IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The largest union for federal employees is planning to lay off more than half of its staff nationwide after President Donald Trump’s executive actions have rapidly weakened the organization’s finances, the union said Thursday.
The American Federation of Government Employees will move ahead with a reduction in force that could cut its 355 employees to approximately 150, eliminating organizers, national representatives, support staff and others.
The layoffs will weaken a leading opponent to Trump's dramatic reshaping of the federal government.
AFGE has filed a flurry of lawsuits seeking to block everything from the mass firings of probationary workers to the sharing of sensitive data with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. It has also helped organize protests and other pushback against Trump and DOGE.
In a statement after its national executive council approved the plan Thursday, the union blamed Trump's policies for the layoffs, calling them a setback, “but not the end of AFGE — not by a longshot.”
“We will not be deterred, silenced or intimidated into submission,” the statement said. “Whether it's in the courts, on Capitol Hill, or in the press, AFGE will continue to stand tall and defend the rights of America's civil servants as long as it takes.”
The White House has declared AFGE a “hostile” organization that has too much power over how the government functions.
Trump signed an order last month seeking to strip union rights from roughly 600,000 of the 800,000 federal workers that AFGE represents, including those at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. The Department of Homeland Security previously eliminated union rights from 47,000 Transportation Security Administration workers.
The union is challenging those moves in court, arguing they are illegal and retaliatory.
After Trump’s orders, agencies have stopped allowing employees to have their union membership dues automatically deducted from their paychecks, striking at the union’s finances. The union has been engaged in a frenetic push to convince members to pay dues through electronic bank account withdrawals, but still expects to see a significant reduction in revenue.
The downsizing is expected to cut more than 100 employees who work under the national AFGE president's office, and dozens more who work around the country for the union's 12 districts.
One union president said the staff cuts would be devastating for the ability of AFGE’s local unions to represent employees.
“It’s going to demolish us,” said Justin Youngblood, president of an AFGE chapter that represents workers at a VA hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. “That’s going to cut the legs off of AFGE and all of the locals.”
He said the union's national leadership should have been better prepared to manage an expected downturn in revenue during Trump's second term.
The news comes days after AFGE organized a town hall in Kansas City where scores of federal workers denounced the mass firings, reorganizations and chaotic return-to-office mandates that they have endured under Trump’s new term.
Employees haven’t been notified which of them will be cut but earlier received notices from the union that permanent layoffs could take effect as early as June.
Ryan J. Foley, The Associated Press
