Free Republic

Lawfare hasn’t stopped since Donald Trump became president again, but has been repackaged into civil litigation to stop his second term agenda—and most of the civil lawfare can be traced to groups affiliated with a coalition known as Civil Service Strong. Members of the coalition scored federal court wins in recent days to temporarily block Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, to delay a federal employee buyout, and to halt the shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The member groups have also been involved in numerous other lawsuits against the Trump administration, including challenging the Schedule F executive...

A federal judge paused Thursday’s deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer while more proceedings on the program’s legality play out. The government will send a notice to the employees informing them that Thursday’s deadline is on hold. Before the judge’s ruling, eligible federal workers had until 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether to take the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer, which will generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September. The pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several...

An early hurdle to clearing out the swamp! The largest union of US federal government employees filed suit on Monday against President Donald Trump over his plans to create a cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk. The suit was filed in a district court in Washington by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and non-profit Public Citizen just minutes after Trump was sworn in as the 47th US president. Trump has tasked Musk, the world’s richest man, with slashing billions of dollars in federal government spending. Trump and Musk have claimed that $2 trillion could...

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: Nearly Half of Federal Employees Plan to Resist Trump, Poll Finds From dailysignal.com 8:11 AM · Jan 13, 2025 ·

A Biden administration appointee has reached a contract agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), a union representing more than 40,000 Social Security Administration workers, that would allow federal workers to work from home until 2029. This comes amid a series of organized efforts from Biden's White House to impede President-elect Donald Trump's efforts to reform the federal workforce through his newly implemented Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Bloomberg reported that the deal was brokered by President Biden's recently departed Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O'Malley. The updated contract protects telework until 2029. The agency will maintain its...

As the Biden regime prepares to exit, it has orchestrated a move as a cunning attempt to undermine the incoming Trump administration’s agenda to streamline government operations. In a last-minute deal, the Biden regime has locked in telework protections for 42,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) employees until 2029. The agreement, reached with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), ensures remote work privileges for these federal workers for the next five years, despite the Trump administration’s explicit plans to slash such arrangements, according to Bloomberg. The agreement, brokered between the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Social Security...

The National Treasury Employees Union on Thursday became the latest federal employee union to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential campaign. NTEU joins the American Federation of Government Employees and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, both members of the AFL-CIO, on the list of labor groups representing federal workers to endorse Harris following her ascension to become the Democratic nominee this summer. AFGE and IFPTE had both endorsed President Biden in 2023, and then updated those endorsements after his withdrawal in July. In a statement, NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald touted Harris' record supporting...

Legislation from Sens. Blackburn and Howley “is a solution in search of a problem,” union president says WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. issued the following statement in response to legislation introduced by Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley that would relocate the headquarters of major federal agencies outside Washington, D.C.: “Eighty-five percent of federal employees already live outside the nation’s capital – caring for veterans, supporting our military, processing Social Security and other federal benefits, and carrying out other vital work serving citizens across the country. It is neither cost-effective nor practical...

This is the first segment of AFGE’s 5-part series: The Secret Memo : Inside Trump’s Plan to Destroy Unions.A leaked White House memo, as first reported by the New York Times and then obtained by POLITICO, outlines President Trump’s plans to destroy public and private-sector unions, get rid of worker protections, cripple workers’ ability to organize, and increase profits for corporate special interests.This explosive 19-page document was prepared in 2017 by Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy James Sherk, who was previously a research fellow at the regressive, anti-worker Heritage Foundation.The memo, laced with familiar half-truths and outright...

I am President of AFGE Local 2463 representing all the Smithsonian Museums, Research Centers, National Zoo as well as the Kennedy Center. My membership is faced with a government shutdown while the political games continue between the Republicans and the Democrats.The Democratic Party has forgotten its roots and which groups actually built the Democratic Party. They have taken for granted the union members, the working poor and the African American Community who have marched to the polls and pulled the lever for the Democrats.Construction sites used to be filled with high paying Union members building housing for Americans. Now you...

WASHINGTON – Leaders with the American Federation of Government Employees are calling out Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie for disparaging a disabled combat veteran who shared his firsthand accounts of veterans who are suffering extreme financial hardships under this unprecedented government shutdown.

AFGE sends letter to House and Senate to avoid December 7 shutdown and support a 2019 pay adjustment for civilian federal employeesWASHINGTON – With a little more than a week before the expiration of the current continuing resolution that will result in a partial government shutdown, the American Federation of Government Employees has sent a letter to members of the U.S. House and Senate urging them to keep the government open and to pass a pay adjustment of at least 1.9 percent for federal workers in 2019. The letter, signed by National President J David Cox Sr. on behalf of...

In just two weeks, Americans will flock to the polls to cast their votes in the mid-term elections where all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 U.S. Senate seats are up for grabs. The people we elect on Nov. 6 will make policy decisions that will shape the future of our country for years to come.  As a federal employee, it’s your chance to make your voice heard and hold politicians accountable. Besides Social Security, health care, voting rights, and other important issues, your entire livelihood is on the line. It’s not about...

Arbitrator rules that VA misused Accountability Act in disciplining employees WASHINGTON – This week the Trump administration was delivered another blow against its attempts to undo our apolitical civil service system and dismantle unions across the country. In a recent decision by an independent arbitrator, the Department of Veterans Affairs was found to be in violation of the existing Master Agreement between the VA and the American Federation of Government Employees by improperly implementing the VA Accountability Act.

The war between our unelected robed masters in the last and least of the three branches of government and the president of the United States continues apace : A U.S. federal judge on Saturday rejected key elements of President Donald Trump’s May executive orders that would make it easier to fire federal employees and reduce their ability to bargain collectively. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson , of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said in a court order that Trump’s orders, which also would reduce the amount of time low-performing employees had to improve their performance before...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Saturday rejected key elements of President Donald Trump’s May executive orders that would make it easier to fire federal employees and reduce their ability to bargain collectively. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said in a court order that Trump’s orders, which also would reduce the amount of time low-performing employees had to improve their performance before being fired, “undermine federal employees’ right to bargain collectively.” Trump signed three executive orders in May that administration officials said would give government agencies greater ability to...

IMPORTANT: This information should not be downloaded using government equipment, read during duty time, sent to others using government equipment, or sent to anyone while in a government building because it involves election related activity. On July 25,the nation’s largest federal union is standing up to the administration’s efforts to dismantle workers’ rights and representation in the federal government WASHINGTON – With oral arguments set to begin in AFGE v. Trump in exactly seven days, the nation’s largest federal union is announcing #RedforFeds day on July 25 to protest President Trump’s illegal, union-busting executive orders. “A little under two months ago,...

Unions evicted from federal offices, denied time to meet with employeesWASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees is obligated under the law to represent all employees covered by our negotiated contracts, but the Social Security Administration is deliberately and illegally restricting the union’s ability to uphold this obligation, AFGE leaders say.“The agency is attempting to wipe all traces of our union from SSA offices and deny workers their legal rights to representation,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said.Read President Cox’s Full Statement Here On Monday, July 9, SSA management unilaterally implemented extensive changes to the contract that had...

The largest union representing federal workers on Thursday took the Trump administration to court to block a new executive order that severely restricts the time employees may spend on union activity, claiming the president’s action violates the First Amendment and oversteps the president’s constitutional authority. “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,” said the American Federation of Government Employees national president J. David Cox Sr., in a statement that announced the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District. “This is...

White House directives aim to strip federal workers of right to representation WASHINGTON – President Trump is attempting to silence the voice of veterans, law enforcement officers, and other frontline federal workers through a series of executive orders intended to strip federal employees of their decades-old right to representation at the worksite, the American Federation of Government Employees said today.“This is more than union busting – it’s democracy busting,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said. “These executive orders are a direct assault on the legal rights and protections that Congress has specifically guaranteed to the 2 million public-sector employees...