The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, plans to lay off more than half its workforce as it struggles with the fallout from President Donald Trump’s efforts to curb union power within the federal government.
AFGE announced it will reduce its staff from 355 to about 150 employees, with layoffs expected to begin as early as June. The cuts will impact organizers, national representatives, support staff, and others across the union. Despite the significant downsizing, AFGE vowed to continue its legal and political fight against the Trump administration.
“The President’s elimination of elective membership dues and the resulting layoffs are a setback, but they are not the end of AFGE — not by a longshot,” the union said in a statement. “We will not be deterred, silenced, or intimidated into submission.”
The move comes after Trump signed an executive order in March that stripped collective bargaining rights from a large number of federal employees across more than a dozen agencies. AFGE, which represents more than 800,000 federal workers, said about 660,000 of its members are affected by the order. The White House said the measure was necessary to protect national security and criticized federal unions for allegedly working to obstruct Trump’s policy agenda.
While a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of the executive order on Friday in a separate case filed by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the ruling does not apply broadly enough to alter AFGE’s layoff plans, according to a union spokesperson.
The most significant financial hit to AFGE and other federal unions stems from a March directive by the Office of Personnel Management instructing agencies to stop automatically deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks. Payroll deductions have historically been the primary funding mechanism for these unions. NTEU reported a $2 million loss in dues revenue and warned in court filings that it may soon be unable to recover financially.
AFGE has tried to mitigate the losses by encouraging members to enroll in an alternative E-Dues system, allowing direct payment of dues, but most members still rely on payroll deductions.
Despite a surge in union sign-ups since Trump took office, AFGE’s membership has been hit hard by the broader federal workforce reductions. Over 100,000 federal jobs have been eliminated, with further cuts expected.
The union remains engaged in multiple legal battles against the administration, including lawsuits challenging the rollback of bargaining rights and protests organized nationwide to resist the federal workforce downsizing.
