Department of People Who Work for a Living
We’ll be ensuring the federal government works for working people and isn’t destroyed by billionaires like Elon Musk. We’ll report on the facts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts and what you can do to fight back.
Issues
Navigate the issues below to learn how unelected billionaires and their agenda is affecting working people.
Federal Workers
Federal workers are the heart of our government, ensuring that critical services like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs, disaster relief and national defense run smoothly. They run our national parks, inspect our food and medicine, and keep us safe from crime, accidents and disasters.
Cuts to the federal workforce jeopardize these services, affecting millions of Americans who rely on the government to protect and secure their well-being.
Immigration
One in five workers in America wasn’t born here. Immigrants are America’s workers, vital to the fabric of our communities, our economy and our labor movement.
The labor movement supports comprehensive immigration reform that fully protects America’s workers, reduces the exploitation of immigrant workers and reduces employers’ incentive to hire undocumented workers rather than U.S. workers. But stoking fear about immigrants, raiding schools and hospitals, and mass deporting people whose labor makes our country prosper is not only a betrayal of our values—it’s also a recipe for economic disaster.
Labor Law
President Trump has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The NLRB—usually led by five board members—holds union elections, investigates allegations, and resolves cases of wrongdoing brought by workers, unions or employers.
The president illegally fired a member of the labor board, Gwynne Wilcox—the first Black woman to serve on the NLRB. There are now only two sitting members of the board, which leaves it one member short of the minimum number needed for any decision-making. And by firing Wilcox, because he didn’t like her decisions, he destroyed the board’s independence.
Tax and Budget Policy
Proposed Spending Cuts Would Cut Workers’ Health Care and Jobs to Pay for Tax Cuts for the Rich
Budgets are about more than just dollars and cents listed on a spreadsheet—budgets are about our values. We saw Trump’s budget priorities during his last administration: billions in proposed cuts to Social Security. Billions in proposed cuts to Medicaid. Billions in proposed cuts to public schools. Billions in proposed cuts to food assistance programs.
At the same time, the last Trump administration had plenty of money for a tax bill in 2017 that delivered trillions of dollars in special tax breaks to billionaires and giant corporations. Now the Trump administration is looking to make those tax breaks for the rich and powerful permanent in 2025.
Where in the U.S. are government workers?
Where do government workers live? The answer may surprise you. While many assume most federal workers are based in the Washington, D.C., area, 85% of federal employees live throughout the country, with large concentrations in states like California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. Cuts would be felt nationwide, hurting local economies and services.
About one-third of federal workers are military veterans who continue to serve our country in these roles. Cuts to the federal workforce would immediately put thousands of veterans out of work.
In our own words
Click through the carousel to read the stories of ordinary workers who make our communities run, and see how they’re being affected by DOGE and the Trump administration’s executive orders.
We’re a military family and rely on workplace flexibility for me to keep my job. We are currently stationed in [redacted] and rely on two incomes to make ends meet.
They’re already affecting my work. We don’t have the resources to do what they want us to do and they demonize us every day.
As a federal employee, a hostile administration makes me fearful that my job could be terminated at the stroke of a pen. As the majority breadwinner, this would make us homeless in months.
As an Indigenous, disabled veteran, working with a hostile administration puts my work and my family’s life in jeopardy. I gave up my youth in service to this country, and to have that sacrifice dishonored by the people in D.C. is a punch in the gut.
I spent nine years in grad school, five years in post doc. I’ve wanted to work for [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] (NOAA) a long time. If I cared about money, I would have gone to Wall Street, but I care about our environment and our people. And NOAA provides a lot of services to Alaska, the rural and coastal communities here really get a lot of information from us, and I’m worried.
I'm sad that I lost my job. But I'm also sad I'm not going to be able to help these people anymore who desperately need it.
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