Can the labor movement survive the next four years?

After reading Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a second Trump Administration—I knew that labor unions in our country were in for a hard time. But I didn’t really have a clue how hard it would be.

That was back in 2024 when I was assuming a repeat of Donald Trump’s first term when the rule of law more or less prevailed. We knew then that we didn’t have a president who would come out and walk a picket line with us, who would worry about low wages, or would prioritize worker safety.  But we also knew we didn’t have a president who was actively out to get us.

All that changed this January with the advent of a new Trump administration, firmly rooted in the Project 2025 game plan. Almost immediately it became clear that the second term would be radically different than the first. With manic intensity and a plethora of pens, the new president set about churning out reams of executive orders aimed at severing the bonds of human solidarity on which our country has relied since its founding.  

Instead, we have seen the shameless elevation of the billionaire class with all of its arrogance and greed on full display, beginning with those prime seats at the inauguration ceremony. And we’ve seen one billionaire in particular launch an all-out offensive on the entire federal government and the workers who keep it running. 

Nowhere is solidarity more fundamentally affirmed and diligently practiced than in the American labor movement. In the ranks of our unions, we have learned that it is in coming together and standing together that we are able to improve our working lives and build a better future for ourselves and our families.  

And it is precisely because of the potency of that unity that organized labor has now become a ripe target for the Trump administration.

First, there was the swift and legally questionable removal of members of the National Labor Relations Board who were known to be champions of workers’ rights, accompanied by the appointment of virulently anti-labor staff at the board. So, almost overnight, workers in the private sector found they have nowhere to turn when employers trample on their rights.

Next came the senseless decimation of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), a body specifically charged with helping to resolve conflicts between unions and employers. The FMCS has helped prevent massive work stoppages that could have hampered economic activity all across the country. And it has helped to forestall employer lock-outs and other outright attempts to crush workers who seek a better life. The agency can’t be called pro-labor, but it most certainly can be called pro-fairness. Unfortunately, fairness seems to be a value held in near-contempt by this administration.  

Then there’s the U.S. Department of Labor. For decades, its core mission has included protecting the health and safety of America’s workforce. Yet now its mine safety program (MSHA), its workplace hazards research arm (NIOSH), and its nationwide workplace inspection system (OSHA) are all being drastically weakened.

And, of course, most dire of all is the administration’s outright obliteration of the union rights of federal employees, barring any form of collective bargaining and refusing to honor the terms of current union contracts. In other words, with the stroke of one of those pens, hundreds of thousands of federal employees no longer have the right to union representation.

And clearly the administration isn’t done yet. In the midst of all these assaults on labor rights, I think often about Project 2025’s recommendation that “Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place.” In other words, they want to ban the existence of public sector unions anywhere in the country based on the allegation that “they are not compatible with constitutional government.”

At the moment our bargaining rights as public sector workers here in Illinois seem secure. We live in a state with elected officials who by and large respect labor rights and that has a strong public employee collective bargaining law. 

But our bargaining power is all too likely to be significantly reduced by this administration’s all-out assault on the public sector itself. We’ve already seen large-scale cutbacks to a wide variety of funding that helps sustain the operations of state and local governments.  As we go to the bargaining table all across Illinois in the coming year (or two or three!), employers are almost certainly going to plead poverty, pointing to this massive reduction in federal support that had been built into their financial operations for decades.

We don’t know what else will be coming at us. But we do know what we can do right now to be ready for whatever comes: Build every local union AFSCME Strong. Maintain our unity and our determination. Don’t get discouraged or give up. If we refuse to back down, we can survive whatever this administration throws at us—and come out stronger for it in the end.