Speaking to the top of America’s largest union of federal employees about Trump’s assault on his members and all of labor.
AFGE President Everett Kelley speaks through the Palms Off! day of motion in opposition to the Trump administration and Elon Musk on April 5, 2025, in Washington, DC.
(Paul Morigi / Getty Pictures for Group Change Motion)
Donald Trump is not any pal of organized labor.
Neither is Trump a pal of federal employees—or the unions that symbolize them. In truth, on March 27, the president issued an government order demanding that almost all federal companies terminate their union contracts. The president claimed he had the ability to droop collective bargaining for nationwide safety causes—sparking ongoing authorized and legislative battles.
Irrespective of how these battles are resolved, there is no such thing as a query that Trump—together with a wrecking crew that, for a time, included billionaire Elon Musk—is making the lives of tons of of hundreds of public-sector employees depressing.
That has put Everett Kelley, who heads the nation’s largest federal union, the American Federation of Authorities Workers (AFGE), on the heart of essentially the most far-reaching and consequential union wrestle that’s enjoying out on this contentious Labor Day.
Representing 820,000 employees within the federal authorities and the federal government of the District of Columbia, AFGE is battling to guard not simply the roles of its members, however companies for the good mass of Individuals whose well being, security and safety are below risk from a privatization-scheming president and his Republican Congress.
As Labor Day approached, The Nation spoke with Kelley—an Military veteran and Baptist preacher who labored for many years at an Anniston, Alabama, Military depot, earlier than turning into the president of his union and a nationwide vp of the AFL-CIO—about how employees are struggling to outlive Trump’s battle on the working class. The transcript has been flippantly edited for readability and size.
Present Concern
The Nation: On this Labor Day, is it truthful to say that working Individuals and their unions are going through some of the brutal assaults within the historical past of American labor.
Everett Kelley: I completely agree that that’s what’s taking place! I’ve been a member of the AFGE since 1981. I’ve by no means seen an assault like this. Workers have to come back to work on daily basis and face uncertainty, as a result of this administration has advised them they need them to go—they don’t need them to be authorities workers. They’re sitting at residence with a [reduction-in-force] letter, and so they’ve obtained a stack of payments to be paid. They’ve been stripped of their capability to prepare by saying, “We received’t enable them to be within the union, we received’t enable them to pay union dues out of their paychecks.” Workers are being demoralized by each stretch of the creativeness.
The Nation: The individuals you symbolize took federal employment as a result of they wished to serve their fellow Individuals. A lot of them are veterans who selected federal employment as a result of they wished to proceed to do one thing for his or her nation, right?
Kelley: You’re precisely proper. I’m a veteran myself. Thirty % of the individuals we symbolize are veterans. The those who I symbolize are very patriotic workers. They take an oath after they come to work for the federal authorities, and so they take that oath critically.
I retired myself from the federal authorities—after 31 and a half years—and I’m happy with that. Once we are working, we’re not working simply to receives a commission. We’re working to supply companies to the American individuals.
The Nation: Inform me about a few of these companies.
Kelley: Ensuring that the meals that Individuals eat is protected meals. Ensuring that the air that Individuals breathe is protected to breathe. Ensuring that the water is protected. Ensuring that veterans, as soon as they go and serve this nation, come again and have help mechanisms via the VA. Ensuring that our elders, after they attain retirement age, are supported after they file claims with the completely different companies, after they want one thing from the Social Safety Administration. Ensuring, with FEMA, that when there’s a catastrophe that you simply’ve obtained federal workers there to deal with the disaster. You even have individuals on the Federal Bureau of Prisons, ensuring that our communities are protected. Nearly any sort of job you’ll be able to consider, the individuals I symbolize are doing it. And they’re doing it to supply companies to, and for, the American individuals.
The Nation: Most Individuals are, I think, unaware of all of the issues that federal employees do.
Kelley: Federal workers do their jobs so properly that, more often than not, no person notices. It will solely be observed in the event that they have been failing. And they don’t seem to be failing.
The Nation: There are many issues that the personal sector does, however loads of the roles that the individuals you symbolize do actually can’t be completed properly by the personal sector.
Kelley: Completely.
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I do imagine that what this administration is making an attempt to do is to place the federal government in a mission-failure place in order that they’ll contract out these jobs. That will be devastating as a result of [with privatization] it might not be about offering service to the American individuals. It will be about making a revenue.
The Nation: Trump and the Republicans get enthusiastic about privatization, however there’s loads of proof that privatization doesn’t work.
Kelley: It doesn’t work. Once I was a federal worker, I labored for the Division of Protection. I’ve seen how the contractors hike up costs on issues like a hammer. I keep in mind the large story about contractors charging $600 for a hammer. That’s what you get while you contract out jobs and companies.
The Nation: On this Labor Day, are there stuff you assume that Individuals who care about federal employees and federal unions needs to be targeted on?
Kelley: We’ve got a invoice on the ground proper now in Congress. It’s HR 2550, the Shield America’s Workforce Act. That’s designed to revive collective bargaining rights again to federal workers. We’re asking each American to make a name to their member of Congress and to inform them to carry that invoice to the ground. The invoice is sitting there, however the speaker received’t let it come to the ground. We imagine that, if there have been a vote, we’d win.
The Nation: Whereas this can be a combat for federal employees, it issues for private-sector employees, as properly, doesn’t it?
Kelley: I hope that the American individuals will get behind employees and stand with them in order that this administration doesn’t beat out the unions. Though they’re beginning with AFGE, I imagine that, if they’re profitable—and I don’t imagine they may finally achieve success—[the administration] won’t cease there. I imagine that they see us because the low-hanging fruit. I believe that they may assault each organized employee in America if they’re given the inexperienced mild to take action.
On this second of disaster, we’d like a unified, progressive opposition to Donald Trump.
We’re beginning to see one take form within the streets and at poll packing containers throughout the nation: from New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s marketing campaign targeted on affordability, to communities defending their neighbors from ICE, to the senators opposing arms shipments to Israel.
The Democratic Get together has an pressing option to make: Will it embrace a politics that’s principled and common, or will it proceed to insist on shedding elections with the out-of-touch elites and consultants that obtained us right here?
At The Nation, we all know which facet we’re on. Day by day, we make the case for a extra democratic and equal world by championing progressive leaders, lifting up actions preventing for justice, and exposing the oligarchs and firms profiting on the expense of us all. Our impartial journalism informs and empowers progressives throughout the nation and helps carry this politics to new readers prepared to hitch the combat.
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Thanks for serving to us tackle Trump and construct the simply society we all know is feasible.
Sincerely,
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, The Nation
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