Why Unions Matter to Defending and Building a Just Administrative Branch

The current administration has not only taken a chainsaw to critical agencies upon which the public depends for everything from clean water to retirement benefits, it has extended its destructive rampage to public sector unions.  Abusing the power found in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), the Administration extended its prolific use of Executive Orders to end collective bargaining in a wide array of agencies with claims that they had national security missions, including the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Science Foundation and Department of Treasury.

Even before the Administration’s recent attacks, public sector unions faced significant obstacles. Union membership, even when a civil servant is covered by a contract, is not automatic. Public servants do not have the right to strike, significantly lowering their leverage. And there are restrictions, both legal and as a matter of the work culture of the federal government, on civil servants speaking out both about conditions of work and the decisions made at and about agencies that impact the public.

The cautionary tale for many has been the plight of air traffic control. With a shortfall of approximately 4000 air traffic controllers, we have already seen a serious degradation in public safety during air travel. This ongoing degradation of public safety was put into motion by Ronald Reagan’s decision to fire 12,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO), prosecute their leaders and decertify their union. Rather than the better pay and shorter hours that would have kept the flying public safe, we now have critical shortfalls and near misses on the runway on an almost regular basis.

Given one controller was handling both commercial and helicopter traffic during the January 29, 2025 fatal crash between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines passenger jet, this may be a high-profile example where a strong union that ensured safe working conditions could have been the difference between life and death. Despite these realities, the Trump Administration has fired hundreds of FAA workers.

The lack of support for public sector unions is a clear vulnerability that has allowed the wholesale attack on mission driven civil servants that make our government run along with a decimation of public functions. The example of air traffic controllers should inspire the country to correct this grievous error across the board given how critical the federal government is to public well-being.

Civil servants themselves are realizing how the culture of silence and acquiesce has fed into this moment. Alissa Tafti, an economist who recently stepped down from the International Trade Commission to co-run the Federal Unionists Network as part of Branch4 explains:

From the minute we walk into public service we are told to keep our heads down, that we are lucky to have the job to begin with and shouldn’t ask for much, and that we should not speak up publicly about anything at all.

But our most committed civil servants know how the federal government runs more intimately than anyone else and have a wealth of experience on how to improve its operations to better support the American public. They are organizing more powerfully every day to help our country change course. Federal workers are joining their unions at record rates, speaking out at rallies and town halls despite the threat to their positions, and refusing to give up on their country, government and democracy.