Union leader blasts Trump for canceling 400,000+ contracts before Labor Day

In a video interview with All Rise News, AFGE President Everett Kelley called Donald Trump's gutting of the federal workforce "un-American."

AFGE President Everett Kelley (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Community Change Action)

“I know that the power is in the people, and I think that the people are going to step up and say, ‘Enough is enough,’” AFGE President Everett Kelley said.

The leader of the federal workforce’s largest union held nothing back in an interview with All Rise News denouncing Donald Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce just before Labor Day.

“This administration gutting contracts is un-American,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said. “I've been involved in this labor movement since 1981, and I've never seen anyone this aggressively attacking federal employees and their unions.”

Watch the full video of the interview below on the MeidasTouch Network’s Legal AF.

“Enough is enough”

In late August, Trump unilaterally cancelled hundreds of thousands of union contracts after a federal appeals court paused an order that had prevented him from taking that action.

The Guardian estimated that 400,000 contracts had been affected, representing 2.6 percent of the federal workforce, but Kelley believed the number to be an underestimate.

“I think it would be more than that because … we represent about 320,000 in the VA alone,” Kelley said.

A veteran himself, Kelley said that a union contract ensures that a nurse attending to him at Veterans Affairs can focus on his needs rather than any other political considerations.

“When you don't have union protection to protect you from harassment — to protect you from bullying — you don't know what you're walking into when you walk into that office,” Kelley said.

That’s why Kelley believes that the safeguards of a union contract go to broader issues of democratic checks and balances.

“I know that the power is in the people, and I think that the people are going to step up and say, ‘Enough is enough,’” Kelley said. “I think that they are already stepping up, and I think they're growing tired of this Administration believing that they control every aspect of the life of an American.”

“Still enough decency in the justice system”

Trump’s executive order curtailing collective bargaining rights for a broad cross-section of federal employees cuts short a more than half-century old tradition, dating back to John F. Kennedy.

“For more than 60 years, Americans who worked for the federal government as civil servants have had the right to unionize and collectively bargain for the conditions of their employment,” U.S. District Judge James Donato, an Obama appointee, wrote in a June order in the AFGE’s favor.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently paused Donato’s injunction, but the legal battle may be coming to a head again soon after another judge on that circuit voted to reconsider the matter en banc.

Kelley described himself as “hopeful” and “optimistic” about the union’s odds.

“I believe that our justice system was put in place for a reason, and I'm hopeful that there is still enough decency in the justice system that righteousness will prevail,” he said.

As for whether a later victory will be enough to repair the damage wrought by the gutting of the federal government, Kelley added: “It would take some time to repair those damages. I do admit that, but it can be repaired.”