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News > U.S.

Trump Threatens Union-Rights for 750,000 US Federal Workers

  • Since the president took office in 2017, his administration has been attacking unions both in the public and private sectors.

    Since the president took office in 2017, his administration has been attacking unions both in the public and private sectors. | Photo: Twitter (@AFGENational)

Published 24 February 2020
Opinion

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said the memorandum is "a travesty and a disgrace."

U.S. President Donald Trump published Thursday a memorandum -signed on Jan. 29- that gives Defense Secretary Mark Esper the authority to circumvent collective bargaining rights for the Pentagon's 750,000 civilian workers.

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Trump argues in the document that a unionized workforce at the Department of Defense (DoD) could represent a threat to "national security" and that Esper should be able to call off collective bargaining rights in the interest of "protecting the American people."

"The national security interests of the United States require expedient and efficient decisionmaking. When new missions emerge, or existing ones evolve, the Department of Defense requires maximum flexibility to respond to threats," the memo states. 

"This flexibility requires that military and civilian leadership manage their organizations to cultivate a lethal, agile force adaptive to new technologies and posture changes."

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said the memorandum is "a travesty and a disgrace."

"Denying nearly half a million Defense Department workers the collective bargaining rights guaranteed to them by law since 1962 would be a travesty, and doing it under the guise of 'national security' would be a disgrace to the sacred oath and obligation that all federal workers make to their country," AFGE's national secretary-treasurer Everett Kelley said in a statement.

"This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers' rights to form and join a union," said Kelley, "and we will not stop doing everything we can to prevent that from happening."

Since the president took office in 2017, his administration has been attacking unions both in the public and private sectors.

News media Politico obtained in October an internal memo written in 2017 by White House domestic policy adviser James Sherk, who urged Trump "to eliminate all job protections for federal workers and a requirement that federal contractors provide paid sick leave for employees."

AFGE had responded to Sherk's recommendations saying, "the administration's divide-and-conquer strategy concerning organized labor is as disgusting as it is shameful."

"But it won't work," the union said. "Across this country, our members and the members of every other labor union are getting educated, organized, and mobilized. As the largest union representing federal employees, AFGE will continue to resist the president's mob mentality and disrespect for the federal workforce and the work they do."

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