THE LOOP — About 200 staff and their allies gathered at Federal Plaza on a dangerously chilly Tuesday afternoon to protest the Trump administration’s extreme cuts to the federal workforce.
Demonstrators held up indicators like “Cease the billionaire takeover” and “Save the U.S. EPA” and chanted “AFGE! DOGE gained’t silence me!” in reference to the Division of Authorities Effectivity, for which billionaire Elon Musk is serving as an adviser.
When President Donald Trump took workplace for his second time period final month, he ushered in sweeping modifications to the federal authorities by way of government order that many authorized consultants, unions and civic organizations have deemed unconstitutional and solely amendable by Congress. Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has taken an monumental position in these coverage modifications as a senior adviser to Trump, the AP has reported.
“It’s a scientific unwinding of our federal security web,” mentioned Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, which represents 300 unions within the Chicagoland space. “It’s not a few liberal agenda versus a conservative agenda. It’s about Donald Trump and Elon Musk selecting winners and losers within the summary.”
Audio system on the protest included present or former workers of the U.S. EPA and representatives from the Military Corps of Engineers, Chicago Federation of Labor, Sierra Membership and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Board of Commissioners. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Chicago) and Ald. Maria Hadden (forty ninth) additionally attended.
Greater than 48,000 federal staff stay within the Chicagoland space, in accordance with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nicole Cantello, EPA lawyer and president of AFGE Native 704, mentioned that as many as 100 workers from EPA Area 5, which covers states bordering the Nice Lakes, have left on account of termination, resignation, retirement and compelled administrative go away since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.
“Belief us, you don’t need our EPA crew to be brief staffed as a result of we’re the people who maintain your ingesting water protected,” mentioned Cantello.
Among the many Trump administration’s orders from the previous 4 weeks:
- Supplied a “deferred resignation” plan to greater than two million federal workers, promising to pay their salaries and never require them to work by means of Sept. 30 — a plan accepted by about 75,000 workers, which represents 3 p.c of civilian staff
- Ordered federal workers to return to the workplace, reversing distant work insurance policies achieved through the pandemic, a few of that are codified in authorities unions’ collective bargaining agreements
- Terminated 1000’s of probationary workers, who usually have been of their positions for lower than a yr, throughout the EPA, Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, Division of Veterans Affairs, Division of Training and others
- Halted almost all federal grants and loans appropriated by Congress, together with Medicaid and SNAP — later briefly blocked by a federal decide after which rescinded by the administration, although it has not been totally compliant
- Deployed DOGE staffers to assessment delicate and/or confidential data from the U.S. Treasury Division, Inner Income Service, Division of Homeland Safety and others, a transfer that has prompted at the very least 12 lawsuits from labor teams
- Gutted the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth, which distributes billions of {dollars} in world humanitarian support, and recalled greater than 6,000 workers working overseas — each actions now briefly blocked, with federal judges instituting a 90-day suspension on the USAID funding freeze and a pause on the pressured administrative go away and recall till at the very least Feb. 21
- Scrubbed references to race, gender and LGBTQ+ individuals from authorities web sites and shuttered range places of work
“It’s been fairly upsetting simply to see the development of assaults on federal staff,” mentioned an EPA scientist, who requested for anonymity on account of worry of retaliation. “Russell Vought, one of many fundamental writers of Challenge 2025, has now been appointed by Trump to the Workplace of Administration and Funds, and he has overtly mentioned that the purpose was to make federal staff really feel traumatized and grow to be villains to the American public. … It’s demoralizing to see a big chunk of Individuals rooting for the destruction of the federal government.”
Tuesday’s protest was organized by AFGE Rise and the Federal Unionists Community.
AFGE, the American Federation of Authorities Staff, represents greater than 750,000 federal staff and has been energetic in combating what it says are “unlawful directives” by the administration, together with efficiently difficult the try and put greater than 2,000 USAID workers on administrative go away and halting DOGE’s entry to some departments’ data techniques.
Launched in 2021, the Federal Unionists Community is an off-the-cuff affiliation of unionized federal workers and allies that has been organizing protests to guard civil companies, with a nationwide “day of motion” deliberate for Wednesday.
“These guys are utilizing a playbook of union busters that has been going for a very long time,” mentioned Colin Smalley, a undertaking supervisor with the Military Corps of Engineers who’s president of Native 777 of the Worldwide Federation of Skilled and Technical Engineers and an organizer with the Federal Unionists Community.
“They’re making an attempt to sow worry. They’re making an attempt to create division. They’re making an attempt to create a way of helplessness, and these are huge feelings that loads of us have felt, however I’ll say this: Federal staff — civil servants — do their jobs out of affection. Love for his or her group. And love is the strongest of feelings.”
Extra pictures from Tuesday’s rally in Federal Plaza:
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