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In the spirit of 'what American culture war development aren't we talking about because of the Trump tariffs,' might I offer...
Trump Goes After the (Largely Democratic) Federal Government Labor Unions
On 27 March, Trump signed an executive order titled the "EXCLUSIONS FROM FEDERAL LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS PROGRAMS." That is pretty vague, and I wouldn't blame anyone who doesn't recognize what it says inside either.
The (very) short version is that this executive order formally determines various executive agencies "to have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work." This is the criteria that allows an exception to normal public sector union formation rights and so on. (You don't want the military or CIA to form a union in case it decides to strike, after all.) That might make sense in principle. What may raise eyebrows are some of the additions.
Newly added agencies determined to have a 'primary function' as national security work or otherwise, include-
...and you hopefully get the gist. A number of not-usually-considered-national-security departments and agencies have gotten determined to be so. Which, by the law as written, the President can do. Which means also that the public union rules and rights don't apply.
Who does this matter?
Well, for one, public sector unions political action committees (PACs) donate overwhelmingly to the democratic party. $12.5 million vs. $1.6 million in 2023-2024. That's small in absolute political money terms, but shows a significant difference in union institutional support.
But more importantly, about half of all union members in the United States are public sector union members. That's about 7 million public sector members versus 14.3 million total. Further, the ratio of unionization is completely lopsided. Only about 5% (1-in-20) of the public sector employees in the US are unionized. About 33% (1-in-3) of public sector employees are unionized. That's all public-sector unions, mind you, not just the federal government. There are only about 1 million federal public union employees, so 1-in7 of the public sector employees. That's about 14% of public sector employees, or 7% of total union employees. And not all of those will be caught in this recategorization.
Still- last week Trump put in motion a wrecking ball that seems primed to take a major chunk out of what was once a foundational pillar of the of the post-New Deal Democratic party alliance. It seems also likely to defang / weaken some potential internal resistance organizers within the Federal government, which I suspect was the more immediate motive as Trump attempts to shrink the federal work force. But as far as far as the union implications...
Well, not everyone likes public sector unions. Arch-MAGA personality Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned against public sector unions, on grounds that the government couldn't negotiate with itself. The case against public sector unions has been made for many decade. I'll let people read those takes and have their own opinions. What's more important is that these arguments are not new, but have never made significant traction... until last week.
Reactions have broadly been overwhelmed by the media coverage of last week's tariffs and other Trumpian news cycles. The right-leaning City Journal lauds the effort thought it conceeds some of the classifications are a stretch.. The left-leaning Jacobin calls on unions to make a "militant" response. Somehow, I don't think that will exactly dissuade trump, but we will see.
Will this go to court? Already has. Are plaintiff unions liable to find sympathetic judges in the DC district court, where 11 of the 15 district judges were appointed by Obama or Biden? Probably.
Will they win? I don't know.
But I think this does add another bit of evidence that Trump's chaos has some deliberate intent that often gets lost in the media chaos that follows him.
This is the death blow to the Democratic party nomenklatura: if it goes through then it will be Trump's Great Purge, utterly destroying the federal government as an institution for generations. Even if Vance loses in 2028 there will be nothing left to rebuild. No one will make a career that can be destroyed on a whim every four years. We will see a return to the spoils system where government appointments are cycled in and out with every new administration as payoffs to supporters.
Hey, just like the late Roman Republic!
Trump came too early in the decline of the USA's one. He would have made a decent Nero or Caligula.
Would Nero or Caligula have had the full support of the Evangelical community, tho?
No but on the other hand they would have gotten on a lot better with the Europeans
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