The Answer to Trump’s Anti-Worker Shutdown Is Solidarity and Labor Militancy

Last March, the president launched what has been described as the largest union-busting campaign in the country’s history when he issued an executive order instructing agency heads to cancel collective bargaining agreements for more than a million federal employees under the pretext of national security. Since then, he has issued several more orders to expand the number of targeted agencies and workers, while about half a million federal employees have seen their collective bargaining contracts terminated. At the time of this writing, union contracts have been canceled for employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, U.S. Coast Guard and departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs. On top of this, the administration has ceased collecting union dues via automatic payroll deduction, forcing unions like the American Federation of Government Employees to implement an alternative system to collect dues. 

Though no previous episode quite matches the breadth of this assault on federal unions, the closest historical parallel that has often been invoked is the notorious Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization incident in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired over 11,000 air traffic controllers shortly after they declared a strike. That incident, which resulted in the decertification of PATCO, has gone down as one of the worst days in American history for the labor movement. It had far-reaching consequences not just for air traffic controllers and government employees, but for all working people in America. 

The PATCO firing not only had an immediate chilling effect on labor activity in both the public and private sectors, but also instilled a renewed confidence in corporate managers to go to war with unions. With the example set by Reagan — and with his administration’s tacit approval — it soon became common for corporate management to deploy union-busting tactics like bringing on permanent replacements or illegally firing labor organizers. After PATCO, the number of large-scale work stoppages plunged from at least 200 each year in the 1970s to just 40 by Reagan’s final year in office. As Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University and author of Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike That Changed America, explained to me, ​“Labor organizations lost confidence in collective action for more than 20 years after [PATCO], reinforcing a defensiveness that had begun to set in before 1981, and that took decades after 1981 for labor to overcome.”

While there are many differences between PATCO and the current assault on federal unions (more on that later), one unfortunate similarity, according to McCartin, is the labor movement’s failure to ​“effectively defend its ranks” against a union-busting president. ​“It seems like the labor movement was caught flat-footed by the speed and ferocity of Trump’s attack on federal unions,” said McCartin, noting that a ​“similar impact might well flow from what Trump has done to federal workers in 2025 and what little opposition labor has been able to organize against Trump’s actions.” 

Ironically, part of labor’s failure today can be traced back to some of the lessons that unions drew from PATCO almost 50 years ago. After Reagan crushed the air traffic controllers, most unions became wary of direct action and steered clear of open confrontation with management. This was especially true for federal unions, which are legally prohibited from striking. ​“Because PATCO’s strike ended up being suicidal,” said McCartin, ​“I think they concluded that no kind of direct action could ever be used effectively to protest unjust treatment.” 

In the long run, this has severely hampered the ability of the federal unions to respond to the kind of threat they now face. While thousands of federal employees and their unions have resisted the administration’s lawless campaign through lawsuits and protests, these efforts have mostly come up short in the face of a right-leaning judiciary and a Republican-controlled Congress. ​“Part of the problem,” McCartin told me, is that federal unions have ​“never developed effective muscles that could help them push back against an attack of this kind.” Since PATCO, federal unions have mostly exerted power through lobbying, grievance procedures and litigation, while neglecting to develop any contingency plans or programs that train members in direct action. 

This overreliance on legal and bureaucratic channels is now coming back to haunt them as the president takes a battering ram to the institutions and discards long-standing civil service procedures and norms. Though federal unions have challenged the administration’s policies in the courts, it is unlikely the judiciary will come sailing to the rescue. Indeed, given the current conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, McCartin said it was ​“deeply unwise to expect courts to come to the unions’ aid when Trump attacked them.”

If PATCO led labor leaders to adopt a more cautious and conciliatory approach toward management, the current assault on civil servants across the government should prompt a thorough reassessment of that strategy. The war on federal unions should also be a wake-up call not just for those who work for the government, but also for the entire labor movement. As billionaire oligarchs gear up for their own renewed anti-labor crusade, they are no doubt keeping a close tab on the current conflict between the president and the federal workforce.

The labor movement’s survival — and any hope of a wider revival — depends on rediscovering the militancy that once fueled its most transformative victories. In recent years, unions like the United Auto Workers have begun to do just that, reviving their combative spirit with the 2023 ​“stand-up strike” against the Big Three automakers. ​“When workers strike, we learn how much power we really have,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain recently wrote on the two-year anniversary of that successful strike.

While striking remains a risky proposition for most federal employees, there are still meaningful ways to engage in collective action and solidarity. This is evidenced by the Federal Unionists Network, an alliance of unionists from across the government. FUN has been a ​“bright spot amidst an otherwise dispiriting lack of fight-back among federal unions overall,” said McCartin, who compared the group’s efforts to those of teachers unions that have successfully framed their struggle as a fight for the common good.

FUN members have promoted their own struggle as a defense of essential public services that countless Americans depend on. They have led multiple days of rallies to ​“Save Our Services” and have worked to build solidarity across the broader labor movement. More recently, the network and 35 national, state and local unions sent a letter to Democratic leaders in Congress urging them not to cave to Republican threats of layoffs in the current standoff over government funding. ​“Next year’s budget,” the letter reads, ​“must ensure adequate funding for critical public services; guarantee that appropriated funds are spent to provide those services; and oppose the Trump Administration’s efforts to further weaken the programs, protections, and services that tens of millions of Americans rely upon.”

Appealing to the common good is a smart way to build trust with the public and push back against the Republican demonization of federal workers. It is also what the air traffic controllers failed to do in 1981, which is at least one reason why they suffered such total defeat. Indeed, it was the very lack of public support for the air traffic controllers that likely emboldened Reagan, then at the height of his popularity, to take such drastic action. In a poll taken shortly after the incident, about 6 in 10 Americans approved of Reagan’s handling of the strike. PATCO members made little effort to link their own strike to the defense of public services, nor did they bother to build solidarity with other unions (PATCO was one of the few unions that endorsed Reagan the year before).

Unlike Reagan, Donald Trump is a historically divisive and unpopular president who lacks ​“broad public sympathy” and is engaging in actions that are ​“at best dubiously legal,” said McCartin. At the same time, the labor movement is currently enjoying its highest level of public support since the 1960s, with roughly 7 in 10 Americans approving of labor unions and a broad majority saying that their decline is bad for the country. Public sentiment is clearly on the side of workers and unions. If nothing else, these numbers ought to galvanize federal workers and the broader labor movement to mount a fierce resistance to the president’s lawless, pro-billionaire agenda.

This story is also posted at Truthdig.