Trump brutally strips nearly half a million federal workers of their union rights
Washington DC - President Donald Trump's policy of ignoring collective bargaining contracts has seen nearly half a million government employees stripped of their union rights.
Over the course of August, more than 445,000 government employees saw their collective bargaining contracts cancelled as various federal agencies scrambled to comply with an executive order signed by Trump in March.
The order directed 22 government agencies to ignore collective bargaining agreements with specific unions. It was followed by a second executive order, signed last week, which strips union rights from employees in six other agencies.
Trump argued that employees within the newly added agencies were critical to national security and, as a result, their right to negotiate through a labor union would interfere with their ability to fulfil their job requirements.
"President Trump is taking action to ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people," read a fact sheet released by the White House in March.
Collectively, 445,000 federal workers from the following agencies have lost their collective bargaining rights:
- The Environmental Protection Agency
- US Coast Guard
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- General Services Administration
- The Departments of Health and Human Services
- Agriculture and Veterans Affairs
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement
- Citizenship and Immigration Services
In an opinion piece in The Hill over Labor Day weekend, Department of Professional Employees President Jennifer Dorning slammed Trump's union busting and called for federal employees' union rights to be restored.
"If federal employees' union rights are not restored, we can expect to see a politicized civil service that puts politicians and special interests ahead of the American people," she wrote.
"This means that the effectiveness of government services will suffer, which will result in worse outcomes for everyday Americans."
Cover photo: AFP/Al Drago/Getty Images