p.c of the folks we characterize are veterans. The those who I characterize are very patriotic workers. They take an oath after they come to work for the federal authorities, they usually take that oath severely.
I retired myself from the federal authorities—after 31 and a half years—and I’m pleased with that. Once we are working, we’re not working simply to receives a commission. We’re working to offer providers to the American folks.
The Nation: Inform me about a few of these providers.
Kelley: Ensuring that the meals that People eat is protected meals. Ensuring that the air that People breathe is protected to breathe. Ensuring that the water is protected. Ensuring that veterans, as soon as they go and serve this nation, come again and have assist mechanisms by means of the VA. Ensuring that our elders, after they attain retirement age, are supported after they file claims with the completely different companies, after they want one thing from the Social Safety Administration. Ensuring, with FEMA, that when there’s a catastrophe that you simply’ve received federal workers there to handle the disaster. You even have folks on the Federal Bureau of Prisons, ensuring that our communities are protected. Nearly any sort of job you possibly can consider, the folks I characterize are doing it. And they’re doing it to offer providers to, and for, the American folks.
The Nation: Most People are, I believe, unaware of all of the issues that federal staff do.
Kelley: Federal workers do their jobs so effectively that, more often than not, no one notices. It will solely be observed in the event that they had been failing. And they aren’t failing.
The Nation: There are many issues that the non-public sector does, however loads of the roles that the folks you characterize do actually can’t be carried out effectively by the non-public sector.
Kelley: Completely.
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I do imagine that what this administration is attempting to do is to place the federal government in a mission-failure place in order that they will contract out these jobs. That will be devastating as a result of [with privatization] it might not be about offering service to the American folks. It will be about making a revenue.
The Nation: Trump and the Republicans get enthusiastic about privatization, however there’s loads of proof that privatization doesn’t work.
Kelley: It doesn’t work. Once I was a federal worker, I labored for the Division of Protection. I’ve seen how the contractors hike up costs on issues like a hammer. I keep in mind the massive story about contractors charging $600 for a hammer. That’s what you get whenever you contract out jobs and providers.
The Nation: On this Labor Day, are there stuff you suppose that People who care about federal staff and federal unions needs to be targeted on?
Kelley: We’ve got a invoice on the ground proper now in Congress. It’s HR 2550, the Defend America’s Workforce Act. That’s designed to revive collective bargaining rights again to federal workers. We’re asking each American to make a name to their member of Congress and to inform them to convey that invoice to the ground. The invoice is sitting there, however the speaker gained’t let it come to the ground. We imagine that, if there have been a vote, we’d win.
The Nation: Whereas it is a combat for federal staff, it issues for private-sector staff, as effectively, doesn’t it?
Kelley: I hope that the American folks will get behind staff and stand with them in order that this administration doesn’t beat out the unions. Though they’re beginning with AFGE, I imagine that, if they’re profitable—and I don’t imagine they’ll in the end achieve success—[the administration] won’t cease there. I imagine that they see us because the low-hanging fruit. I believe that they’ll assault each organized employee in America if they’re given the inexperienced mild to take action.
On this second of disaster, we want a unified, progressive opposition to Donald Trump.
We’re beginning to see one take form within the streets and at poll bins throughout the nation: from New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s marketing campaign targeted on affordability, to communities defending their neighbors from ICE, to the senators opposing arms shipments to Israel.
The Democratic Get together has an pressing option to make: Will it embrace a politics that’s principled and well-liked, or will it proceed to insist on dropping elections with the out-of-touch elites and consultants that received us right here?
At The Nation, we all know which aspect we’re on. Each day, we make the case for a extra democratic and equal world by championing progressive leaders, lifting up actions combating for justice, and exposing the oligarchs and firms profiting on the expense of us all. Our unbiased journalism informs and empowers progressives throughout the nation and helps convey this politics to new readers prepared to affix the combat.
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Thanks for serving to us tackle Trump and construct the simply society we all know is feasible.
Sincerely,
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, The Nation
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