Tag Archives: American Federation of Government Employees

Biden 2025 Budget Would Offer ‘Welcome Relief,’ But Not Enough

One expert said that enacting his reforms “will begin to reverse the 40-year one-way ratchet of falling taxes for the wealthy and corporations and instead invest in workers and families.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 3-11-2024 by Common Dreams

Photto: U.S. Secretary of Defense/flickr/CC

On the heels of delivering the latest State of the Union speech and signing a package of funding bills, U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday unveiled his budget blueprint for fiscal year 2025, a proposal praised by congressional Democrats and progressive advocates who want him to go even further.

The $7.3 trillion budget comes as the divided Congress is still sorting out funding for the current fiscal year. Given those divisions—and that the Republican House majority is already advancing its own budget resolution for the fiscal year that begins in October—the Democratic president’s plan is widely seen as a statement of priorities going into the November election.

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How the ‘Holman rule’ allows the House to fast-track proposals to gut government programs without debate or much thought at all

Reinstituted rules in the U.S. House of Representatives allow members to fire federal staffers and cut programs.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

 

Charles Tiefer, University of Baltimore

The slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives has just voted to give itself a streamlined way to fire civil servants and shut down federal programs it doesn’t like – outside the standard process of review and debate.

This method, known as the Holman rule, has been used in the past by both parties to cloak political decisions in the language and process of saving taxpayers money. It was included in a package of rules approved as the House began its business in January. Continue reading

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Quietly Signed Trump Order Denounced as ‘Declaration of War’ Against Federal Employees

The order sets up Trump’s “cronies to burrow into permanent jobs in the U.S. government,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-23-2020

Photo: AFGE

After years of complaining that career federal employees are part of the “deep state” and aim to undermine his administration, President Donald Trump this week took a major step toward remaking the federal government as one without nonpartisan civil servants—signing a little-noticed executive order that would strip potentially hundreds of thousands of government employees of their job security.

Under the order, signed late Wednesday, career federal employees could be fired with little or no cause, lose their right to due process, and potentially lose union representation. Continue reading

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Appeals Court Delivers ‘Tremendous Blow to Federal Workers’ With Decision to Uphold Trump’s Anti-Union Executive Orders

“There must be a check on the president’s power to destroy federal employees’ union rights.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-16-2019

AFGE members protested President Donald Trump’s anti-union executive orders last year as their union filed a lawsuit against the president. (Photo: @AFGENational)

Unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Tuesday vowed to fight a federal appeals court ruling in which a three-judge panel unanimously upheld President Donald Trump’s executive orders attacking workers’ rights.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit said that it lacked jurisdiction to block Trump’s orders, which made it easier to fire federal employees, limited the amount of time workers can spend on union business, and compelled federal agencies to devise unfavorable contracts with unions. Continue reading

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Demanding Trump and McConnell #StopTheShutdown, Dozens of Unions to Rally for Struggling Federal Workers

Protest plans come as concerns mount about impacts of the ongoing government shutdown, including on food stamps and Medicare

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-9-2019

Photo: Geek Stop

As the partial government shutdown entered its 19th day on Wednesday—well on its way to becoming the longest in U.S. history—dozens of unions are planning a rally in
Washington, D.C., adding to mounting pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to stand up to President Donald Trump, who is refusing to back a budget bill without $5.7 billion in funding for his “ridiculous” border wall.

Announcing the rally at AFL-CIO’s D.C. headquarters, which is scheduled to kick of at noon local time on Thursday, organizers said the union-led event was planned “to protest the continuing shutdown and resulting furloughs that are financially hurting 800,000 federal employees and families.” Speakers will included furloughed federal employees, union leaders, and members of Congress. Continue reading

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‘This Is a Democracy, Not a Dictatorship’: Federal Workers Union Sues Donald Trump

“This president seems to think he is above the law, and we are not going to stand by while he tries to shred workers’ rights.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-31-2018

What’s disgusting? Union busting.’ The AFGE on Wednesday filed suit against the Trump administration over its attack on the right of public sector unions to organize. (Photo: @AFGENational)

The nation’s largest union of federal workers filed suit against the Trump administration on Wednesday over an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that seeks to deny workers the right to job site representation—an established guarantee in existing labor law.

The lawsuit (pdf) by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a member of the AFL-CIO which represents approximately 700,000 federal employees, argues that among a slate of anti-worker orders signed by the president last Friday, one of them specifically exceeds the president’s constitutional authority and violates the First Amendment right of workers to freely associate. Continue reading

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