Week 18 saw Trump and House Republicans celebrating passage of a “big, beautiful bill” that cuts federal workers’ retirement, Medicaid, food aid so that they can have money to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
The House of Representatives May 21 passed a megabill to implement President Trump’s agenda and essentially an attack on working families.
According to an AFL-CIO analysis, these reckless cuts will harm millions of workers, including:
While Trump and Republicans were celebrating the passage of the bill, workers are fighting to protect their jobs and agency mission.
AFGE members working at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest Trump’s gutting of their agency whose mission is to protect workers from injuries and occupational diseases.
AFGE Local 3840 Steward Gary Roth was one of the members who traveled almost 500 miles by road and rail from Cincinnati, Ohio, to tell everyone who would listen about what our country would lose if NIOSH is gutted.
“Speaking of roads, rails, and cities, who build them?” he asked the crowd, which responded, “Workers!”
“Workers, right? Specifically construction workers…Without NIOSH, there will be no one to research how to keep them safe from falls, being struck by objects in a more technologically advanced environment, and inhaling dust with all kinds of new materials like nano materials that may put their health at risk,” he added.
Watch the rally, which took place on May 22 in front of the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters. Besides several AFGE local leaders representing NIOSH employees, AFGE District 3 National Vice President Phil Glover also spoke at the rally.
Here’s a quick recap of Trump’s attacks on America in his 18th week in office, how these actions hurt federal workers and the American people they serve, and how We the People fight back:
May 22: In a major victory for federal workers and the American people they serve, a judge ruled in a preliminary injunction finding that President Trump cannot implement mass layoffs of federal workers without the approval of Congress which created these agencies. AFGE is the lead plaintiff, and our locals provided many of the declarations that supported the win.
May 22: A judge blocked Trump from moving forward with a mass layoff at the Department of Education and ordered him to reinstate more than 1,300 employees. The case was brought by Democratic state attorneys general who argued Trump’s true intention was to dismantle the department without the approval of Congress which created the agency in 1979.
May 21: Good news for government workers. A judge in Kentucky dismissed Trump’s case against NTEU where he seeks to strip most federal employees of their collective bargaining rights on national security grounds. A similar case against AFGE locals was filed in Texas. A hearing for that case is scheduled for June 10.
May 21: The Trump-Republicans’ megabill that passed the House includes major cuts to federal workers’ retirement and imposes a monetary penalty on those who choose to retain their workplace rights and then charging them a fee when they try to enforce those rights.
May 21: A Senate report revealed how Trump’s firing of 19 inspectors general, his deferred resignation program, hiring freeze, and budget cuts have undermined the IGs’ independence and ability to combat fraud, waste, and abuse.
May 20: Trump’s Acting TSA Administrator Ha McNeil told Congress “nothing is off the table” when asked about the administration’s plan to privatize the airport screening function. Eliminating TSA and privatizing the airport screening function will endanger air travelers and bring us back to the pre-9/11 security era where “security” was provided by overworked and underpaid employees.
May 20: AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals representing more than 33,000 federal correctional workers nationwide is taking out a series of billboards across the United States targeting members of Congress for failing to support law enforcement officers.
Many of the members being targeted by the billboard campaign have publicly campaigned on their unwavering support of law enforcement, to include the officers of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but have since changed their stance and support as President Trump has issued a multitude of executive orders that harm law enforcement officers – specifically Executive Order 14251, which stripped more than a million federal employees at BOP and other agencies of their collective bargaining rights.
May 20: Due to Trump’s reckless staffing cuts, the Space Force has lost 14% of its civilian workforce. That’s more than the agency’s goal of reducing 10% of its workforce.
“I'm worried about replacing that level of expertise in the near term as we try to resolve it and make sure we have a good workforce doing that acquisition,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said during a congressional hearing.
May 19: House Republicans released a new version of their reconciliation bill that seeks massive cuts from federal workers’ benefits. It is a bit less bad than the original version but is still very bad. House Republicans still want to lower pension amounts by changing the way annuity is calculated from a “high 3” to “high 5” and eliminating the FERS supplement for most federal employees who retire early, depriving them of a critical income bridge until they are eligible to collect Social Security at 62.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has officially walked back its plan to lay off more than 80,000 employees as part of the Elon Musk-led “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) initiative.
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In a significant decision impacting the federal workforce, the Supreme Court lifted lower-court injunctions, enabling the current administration to proceed with its controversial plans for mass layoffs and restructuring of federal agencies.
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In a late-breaking development, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a temporary administrative stay of the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Executive Order 14251.
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