Trump attacks public employees, but unions are fighting back
Last week in Philadelphia, municipal workers got a new contract and higher pay after making good on their promise to strike. Mayor Cherelle Parker agreed to pay a little extra to hardworking people who wake up early to keep the city working, including those picking up the garbage. In solidarity with the workers, rapper LL Cool J had canceled a planned Independence Day performance.
The successful strike stands out at a moment when government workers at the city, state and national levels are under attack from President Trump. He portrays them as a lazy group whose sleepy heartbeats are evidence that government is too big, too bureaucratic and wasting tax dollars.
The Supreme Court gave the president's distorted view of government workers more power last week when the justices ruled the president is within his legal rights to execute mass job cuts without consulting Congress. The high court said Trump's unilateral plan to fire workers doesn't break the law. Only after he acts, the ruling said, can judges determine if Trump violated Congress's power under the Constitution to set spending for federal agencies.
But Trump's ugly view of people-powering government was exposed last week. A flood in Texas drowned hundreds, including children at a summer camp, prompting questions about Trump's cuts to federal workers who could have given early warnings and possibly saved lives. The former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told CNN that there was a 'lack of a warning coordination meteorologist' in the Austin-San Antonio office, due to early retirement offers by the administration to cut staffing.
At the start of Trump's second term, he went after top officials at the Justice Department in apparent revenge for their work indicting him for alleged crimes. Now with the Supreme Court ruling, he is free to pursue large scale firings of federal workers. And they have come 'with no explanation or warning, creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next,' as the Washington Post reported.
A federal worker at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told the paper she is mourning her agency's demise and concluded, 'We are toast.'
The massive number of job cuts could be in the 'tens of thousands,' eliminating staff across the federal government, ranging from the 11 Cabinet departments to 19 federal government agencies. At the State Department alone, the New York Times reported, 'nearly 2,000 employees … have been targeted for dismissal.'
This demonization of public employees suffused the Heritage Foundation's 'Project 2025,' an effort led by Russell Vought, who is now heading Trump's Office of Management and Budget. Vought infamously declared that he is going after federal workers intending to 'put them in trauma.'
That destruction came to life with efforts led by Elon Musk, Trump's biggest campaign donor and the world's richest man. He created the Department of Government Efficiency to cut the federal workforce by reducing government spending by a trillion dollars. But at a Cabinet meeting in April, Musk conceded his effort was not close to reaching that goal, even as he pushed federal workers to take early retirement and buy-outs or risk being outright fired.
Musk also failed to find wasteful activities. 'DOGE is not offering any solid claims that it has improved services in any way … rather, it has made the quality of some government services worse,' Donald Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told The Guardian.
Last week, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced it was abandoning a plan to fire 80,000 federal workers whose prime mission is to help veterans with their health care. Reports of experienced staff leaving the National Nuclear Security Administration, which handles the nation's nuclear weapons, set off alarms. When an outbreak of bird flu hit earlier this year, the Agriculture Department had to bring back workers it had pushed out.
The Trump administration's constant trashing of federal workers amounts to an attack on unions at a time when government employees are highly unionized, but only 6 percent of private sector workers and 10 percent of all U.S. workers are in unions.
President Joe Biden was the first president to join a picket line, and he said, 'The reason this country is working is because the middle class is growing. The middle class built this country, and unions built the middle class.'
Historically, unions have been seen by Republicans as a major source of money for Democrats. But blue-collar, non-college and non-government workers — private-sector union members — are increasingly identifying as Republicans.
Some union leaders, such as Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, broke with Biden and the Democrats. He surprised many by speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention and did not support the Biden-Harris ticket in 2024, or more precisely, did not support Harris when Biden left the race. That trend will be tested this year as unions play a vital role in state legislative and gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia.
There are signs of union revival. In 2023, the Teamsters won a major contract victory after threatening to strike against UPS.
With the union win in Philadelphia, the old Mark Twain joke fits labor union power today: 'The report of my death was an exaggeration.'
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book 'New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.'
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Black was convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two daughters: 9-year-old Latoya and 6-year-old Lakeisha. They were murdered on March 27, 1988. At the time, Black had been on work release from prison for shooting Clay's estranged husband and her daughters' father, Bennie Clay, in 1986. Prosecutors told jurors at trial that Black killed Angela Clay because he was jealous of her ongoing relationship with her ex. Investigators believe that Angela Clay and Latoya were shot as they slept, while Lakeisha appeared to have tried to escape after being wounded in the chest and pelvis. Bennie Clay previously told The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, he believes Black killed the girls to spite him. "My kids, they were babies," he told the newspaper. "They were smart, they were gonna be something. They never got the chance." More recently, he told The Tennessean he planned to attend the execution, though he said he has forgiven Black. 'God has a plan for everything,' he told the newspaper. 'He had a plan when he took my girls. He needed them more than I did, I guess.' Judge ordered Byron Black's heart device removed before execution On July 22, a judge ordered that a heart device implanted in Black needed to be removed at a hospital the morning of his execution, a development that appeared to complicate matters as a Nashville hospital declined to participate. But the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the judge's order, and the U.S. Supreme Court backed that up, clearing the way for Black to be executed despite the heart device. His attorneys argued that the device, designed to revive the heart, could lead to "a prolonged and torturous execution." "It's horrifying to think about this frail old man being shocked over and over as the device attempts to restore his heart's rhythm even as the State works to kill him," Henry said in a statement. The state argued that Black's heart device would not cause him pain. Robin, Maher, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, told USA TODAY that an inmate being executed with a defibrillator implant was "a completely unprecedented issue." But, she added, "one I fear we will see again as states move toward executing aging prisoners on death row." A reporter for The Tennessean was among the witnesses to the execution and USA TODAY will update this story with her observations. Tennessee governor declined to intervene With their arguments over Black's heart device at the end of the legal road, his attorneys re-focused their attention on his intellectual disabilities during his final days and hours, calling on Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to stop the execution and prevent "a grotesque spectacle." Citing Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and exposure to toxic lead, Black's attorneys said mental impairments meant that he always had to live with and rely on family. More recently on death row, his attorneys said that other inmates had to "do his everyday tasks for him, including cleaning his cell, doing his laundry, and microwaving his food." "If ever a case called for the Governor to grant clemency or, at the very least, a reprieve, it is this one," Henry said in a statement. The director of Tennessee Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty said that she supports accountability for people who commit heinous crimes, but "the law is clear that we do not execute people with intellectual disability." "Governor Lee can insist on accountability while ensuring that the law is also followed. A situation such as this is exactly why governors have clemency power," Jasmine Woodson said in a statement. "Mr. Black has spent over three decades in prison for this crime and will never be released. As a conservative, I believe that he should remain behind bars, but he should not be executed." Lee's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment from USA TODAY. In his statement to USA TODAY, Attorney General Skrmetti pushed back at findings that Black was intellectually disabled and said that "over the decades, courts have uniformly denied Black's eleven distinct attempts to overturn his murder convictions and death sentence." Angela Clay's family long sought justice Earlier this year, Angela Clay's sister, Linette Bell, told The Tennessean she and her family were frustrated with years of delays, court hearings, and uncertainty: "He needs to pay for what he did." Angela Clay's mother, Marie Bell, told The Tennessean she had been waiting far too long. "I'm 88 years old and I just want to see it before I leave this Earth," she said. Outside the prison ahead of the execution on Tuesday, Angela Clay's niece, Nicoule Davis, told The Tennessean "it's time for a celebration." "It's time for a celebration," Davis said. "We've been waiting for years and years." Family members, some of whom witnessed the execution, were expected to address reporters afterward, and this story will be updated with their comments. What was Byron Black's last meal? Black's last meal was pizza with mushrooms and sausage, donuts, and butter pecan ice cream. Byron Black's execution is second in the state this year Black is the second inmate to be executed in Tennessee this year following a five-year break in the death penalty in the state. The break followed an independent review that found the Tennessee Department of Corrections was not consistently testing execution drugs for potency and purity. Nationwide, nine more executions are scheduled for this year, with more expected to be carried out as governors sign more death warrants. The next execution is Kayle Barrington Bates in Florida on Aug. 19 for the 1982 stabbing death of a 24-year-old woman named Janet White, who was kidnapped from her office and taken to the woods before Bates beat her, tried to rape her and ultimately killed her. Contributing: Kelly Puente, The Tennessean Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
