The White Home ramped up its assaults on federal labor unions Thursday by making an attempt to strip away collective bargaining rights from a big chunk of the federal government workforce.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a slew of companies ineligible for negotiating union contracts as a result of they’ve intelligence or nationwide safety work as a “major operate.”
The order claims the exemption covers the State, Protection, Treasury, Justice and Veterans Affairs departments, together with massive parts of the Inside, Homeland Safety, and Well being and Human Providers departments, and a number of other different federal companies.
If the coverage survives a probable authorized problem, staff on the related companies would now not be coated by union contracts, shedding a key barrier towards unfair firings.
The American Federation of Authorities Staff, the most important federal union, mentioned the order covers greater than 1,000,000 employees.
“President Trump’s newest govt order is a disgraceful and retaliatory assault on the rights of a whole bunch of hundreds of patriotic American civil servants.”
– Everett Kelley, president, AFGE
HuffPost reported again in December that Trump was doubtless to make use of a nationwide safety exemption to attempt to finish collective bargaining rights at a number of departments. The president has already revoked union rights on the Transportation Safety Administration, the place it’s simpler to take action as a result of regulation that created the company.
AFGE mentioned it was making ready “instant authorized motion” to battle the coverage.
“President Trump’s newest govt order is a disgraceful and retaliatory assault on the rights of a whole bunch of hundreds of patriotic American civil servants — almost one-third of whom are veterans — just because they’re members of a union that stands as much as his dangerous insurance policies,” mentioned Everett Kelley, the union’s president.
Though they’ll supply sturdy job safety, federal unions don’t wield the identical powers as their private-sector counterparts. They’ll’t cut price over wages or advantages or name work stoppages, for example. And all federal workplaces are “open outlets,” which means no employee may be required to pay union dues below the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration sees federal unions as a serious impediment to its objectives of shrinking the federal government and shuttering companies it doesn’t like. AFGE and different unions have led a variety of lawsuits geared toward blocking legally doubtful White Home insurance policies, together with its “Fork within the Street” deferred resignation supply and its sweeping layoffs of greater than 20,000 probationary staff.
Kelley mentioned Trump’s efforts to weaken unions quantity to a risk to all employees: “Fall in line or else.”
