During the first 100 days of this administration, Trump has unrelentingly attacked the federal workforce, creating an environment of chaos and inefficiency that will make it harder for federal workers to provide public goods that we all rely on.

Most notable are Trump’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, including firing thousands of probationary employees, offering buyouts, and directing federal agency heads to reduce the size of their departments. Trump has attacked federal workers’ collective bargaining rights, from limiting recognition of recently ratified collective bargaining agreements to attempting to strip more than 1 million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights for purposes of “national security.”

Trump has also issued executive orders to remove civil service protections from certain federal workers, making it easier to fire those who do not abide by his political interests. Most recently, the Trump administration proposed a rule creating the “Schedule Policy/Career” classification, which could result in thousands of federal workers being reclassified and becoming “at-will” employees—meaning they can be fired without reason.

At the start of Trump’s second term, the federal workforce consisted of roughly 3 million employees across the United States, most of whom live and work outside of Washington, D.C. Many workers seek jobs in the federal government because it provides long-term job security and excellent benefits. Nearly 50% of federal workers have been in the government for more than a decade. Federal workers hold an array of jobs that provide vital public goods and services that many of us take for granted: from food inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration to meteorologists at the National Weather Service to benefit specialists at the Social Security Administration. Further, the federal workforce is providing this valuable work for far less money compared with other sectors of the U.S. economy.  Despite this, Trump has claimed or insinuated that these dedicated public servants are “destroying our country” and are “lazy” and “unproductive.”

The impacts of these attacks will be felt beyond the federal workers themselves. The reduction of staff (and the near-elimination of some agencies) will strain the government’s ability to provide critical services on which working people rely. For example, the Department of Labor cited the dismantling of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health as reason to delay the enforcement of a rule that would protect coal miners from silica exposure.

The degrading of federal labor standards will make it harder for the federal government to retain qualified staff. For example, the Department of Homeland Security terminated the collective bargaining agreement with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), removing collective bargaining for 45,000 transportation security officers (TSOs). The expansion of collective bargaining rights for TSOs under the Biden administration helped retain qualified workers, with attrition dropping nearly in half. However, with the removal of collective bargaining rights, this progress may be reversed, and U.S. transportation systems’ safety could be at risk.

Fortunately, many of Trump’s executive actions are being challenged in court. However, congressional Republicans have put forward several harmful proposals to be included in the GOP’s budget reconciliation package—which passed the House of Representatives this week—that would reduce the value of federal retirement benefits, charge federal workers a $350 fee to appeal cases at the Merit Systems Protection Board, and force new federal workers to pay an additional retirement contributions to keep their civil service protections. EPI will continue to monitor the actions of the Trump administration, Congress, and the courts on Federal Policy Watch.