Hoyer Statement on Trump's Latest Attack on Federal Workers' Union Rights

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) released the following statement on the Trump Administration’s executive order to strip federal employees' right to collectively bargain across the federal government:

"Today’s executive order terminating union rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers is part of Donald Trump and his administration’s continued effort to fire, traumatize, and vilify the patriots who carry out the duties of the federal government in service of the American people. For the past 67 days since Trump took office, this attack has been as destructive as it has been unrelenting.

"The architect of this assault, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, made their strategy clear: ‘we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down… we want to put them in trauma.’

"In the past century, the right to organize and bargain collectively has been enshrined and expanded through multiple laws passed by the Congress. This president, however, thinks he can govern through executive order as if he makes the law. I am hopeful that our courts will deem this latest executive order illegal, as they have for so many of the Trump Administration’s actions these past few months. I will continue to work with my friends who represent the working men and women who serve our country every day.

"It is clear that neither the law nor common sense nor the welfare of our federal employees and the American people they serve are of any concern to the Trump Administration. Its conduct is consistent with the Republican Party’s longstanding hostility to the rights of working men and women to organize and bargain collectively. It also reflects this administration’s agenda to serve the interests of the richest individuals and the most powerful and wealthy corporations in America."