The president said agreements reached late in Joe Biden's presidency were meant to "harm my Administration."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
If 800,000 government workers go on strike just for starters, with who knows how many more in other fields striking in solidarity, there won't be enough cops in the world to make them all to back to work.
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?”
I thought Harris’ tone-deaf moment was in response to him deciding not to endorse a candidate rather than the other way around. Maybe I’m confusing union bosses, but I didn’t think the guy who spoke at the RNC endorsed either ticket in the end.
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.
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.
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.
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.