IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The president of the nation’s largest union for federal workers said Monday the organization’s ongoing staff downsizing will devastate the services it provides members and threatens the group’s survival.
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March removed over 200,000 of its dues-paying members, or about two-thirds of the total.
The order stripped union rights from employees in several executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
AFGE and other unions are fighting the order in court as illegal and retaliatory. But Kelley said the order has already taken a “very direct hit” on the group’s finances because agencies stopped collecting union dues from paychecks.
Saying it had lost over half of its dues revenue and faced a major budget shortfall, AFGE’s National Executive Council last month approved a plan to slash its staffing levels from 355 to 151. The union has offered early retirements and buyouts to some staff, and employees are anticipating layoffs in the coming days.
“It’s going to be devastating,” Kelley told reporters on a Zoom conference celebrating Public Service Recognition Week. “I don’t know if we’ll overcome it, to be honest with you, because members have joined this union because they expect us to provide a certain amount of services.”
Local unions have already been warned that they will face longer response times from national staff members and less legal help on non-essential matters.
Kelley said AFGE is pushing its remaining members to sign up to have their dues withdrawn automatically from their bank accounts. The union said Monday that about 120,000 of its members have signed up. In all, the union represents about 820,000 federal workers.
Kelley said the group had been successful in pushing back against Trump’s dramatic downsizing and reshaping of the federal government, filing nine lawsuits and rallying the public to its cause.
“We’ve been beating him in the court of law and also in the court of public opinion,” he said. “But he wants AFGE silent.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump issued the order to cancel collective bargaining agreements that he believed risked national security interests.
“He will always prioritize public safety for the American people,” she said.
