“They Will Attack Every Organized Worker in America”
Policy
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September 1, 2025
Talking to the head of the largest American union of federal workers in Trump’s assault on his members and all the work.
The president of AFGE, Everett Kelley, speaks during her hands! Day of action against the Trump and Elon Musk administration on April 5, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Paul Morigi / Getty Images for the Change Action community)
Donald Trump is not a friend of organized work.
Trump is also not a friend of federal workers – or the unions representing them. In fact, on March 27, the president published an executive decree demanding that most federal agencies end their union contracts. The president said that he had the power to suspend collective negotiations for national security reasons – making ongoing legal and legislative battles.
No matter how these battles are resolved, there is no doubt that Trump – with a demolition team which, for a certain time, included the billionaire Elon Musk – makes the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers in the miserable public sector.
This has placed Everett Kelley, who heads the largest federal union in the country, the US Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), at the center of the most in -depth and consecutive union struggle that is played in this controversial labor festival.
Representing 820,000 workers from the federal government and the government of the Columbia district, AFGE fights to protect not only the jobs of its members, but services for the big mass of Americans whose health, security and security are threatened with a privatization president and its republican congress.
As labor festival approaches, The nation According to Kelley – an army veteran and Baptist preacher who worked for decades in an Anniston, Alabama, Army Depot depot, before becoming president of his union and national vice -president of AFL -CIO – on how workers find it difficult to survive the Trump war against the working class. The transcription has been slightly modified for more clarity and length.
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The nation: In this labor festival, it is fair to say that the Americans who work and their unions are faced with one of the most brutal assaults in the history of American work.
Everett Kelley: I totally agree that that’s what’s going on! I have been a member of AFGE since 1981. I have never seen any assault like this. Employees must come to work every day and face uncertainty, because this administration told them that they wanted them to go – they don’t want them to be government employees. They sit at home with a [reduction-in-force] Letter, and they have a stack of invoices to pay. They were stripped of their ability to organize themselves by saying: “We do not allow them to be in the union, we do not allow them to pay the union contributions of their pay checks.” The employees are demoralized by each section of the imagination.
The nation: The people you represent have taken a federal job because they wanted to serve their American compatriots. Many of them are veterans who chose federal employment because they wanted to continue to do something for their country, right?
Kelley: You are exactly right. I myself am a veteran. Thirty percent of the people we represent are veterans. The people I represent are very patriotic employees. They take an oath when they come to work for the federal government, and they take the oath seriously.
I retired from the federal government – after 31 and a half years – and I am proud of it. When we work, we don’t work just to be paid. We work to provide services to the American people.
The nation: Tell me about some of these services.
Kelley: Eleting that the food that Americans eats is safe food. Make sure the air that Americans breathe are sure to breathe. Make sure the water is safe. Ensure that veterans, once they leave and serve this country, return and have support mechanisms via AV. Ensure that our elders, when they reach retirement age, are supported when they submit complaints to the various agencies, when they need something from the Social Security Administration. Make sure, with FEMA, that when there is a disaster, you have federal employees there to approach the disaster. You also have people from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, making sure that our communities are safe. About all types of work you may think, the people I represent do. And they do it to provide services and for the American people.
The nation: Most Americans are, I suppose, ignoring everything that federal workers do.
Kelley: Federal employees do their work so well that, most of the time, no one notices it. He would only be noticed if they failed. And they do not fail.
The nation: There are many things that the private sector is doing, but a lot of jobs that the people you represent really cannot be done well by the private sector.
Kelley: Absolutely.
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I believe that what this administration is trying to do is put the government in a mission position to contract these jobs. It would be devastating because [with privatization] It would not be a question of providing services to the American people. It would be a question of making a profit.
The nation: Trump and the Republicans are enthusiastic about privatization, but there is a lot of evidence that privatization does not work.
Kelley: It doesn’t work. When I was a federal employee, I worked for the Ministry of Defense. I saw how entrepreneurs increase prices on things like a hammer. I remember the great history of entrepreneurs invoicing $ 600 for a hammer. This is what you get when you contract jobs and services.
The nation: In this labor celebration, are there things you think that Americans who care about federal workers and federal unions should be focused?
Kelley: We have a soil bill at the moment at the Congress. This is HR 2550, the Protect America’s workforce law. This is designed to restore collective negotiation rights to federal employees. We ask each American to make an appeal to their Congress member and tell them to provide this bill on the ground. The bill is seated there, but the speaker will not let him come to the ground. We believe that if there was a vote, we would win.
The nation: Although it is a fight for federal workers, this also counts for workers in the private sector, right?
Kelley: I hope that the American people will take behind the workers and will be held with them so that this administration does not beat the unions. Although they start with Afge, I think if they succeed – and I don’t think they will eventually succeed -[the administration] will not stop there. I think they see us like low fruits. I think they will attack all the workers organized in America if they have the green light to do so.
At this time of crisis, we need a unified and progressive opposition to Donald Trump.
We are starting to see a form in the streets and in the ballot boxes across the country: from the campaign of the candidate for the town hall of New York, Zohran Mamdani, affordable, to communities protecting their neighbors from ice, to senators opposed to arms expeditions to Israel.
The Democratic Party has an urgent choice to make: will he embrace a policy that is based on principles and popular, or will it continue to insist on losing elections with the elites and the outside contact consultants that brought us here?
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Sincerely,
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, The nation
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