President Donald Trump on Thursday quietly issued a memo granting Defense Secretary Mark Esper the power to abolish collective bargaining rights for the Defense Department’s 750,000 civilian workers, a move unions decried as part of the administration’s far-reaching assault on organized labor.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) condemned the memo, which was published in the Federal Register Thursday, as “a travesty and a disgrace.”
The memo argues that a unionized Defense Department workforce could pose a threat to “national security” and that, if necessary, collective bargaining rights at the department should be scrapped in the interest of “protecting the American people.”
“When new missions emerge or existing ones evolve, the Department of Defense requires maximum flexibility to respond to threats,” the memo states. “This flexibility requires that military and civilian leadership manage their organizations to cultivate a lethal, agile force adaptive to new technologies and posture changes.”
“Where collective bargaining is incompatible with these organizations’ missions,” the memo continues, “the Department of Defense should not be forced to sacrifice its national security mission and, instead, seek relief through third parties and administrative fora.”
It is unclear whether or how Esper intends to act on his legal authority.
Larry Mishel, distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, called the White House’s justification for ending collective bargaining rights at the Defense Department “atrocious.”
Denying collective bargaining to those working for Pentagon, on pretense that 'flexibility' is needed and not possible, is atrocious. Any examples of how unions hampered defense? I doubt it. https://t.co/Ekyhnut1kC
— Larry Mishel (@LarryMishel) February 20, 2020
The existence of the memo, which Trump signed on Jan. 29, was first reported by Government Executive earlier this month.
The outlet noted that “the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 includes a provision allowing the president to issue an order excluding agencies and agency subcomponents from collective bargaining rules if the rules ‘cannot be applied to that agency or subdivision in a manner consistent with national security requirements.'”
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1230937103502057484
Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national secretary-treasurer, said in a statement that denying Defense Department employees “the collective bargaining rights guaranteed to them by law since 1962 would be a travesty—and doing it under the guise of ‘national security’ would be a disgrace to the sacred oath and obligation that all federal workers make to their country.”
“This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers’ rights to form and join a union,” said Kelley, “and we will not stop doing everything we can to prevent that from happening.”
Government Executive noted that “unionized workforces within the Defense Department vary widely.”
“Civilian workers at the U.S. Coast Guard are represented by the [AFGE], as are the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Contract Management Agency,” the outlet reported. “Blue-collar workers at military bases and depots across the country are represented by a variety of unions, and teachers at on-base schools for children of service members bargain collectively as well.”
Trump and corporate-friendly officials in his administration have been attacking public- and private-sector unions since the president took office in 2017.
Last October, Politico obtained an internal memo penned in 2017 by White House domestic policy adviser James Sherk, who urged Trump “to eliminate all job protections for federal workers and a requirement that federal contractors provide paid sick leave for employees.”
“The Trump administration has already acted on key recommendations in the memo,” Politico reported. “For example, it has changed overtime pay calculations and put forth rules making it harder for companies to be held liable for labor violations committed by franchisees and contractors.”
The memo, Politico noted, also recommended that Trump “issue an executive order eliminating employee unions at the Defense Department on the basis of national security.”
In an October statement responding to Sherk’s recommendations, AFGE said “the administration’s divide-and-conquer strategy with respect to organized labor is as disgusting as it is shameful.”
“But it won’t work,” the union said. “Across this country, our members and the members of every other labor union are getting educated, organized, and mobilized. As the largest union representing federal employees, AFGE will continue to resist the president’s mob mentality and disrespect for the federal workforce and the work they do.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy