Public services and unions are under fire

The landscape is getting tougher for working. From cutting funding for crucial programs that help families make ends meet to the unilateral termination of union contracts, the challenges continue to grow.   

Funding cuts spell danger for Illinois’ budget and economy

Anti-worker politicians have slashed funding for health care, public service jobs and essential programs, pushing layoffs and service cuts across our communities. While families are cutting back on groceries and other basics, President Trump and Republicans in Congress are handing corporations even more tax breaks. And they’re even coming after basic freedoms like workplace safety, retirement security, and our voice on the job. 

Now the federal chaos is closing in on Illinois. According to a report from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, the current wave of project cancellations, funding cuts, mass firings of federal employees, and cuts to funding for crucial public services threatens to shrink Illinois’ economy by $10 billion per year and result in the loss of 86,000 jobs.

The report also finds that these program cuts will cause hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents to lose access to health insurance coverage and food assistance, while shrinking state revenues by more than $1 billion per year.

In addition to economic damage and the loss of jobs, the report finds that the Trump cuts will hit the poorest Illinoisans the hardest. At least 270,000 Illinois residents will lose Medicaid coverage, another 216,000 will lose access to food stamps, and at least 100,000 will lose their health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, the average family’s energy bills will increase by up to $186 per year in the next five years.

AFSCME members are on the job every day to make sure that the residents of our state have access to the services they need, but Trump’s cuts are already destabilizing state finances and making it more difficult for AFSCME members to provide the public services that Illinoisans rely upon. 

Meanwhile, because of the so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill,” billionaires are getting enormous tax handouts. 

Trump shreds dozens of union contracts in massive assault on union rights

The Trump administration has fixed its sights on unions, terminating protections that cover more than 1 million federal employees.

The administration has torn up contract after contract, including those covering federal correctional officers, health care workers at the VA, TSA agents and more. 

The termination of these collective bargaining agreements has led to the immediate cancellation of certain rights and benefits. For example, without a union contract to protect them and their rights, 400,000 employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs lost four weeks of paidparental leave their contract had previously afforded them. 

There were pettier cruelties as well. One of the first things the TSA did after cancelling union contracts was take away water stations for employees.

Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers, have been hit hardest.

Jason Anderson, AFGE’s national vice president covering a region that includes Illinois, said that the past year has been incredibly difficult for federal union members.

“These are people that are serving the American people. They’re not serving for their own profit,” Anderson said. “But hundreds of thousands of federal workers are living in fear right now.”

Without union contracts, workers no longer have the right to have a union rep present in disciplinary meetings. There’s no more grievance procedure. 

“We need to understand what’s at stake at this moment,” Anderson said. “The attacks on federal workers and federal unions are just the start. If they can come after federal civil servants and labor unions, what’s going to stop them from coming after everyone else?”

AFSCME fights back against public service funding cuts

AFSCME Council 31 has joined AFSCME International, AFSCME Council 57 of Oakland, Calif., and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to file a lawsuit challenging the administration’s partisan and unlawful cuts to vital social services funding in Illinois and four other states. 

The cuts total more than $10 billion, with $2.4 billion slashed from the Child Care and Development Fund, $7.35 billion in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and $869 million in Social Services Block Grant Funding, which includes funding for child welfare programs and job training for adults.

AFSCME’s lawsuit argues that the cuts are a brazenly partisan move, taking crucial assistance only from states the president lost in the 2024 election.

This violates a law called the Administrative Procedure Act by ignoring the legal process for stopping funding to essential programs and targeting certain states for politically motivated reasons.

AFSCME members who work for the Illinois Departments of Human Services and Child and Family Services are among the workers that administer these grants and assist families in getting the help that they need. 

There are also many AFSCME members who administer these programs on the local level. Members of AFSCME Local 900 who work for Champaign County, for example, run an early childhood education center where 85% of the families receive assistance through the funds.

“These services form the backbone of our economy, but instead of strengthening them, this administration is cruelly and illegally targeting child care providers, children and working parents to settle a political score,” said AFSCME President Lee 
Saunders.