By Mark Gruenberg and John Wojcik
WASHINGTON: In only one of an avalanche of unconstitutional, outrageous and crude executive orders this week, Donald Trump installed an 18-year-old who goes by his internet name “Big Balls” as Senior Adviser to the U.S. Department of State.
That appointment followed his refusal to obey court orders halting his declaration of an end to birthright citizenship, his freeze on billions of dollars in federal funding and his lockout of tens of thousands of federal workers. That refusal has plunged the nation into a constitutional crisis caused by a president who, in his quest for total power, has discarded both the Congress and the courts. He is aiming to transfer the billions of dollars in public funds approved by Congress to meet the people’s needs and transfer the money into the pockets of his billionaire pals.
The lockouts are being enforced by individuals from mysterious police forces who, in Nazi brown-shirt style, are literally standing in doorways, barring anyone from the public from entering the public buildings. Sycophant Republicans are calling for the impeachment of the judges trying to enforce democratic rule, not Trump.
Also in defiance of court orders he is barring federal workers and even elected lawmakers from entering the buildings in which they do the work of operating critical federal agencies. No agency, not even the Consumer Finance Protection operation, the EPA, or cancer research have escaped his slash and burn operation. By cutting those operations often local economies will suffer because of the job producing and economy boosting impact of those programs in communities across the country.
The government workers Trump and Musk are attempting to roll over, however, are refusing, to remain silent. They have been gathering across the country, including in Washington DC itself to resist. The Government Employees (AFGE) announced here that they have crafted a five-pronged plan to stop the scorched-earth destruction of federal workers and programs by worker-hating, union-hating and government-hating Donald Trump, union President Clarence Kelley says.
And marshalling public support, by pointing out how the deep slashes in government personnel and services will endanger the public—producing everything from unsafe airplanes to unsafe chickens—will be a key part of it. That danger is nationwide, says Kelley. “It doesn’t matter what the colour of the state is”—red for Republican, blue for Democratic and purple for swing. “If the chicken is bad, it’s bad.”Kelley began his keynote address to the hundreds of delegates gathered at a legislative conference here by trashing Trump, even while admitting later that approximately 30% of his members had voted for the convicted felon.
“This president has contempt for the rule of law, for the Constitution and for our democracy,” Kelley declared. “We in AFGE are on the front lines” of saving all three. Otherwise, “they’re coming after us,” referring to Trump, his puppeteer, multibillionaire Elon Musk, the Trumpite MAGA forces and Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) hit squad of age 22-something numbers crunchers.
“And then they’re coming after you,” meaning the rest of the country. “But they only win if we let them” do so. “We cannot be bullied unless we let them bully us. We cannot be silenced unless we let them silence us…Musk is a travesty and DOGE is a scam.”“We’re in a very trying time, but if we continue to stand strong and stand together, we will prevail,” union president Kelley declared.
Whether that will actually occur is still very much an open question. The unions’ normal allies, congressional Democrats, influenced by big givers and campaign dollars, have waffled. So has the Democratic leadership, notably Senate leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He sent a mild “we are with you” video to the conference.
And the criminal corporate class is enthusiastic about Trump’s dictatorial plans to reduce the government’s size and reach. Such cuts would allow the plutocrats to run roughshod over the rest of us. One conference speaker said they could turn workers into slaves again.
Kelley unveiled the plan on the first full day, February 10, of the union’s annual legislative conference in D.C., and his members are following up with a mass march on Congress, joined by the Professional and Technical Engineers, other unions, the Jewish Labour Committee and worker allies.
AFGE members will then fan out through the Capitol, lobbying lawmakers to preserve public services in the face of massive pressure from Trump and his handler, multibillionaire Elon Musk, to cut them.
Congressional Democrats addressing the conferees were supportive, as was the sole Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. But he admitted he has a selling job to do on his side of the aisle to overcome myths and lies—propagated, though he didn’t say so, by Republicans going back to Ronald Reagan and extending through Trump—about federal workers.
“I’ve been trying to educate my fellow Republicans. There is a stigma attached to federal employees. They don’t know what you do behind the scenes” to keep the country going, Fitzpatrick said. “I’ve been nailing down the facts and clarifying the law.”
The latest cuts loom at the Labour Department, the Veterans Affairs Department, and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, site of a late-afternoon demonstration and a MAGA invasion February 10.
A federal judge in D.C. refused to stop—at least for now—the raids by Trump’s partner in crime, multibillionaire Elon Musk, and his 22-somethings at DOL. They’re snooping through union records, OSHA enforcement records, wage and hour violations, including those by Musk’s firms, and visas for temporary farm workers and for skilled foreign workers, such as baseball players.
Trump Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, a key crafter of Trump’s radical right party platform, aka Project 2025, named himself the CFPB Director, called Musk’s brigade in to rifle the files seeking data on enforcement against malefactors, and planned to shut it down.
The five-part plan Kelley discussed was also taken up by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016. Kaine handily beat a Trump-picked foe last November. The first step, said both Kelley and Kaine, is to contest Trump’s illegal and/or unconstitutional moves in court. Unions and their allies have filed at least 36 lawsuits against Trump’s schemes. And the deep-blue California legislature just approved Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for $25 million in spending on lawyers to contest Trump plans.
The lawsuits have already produced some wins against the misogynist convicted felon’s schemes to trash, lay off and fire federal workers, but also Trump’s proposal to round up, incarcerate and deport people Trump calls “illegal immigrants” and worse.
Union contracts backstop many of the lawsuits, with clauses Trump illegally violates, such as by imposing mandatory back-to-work schemes or negotiating over the union’s head with illegal direct offers of “buyouts”—for which there may be no money after March 14.“If they don’t follow the law, the contracts and the regulations” concerning layoffs, “we’ll file unfair labor practices” charges, the official name for labour law-breaking. That will be followed by grievances and lawsuits, Kelley added. In practice, Trump’s federal ICE raiders are rounding up anyone with a brown skin, legal or not, migrant or not, on streets, dragging people out of cars after routine traffic stops, and raiding schools, churches and hospitals.
The second prong of the stop-Trump schemes involve using all available tools to tie up Congress in knots so it can’t enact Trump’s plans, despite its Republican majorities in both houses. In an interview after his own speech to the conference, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said that would include using parliamentary tactics to hamstring the Senate—everything from frequent quorum calls to objecting to unanimous consent demands on routine legislation to filibusters, such as a 30-hour talkathon the 47 Democrats conducted against Vought. Ultimately, though, they couldn’t stop him and lost party-line, 53-47.
But Van Hollen also said the Republican-run House is vulnerable to stoppages, too. The GOP controls it by a 220-215 margin, including three vacant Republican-held seats up for special elections so far this year. And MAGA members of that majority, Van Hollen said, are quarrelling constantly with more traditional, practical and business-oriented Republicans.
The third part of the defeat-Trump plan is to rely on the states, especially blue states, to intervene and assert both states’ rights and take over responsibilities Trump demands the feds dump. Several governors, including Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker and Maryland’s Wes Moore, are already doing that.
The fourth and fifth parts of the stop-Trump plan go hand-in-hand: Activism and education by union members and their allies aimed at the rest of the electorate, including Trump voters. They voted for Trump, “but they didn’t vote for this,” Kelley said. And, then, after two years of campaigning and pointing out the practical effects of the cuts, defeat of the MAGAites in 2026.“This is a slow-moving avalanche,” unlike 2017 when Trump’s first win drew the massive women’s march into D.C.’s streets days after his inauguration.
One part of the avalanche is moving faster than the others, though: Unionization. AFGE, which had just over 300,000 members at the end of last year, set a goal of 325,000 net for the end of this year. In practice, Kelley said, that means it must recruit two new people for every retiree. But since voters elected Trump by a plurality—not a majority—over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s VP, the phones have been ringing off the hook at the union.
In December, Kelley reported, when the union usually loses members to end-of-the-year retirements, it gained about 1,000 members. In January, February and other months, it usually gains a net of 800-900 monthly. January’s figure topped 8,000, staffers reported to Kelley, and February’s is already at 8,264. (IPA )
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