Summary
Trump is nullifying federal employee union contracts negotiated in Biden’s final days.
Affected contracts include one with the Education Department ratified just before his inauguration. Trump cited a 2010 Supreme Court decision to justify his stance but did not provide a clear legal basis.
Federal employee unions, representing 800,000 workers, vowed legal action, calling Trump’s move unlawful intimidation.
This continues Trump’s prior efforts to weaken job protections, with additional plans to reclassify and lay off civil servants.
You must log in or register to comment.
Of course he does. He’s a bastard.
I don’t think that is how contacts work.
Ignore contracts you don’t like, 100% on brand
After he finishes off the federal employee unions, he will pursue the destruction of the private unions creating 4th World working conditions for the US labor force. For those union members who guzzle down the Orange Kool-Aid, go piss in the wind and you fucked yourselves.
All I have to say, and I said it on that day of the RNC, but fuck that union guy for actually thinking the GOP gave 2 shots about unions after generations of fighting like Hell to gut them. Also fuck him for not endorsing the candidate who, while not necessarily a friend of unions, certainly wouldn’t have been actively working against them.
I mean I can understand him not wanting to endorse Kamala when she directly told him we can win with or without you. That doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of person you would want to endorse if they don’t even seem to really care about you or the people you represent. But yeah endorsing Trump was a stupid move, he really should have just not endorsed either of them.
At least in hindsight, it proves her wrong and that they can’t win without the unions?
So like, maybe the DNC will be self-aware enough to reflect upon this and pivot back towards more progressive, worker-friendly policies rather than the neo-liberal garbage they’ve been espousing for the better part of the 2000s?
I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of the above, but in the words of Jim Carey’s character from Dumb and Dumber: “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”
maybe the DNC will be self-aware
Lol
Yeah that would be nice but the only way I see that happening is if a Bernie like politician manages to win the primary and the election and reshapes the party like what Trump did. But reshaping it in that way is gonna face a lot more pushback from donors than compared to what Trump did. So there’s always a chance but it feels pretty unlikely without changes to election and campaign finance laws.
Finance laws, especially those related to the Citizens United case, are a massive hurdle.
Until the Supreme Court can be reigned back to sanity - things will likely remain terrible, as a majority will be needed there to re-rule on Citizens United - along with Roe, restoring the Voting Rights Act and a whole heap of others!
Just listing out those three made me physically ill; don’t let anyone who voted GOP, voted 3rd party, or refused to vote off the hook. They are all equally culpable for the slow death of democracy in the US. They are the ones that granted Trump THREE Supreme Court nominations in one term, and who knows how many more. The man is on track to likely appoint a MAJORITY to that court BY HIMSELF.
He could very well declare himself King at that point, and the court would likely rubber stamp it.
I wonder whether this is his play book:
- Be shitbag to workers
- Force general strike
- Demonize victims who’ve restored to only leverage to get fair working conditions (back)
I further bet it’s the one translated from Russian.
contracts involving federal law enforcement would be exempted
So Biden’s contracts are still legitimate if saying otherwise would upset the thug class
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Get up and get to it folks. Get sabotage manuals etc while you can, and try to do so using Tor.
Throw out the Union contact? Then union members need to… go on strike. That’s the power they have, and the only reason we’ve been able to get some worker protections.
Federal workers are usually barred from striking by law, see Reagan and the ATC union of any police union.
According to US history and labor unrest, the police will side with politicians and wealthy. I wonder how many workers will continue to wave around the thin blue line flags after they get asses kicked.
That’s also pretty damn close to what Trump genuinely wants - for everyone currently doing the work to quit. That way he can install lackeys across the board.
Strikes normally work because the other side wants something - usually the business owner wants labor to create a product. That isn’t the case here.
I’m not saying it’s pointless, but the classic strategies will need to be rethought.
Trump, and the Republicans in general, seriously underestimate just how much stuff the US government actually does, and how much institutional knowledge is required to do it. A widespread federal worker strike would be disastrous for them, and trying to replace all of those people with lackeys would be even more disastrous, because none of them would have the slightest clue what they are doing. And yes, I’m well aware that the Republicans are trying to sabotage the government, but going about it this way would have the opposite effect; everything coming crashing to a halt overnight would drive home to voters, in a really big way, just how much it is that the government actually does for people.
That’s also pretty damn close to what Trump genuinely wants - for everyone currently doing the work to quit. That way he can install lackeys across the board.
This plan only works if employees are indeed replaceable cogs. The thought is, “If employees quit, then we can simply replace them all”. “Unskilled labor” as it were. This assumption is common in management circles.
There’s also the not-so-secret goal of dismantling the government from the inside. The Republicans have been openly running with that one for 45 years
unions around the country need to join in sympathy strikes
Sympathy strikes are illegal in the US. Not saying wildcat strikes wouldn’t be justified, but there is a deliberate policy to undermine this type of broader solidarity.
Who cares if they are illegal, they want us to be afraid. I’d say do the stikes, what they gonna do arrest everyone in the country?
I mean honestly, this country has needed a good general strike for a long fucking time, for a lot of reasons.
This, at this point we’re uhh… kinda… fucked
What we need is labor to group together and start buying their own courts and judges.
I suspect that funding worker organizing would yield greater results
Half the unions will be dissolved due to lack of work shortly, anyway.
Are there enough lackeys? If quality falls through the floor as well, won’t it just further cement how dumb this whole strategy is? We may be taking lessons that it’ll take a few years to learn but…
Probably not, when you consider that he’s also about to deport a lot of your farm and construction workers…maybe he’ll find a way to get retirees, most of who will be his supporters, back to work.
Then they just privatize it and give it all to their wealthy buddies. For the things that they will even bother replacing… They want this shit to fail and they will replace most of it with nothing.
Creation is always more difficult than destruction, and none of our society was built without some kind of need. Most people like to build with others. Some take advantage of that spirit and become leaders for the sake of leading. Only morons would simultaneously covet power and actively work against people’s basic motivations.
I am working with others to actively fight should it come to that. But no matter what, we escaped the dark ages once, we’ll do so again.
They want to destroy the administrative state. A strike only helps them further that goal. They just won’t even bother negotiating.
The reason they have contracts is so they can take this to court instead of striking.
However, after this goes through a bunch of courts and ends up in the “supreme” one…
Unions have a long and violent history of not wanting to be fucked with, we’ll see how well this plays out for the orange Cunt
For those that would like to read up on the subject
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_violence_in_the_United_States
These are a bunch of civil servants, not tradespeople. Trade unions are the ones you don’t fuck with.
Just a friendly reminder that multiple Roman emperors were killed by bureaucrats.
Not at all, unless you consider the Praetorian Guard “bureaucrats”, which would be a hell of a stretch.
Aurelian and several Eastern Roman emperors beg to differ.
I’ll grant you Aurelian, but equating the Byzantine court to HR department staff is… something. I think the analogue there would be if congress or the Chiefs of Staff were to depose the President.
There were a couple Eastern Roman emperors who got shanked by bureaucrats. Mind uou they didnt reign for long and barely made it into the history books.
Piss enough people off and it don’t matter the flavor of union
I suspect trades unions might join with them in solidarity. The civil servants would have to put themselves on the line, but I think they would have support.
The fuck? Shawn Fain supports tariffs?!?
Dude what the fuck is happening?
Well the context is, he supports tariffs that protect American factory jobs. He supports investing in worker protections and domestic factories. He’s basically saying that when American factories exist for a product, products made elsewhere with cheaper foreign labor should have tariffs on them to raise the price of those foreign goods to protect domestic workers. That is actually a reasonable position.
What is not a reasonable position is imposing tariffs when we have no domestic production while simultaneously destroying American worker protections to ensure that we continue to have no domestic production and that workers have even less than they did before.
Yeah. That first bit is competition law essentially, the guy seems to get a bit confused though. Trump might speak to the little guy, but he’s not speaking to defend them.
Welp…
Yeah, that’s my concern I’ve worked with the civil servants. They’re angry all the time but never do anything.
Surely there must be a few of them that arenot “angry and lazy”?
There must be at least a few that make the Government actually function?
I’m not saying they’re lazy I’m just saying they are not going to do anything about being angry.
Have you seen any backlash to date other than hand-wringing online?
Oh nooooo. The contract AFGE couldn’t be bothered to enforce while I was a federal employee. Its getting thrown out? Good thing you didn’t invest anything into fighting for your workers under the current contract so you have all this stockpiled capital to defend your do nothing jobs.
Fuckem. Good riddance to a useless organization. I brought them every receipt they needed to nail the coast guard to the wall and they refused to stand for me. “Wasn’t in the budget” they told me. “Arbitration is expensive.” If rights only exist for the rich then they aren’t rights at all.
Hah! The presidency sure does provide a lot of power but he’s about to find out just where that ends. If 800,000 workers go on strike he and his cronies won’t be able to exist in their rich person bubbles.
The runways will be closed. The borders won’t let them in or out. Public transport everywhere will stop functioning. The banks will be forced to stop letting them send money due to laws regarding transaction reporting that go through Federal union employees (I mean, I guess they could try to live their rich person lives with nothing but transactions under $10,000 🤷).
Just about everything going on in the US from a logistics and economic perspective relies on the work of Federal union employees. They don’t even need to go on strike (which would technically be illegal but if Trump doesn’t need to follow the law why should federal employees‽). They could just reduce everything to a crawl and it would have the same effect.
I’m so tired of people proclaiming that NOW finally, Trump will see the consequences of his chaotic stupidity and petulant egocentrism!
No, he’s not going to “find out” anything, because he does not give a fuck who suffers and his supporters will gargle his balls no matter what he does.
You’re absolutely right about the consequences of this latest crime, except for the part where Trump in any way feels anything negative about the experience.
Trump is immune to consequences and loves to make it our problem.
No, he does care who suffers. It’s his entire goal.
That’s a misconception about narcissists. He really doesn’t care, as long as he benefits. He’s a team of one, and everything else is negotiable.
Hes trying to get them to quit. Going on strike would actually help him achieve his goals by repalcing them with more loyalist
That’s why it’s essential to do the kind of strike that involves blocking access to the work sites and kneecapping any scabs that try to break through.
You can be fired for striking in the USA? Thats wank if so.
Not technically, but your employer can hire someone to do your job while you’re striking. The result is that when the strike is over, your job is filled and instead of going back to work, you are placed at the top of the rehire list for whenever that job becomes available again.
In most states, you can be fired without any reason for it at all. We have almost no worker protections here.
For a good example of striking employees getting fired, see: the air traffic controller/PATCO strike under Reagan in 1981.
This is painting it with very broad strokes, but you can essentially be fired because they don’t like the color of your shirt buttons in most places (“at-will employment”). Sure, there technically has to be a reason, but your employer can find one.
Yeah, I’ve heard about that, but I didn’t realise it was that bad, or a majority.
I don’t think there are enough loyalists. These are technical jobs amongst other things.
I do think he wants everyone to quit and be replaced. I don’t think he cares if the role is filled by someone qualified or not. That’s my fear, this is truly to wreck the US.
There are enough already in those positions. Even heavily biased industries rarely get close to being dominated by one political party. The ‘liberal white towers’ of academia are only something like 1:6 Dem/left:Rep/right, and that’s usually one of the extremes that republicans bitch about. They’d bitch about other industries if they were anywhere close. I would bet there are enough lackeys and people who feel neutral that the oh-so-important people don’t feel much negative blowback.
It’s time for a general strike
yes, yes it is. now how do we organize 15-30% of the country for meaningful direct action?
Federal union workers will be a good start. The rest will and must follow. Let’s fucking go!
it is a start. fraught with danger, but I would join an organized strike with donations and time to keep union members fed and housed. the us has a history of turning guns on protests. I am… concerned.
There you go orange man, mess with the unions.
Go Teamsters!
