Trump Demolishes Federal Workers’ Union Rights Ahead of Mass Firing

Donald Trump plans to ramp up his purge of the federal workforce and end union rights for many government employees at the same time.

The Washington Post on Thursday obtained an internal White House document outlining plans for 22 federal agencies to cut between 8 and 50 percent of their employees. According to the Post’s sources, the plan is a draft and doesn’t contain final numbers. But it is a worrying sign that heavy cuts are on the horizon that will severely impact government services.

For example, according to the document, the Department of Housing and Urban Development may cut half of its 8,300-person-odd staff, while the IRS could cut a third of its workforce, and the Interior Department could cut a quarter. This could affect the availability of affordable housing, tax refunds, and audits, and even National Park staffing.

Also on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order concerning government agencies, aimed at ending collective bargaining rights and placing limits on which federal employees can unionize.

The memo cites a fact sheet from the White House arguing that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which allowed government workers to unionize, “enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management.”

“President Trump is taking action to ensure that agencies vital to national security can execute their missions without delay and protect the American people,” the document states. The memo states that 18 government departments and numerous agencies are covered in the executive order, and orders the agencies to terminate their collective bargaining agreements.

The American Federation of Government Employees has already responded, accusing the Trump administration of “illegally strip[ping] collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers,” in an email to its members.

“Let’s be clear. National security is not the reason for this action. This is retaliation because our union is standing up for AFGE members—and a warning to every union: fall in line, or else,” the email states. “AFGE is not going anywhere. We are fighting back. We are preparing legal action.”

Trump is already attempting to eliminate federal agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Education. By firing federal workers across the government and removing many of their unions, he is not only rendering the government less effective but tightening his control of it.

Elon Musk is threatening to use the power of the White House against people protesting his companies.

“I think a great wrong is being done to the people of Tesla and to our customers,” Musk told Fox News Thursday, referring to his company’s diminished reputation amid a mass protest of his cars and his involvement in the federal government.

In a matter of months, Tesla’s brand identity has radically shifted from a liberal-leaning, environmentally conscious car label to a symbol of Donald Trump’s movement, thanks to Musk’s “dark MAGA” rebranding.

That’s made the vehicles, as well as Tesla dealerships, targets of political dissent. In the weeks since Trump’s inauguration, Teslas have been lit on fire and sprayed with graffiti, while charging stations for the electric vehicles have reportedly been hit with Molotov cocktails.

“What’s happening, it seems to me, is they’re being fed propaganda by the far left, and they believe it. It’s really unfortunate,” Musk continued, claiming that the “real problem” isn’t the “crazy guy” who attacks his vehicles but rather the people that push the “propaganda” that encourages him to do it.

“Those are the real villains here, and we’re going to go after them,” the DOGE chief warned. “The president has made it clear, we’re going to go after them.”

“The ones providing the money, the ones pushing the lies and propaganda? We’re going after them,” Musk said, casually pointing his fingers in the shape of a gun.

Musk’s intent to limit the repercussions for targeting Tesla to those in power has already proven to be untrue as local governments morph to please the White House and bend to Musk’s will. On Monday, Washington’s Metropolitan Police revealed that two people accused of vandalizing a Tesla windshield will be charged for “political hate speech.”

But the world’s richest man can only play the victim for so long. Customers around the world are voting against Tesla’s success with their wallets, refusing to tap into the brand due to Musk’s new political alignment. And that’s affected Tesla on the stock exchange just as much as it’s ruffled company executives and major investors, several of whom have jumped ship to save their pockets.

Four top officers at the company have unloaded more than $100 million in stock since last month, reported ABC News. They include James Murdoch, the estranged son of right-wing media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk, who shed $27 million, according to a Security and Exchange Control filing.

Even Tesla bulls are slowing down on the electric car manufacturer. Earlier this month, Mizuho Securities managing director and senior analyst Vijay Rakesh cut his firm’s price target for Tesla by $85 per share, according to Barron’s. In a statement at the time, Rakesh pointed to Musk’s polarizing persona and his influence in “geopolitics” as two reasons for the downturn.

A global day of protest against the carmaker is scheduled for Saturday, with thousands of people expected to participate in protests at Tesla showrooms both in the United States and around the globe.

“Nobody voted for this, and nobody voted for Elon,” Vickie Mueller Olvera, a Tesla Takedown protest organizer in the Bay Area, told The Guardian. “He’s an unelected super-billionaire and he’s a thug.”

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s latest propaganda skit was not only barbaric, it may also have violated the Geneva Conventions, according to The Bulwark.

Noem posted a short video on X Thursday that documented her visit to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador where Donald Trump has left 261 Venezuelan nationals to rot after he deported them earlier this month by invoking the Alien Enemies Act. Multiple judges have rebuked his invocation of the act.

A freshly blown-out Noem stood in front of a large prison cell where more than a dozen prisoners, all with shaved heads, some with tattoos, were posed as Noem’s backdrop. They silently looked on as she delivered a short statement.

Noem thanked the prison for holding the alleged “terrorists” over the “violence they have perpetuated in our communities.”

“Do not come to our country illegally,” Noem warned. “You will be removed, and you will be prosecuted. But know that this facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”

It’s worth noting the lies in Noem’s speech. An ICE official said in a sworn statement that “many” individuals deported under the AEA did not have a criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela, so it’s not clear that they “perpetuated” anything in their communities. Also, several of the individuals deported were lawfully awaiting asylum determinations and were not in the U.S. illegally.

The U.S. government claimed that all of the deportees were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, declared by Trump to be a terrorist group, and subjected them to a swift deportation without due process.

In doing so, the government did not afford the detainees the right to challenge their designation as alleged TdA members under the AEA. Lawyers for several deportees alleged their clients were wrongly identified as gang members and tried to have the deportations stopped, but they were too late. Many of the deportees didn’t even know where they were going, and neither did their families or their lawyers.

But if Trump wants to declare a war against the TdA by invoking a wartime law, then he must play by wartime rules—specifically, the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the public exploitation of prisoners of war.

According to The Bulwark, the Trump administration and CECOT may have violated other aspects of the Geneva Conventions in their war on TdA by not quickly providing the “names, serial numbers, and addresses of all prisoners so that the next of kin can be promptly advised”; not allowing every prisoner to “write directly to his family telling them about his situation, his health, and giving them his address” within a week of capture; and then not allowing the prisoners to “send and receive not less than two letters and four cards each month.”

In a filing on Monday, Judge James Boasberg said that by sending the prisoners to CECOT, which is notorious for human rights abuses, the Trump administration had likely violated the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, which states that “it shall be the policy of the United States not to expel … any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”

Trump is holding U.S. automakers hostage by scaring them into not raising prices while he puts massive 25 percent tariffs on all of the materials they need to make their product. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that the president told automakers at an event earlier this month that he would look “unfavorably” on any price increases after his tariffs, causing automakers to fear retribution unless they just grin and bear the incoming cost increases. He also told them that they should be happy and thankful for him ridding them of Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, and that the tariffs would actually just be “great.” 

“You’re going to see prices going down, but going to go down specifically because they’re going to buy what we’re doing, incentivizing companies to—and even countries—companies to come into America,” Trump told the CEOs.  

This is a huge contradiction. The president claims he’s trying to lower inflation and reinvigorate the domestic manufacturing industry while simultaneously making everything more expensive. Trump’s new 25 percent automobile tariffs will go into effect on April 2. Almost half of all passenger cars in the U.S. are manufactured outside of our borders in places like Mexico and Japan. Carmakers already have begun to stockpile new, completed cars to try to offset the tariffs until May. 

“It is difficult to see how imposed tariffs over time would not have some impact on prices,” American Automotive Policy Council President Matt Blunt, who represents General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford Motor, told the Journal. 

It’s unclear how the Trump administration will punish car companies that do indeed raise prices—something they’ve been forced into doing by Trump himself.

On Saturday, Elon Musk’s Tesla dealerships around the world will be met with protests. 

Organizers are calling it the Tesla Takedown Global Day of Action, and plan to hold rallies at over 200 Tesla locations, including close to 50 in California. They hope to send a message to Tesla CEO Musk and the Trump administration that they oppose their overhaul of the federal government, from the mass purges of federal workers to closing entire agencies. 

The organizers describe themselves as grassroots activists who will “protest Tesla for as long as Elon Musk continues to shred public services,” according to their organizing page. The movement is decentralized, with local organizers planning their own protests rather than coordinating with a national group. Musk is “destroying our democracy using the fortune he built at Tesla” and so, in turn, they are “taking action at Tesla,” the website states. 

“Nobody voted for this, and nobody voted for Elon,” Vickie Mueller Olvera, who is organizing protests in California’s Bay Area, said to The Guardian. “He’s an unelected super-billionaire and he’s a thug.”

Olvera advises people not to buy a Tesla or  buy stock in the company and to join the protests, which started shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Since then, Tesla stock has plummeted, with Musk leveraging his influence over the Trump administration to have the president shill for the car company on the White House lawn and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick beg the public to buy Tesla stock.  

Trump’s ill-advised automobile tariffs may even affect Tesla less than other automakers, according to industry experts, raising questions as to whether that is Trump’s real goal. But Musk is largely responsible for damaging his own car company, which makes a fortune not on car sales but on exploiting the carbon credit market. If he’s upset about Tesla’s (and his own) damaged image, perhaps he should stay out of the federal government. But that would mean the end of his gravy train.