10/30/2025
Trump’s Anti-Worker Shutdown Is a Full-On War on Federal Employees
The Trump administration’s government shutdown isn’t just political theater—it’s the most extreme assault on federal workers since Reagan’s crushing of the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981.
🔹 Federal employees are being fired en masse.
🔹 Union contracts have been canceled across agencies like the EPA, VA, and HHS.
🔹 The administration has stopped automatic collection of union dues.
This is union-busting on a scale unseen in modern history. And it’s meant to break the backbone of the public sector—and the working class it serves.
Labor historian Joseph McCartin warns: “It seems like the labor movement was caught flat-footed by the speed and ferocity of Trump’s attack.”
But there’s still a way forward. As unions like the UAW International Union have shown, the answer is solidarity and militancy—reclaiming the spirit of collective action that built labor’s greatest victories.
Read Conor Lynch’s essential analysis on what labor must do now to fight back.
The GOP’s assault on federal employees amid the government shutdown is far more extreme than Reagan’s PATCO union busting. The labor movement needs a more effective response this time.
